Tchaikovsky: Capriccio italien; Rimsky-Korsakov: Capriccio espagnol.(Sound Recording Review)

Tchaikovsky: Capriccio italien; Rimsky-Korsakov: Capriccio espagnol. Kiril Kondrashin, RCA Victor Symphony Orchestra. JVC JM-XR24013.

In issue No. 99, Apr/May 04, a reader takes JVC to task for what he considers the unnecessarily high price of their XRCD series of audiophile discs. In his opinion, paying upwards of a dollar a minute for a half an hour's music is a rip-off. He has, of course, a point. These discs are expensive, and they do not provide any longer playing times than their counterpart LPs provided when they were first issued in the old vinyl days.

On the other hand, you get what you pay for. A Ferrari 360 Modena is a very expensive automobile and only seats two people. But if you have the money and the desire, the car is worth the price. The cost of the JVC discs isn't in the manufacture, although the packaging they come in is undoubtedly more costly than an ordinary jewelbox. Their price factor comes into play in the extra time, engineering, and equipment required for JVC to make their transfers. This isn't brain surgery. No one is forcing a person to buy JVC's remastered discs. And since their superiority over the regular product is only slight at best, no one is even recommending that people do so. But if you want the best, you pay for the best. It's that simple.

Anyway, moving on. Kiril Kondrashin had been conducting music for a long while before he struck it rich accompanying Van Cliburn in RCA's historic recording of Tchaikovsky's First Piano Concerto in May of 1958. Thereafter, Kondrashin became much better known and continued to record for many years. Several months after recording the Piano Concerto, he was asked by RCA to do a series of recordings for them, one of which is this coupling of Tchaikovsky's Capriccio italien and RimskyKorsakov's Capriccio espagnol. I remember the album at the time being stunning. The LPs were considered among the best demo fare of ...