| Review by mwgfrg March 14, 2012 (3 of 4 found this review helpful)
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Performance: Sonics: |
| At their best, EMI's analog engineers seemed to be able to capture the sound of full orchestral strings en masse better than anyone else, especially in Kingsway Hall in London. Perhaps, of all of their finest recordings, only Barbirolli's Tallis Fantasia quite matches the string sound of this recording. The London Symphony never sounded finer, and with no lapse in taste--not an easy tightrope to walk in this music--and Previn led one of his finest recorded performances here, the highpoint of his excellent Rachmaninoff Symphony cycle. There have been two fine RBCDs, a Great Recordings of the Century release and a Japanese HQCD, but the SACD is still finer, warmer, richer and fuller, than either. It is not quite a match for either the HMV original or the '90s audiophile LP, but massed string sound like this somehow never quite translates into any digital medium the way it did onto LP. Nevertheless, a wonderful SACD.
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