Mozart: Symphonies Nos. 31 "Paris" and 38 "Prague.".(Sound Recording Review)

Josef Krips, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra. PentaTone Classics SACD 5186 119.

Now, this is the way I remember Philips recordings and the Concertgebouw sounding years ago in their glory days. Way back before digital processing and before the Concertgebouw had been turned over to Chailly and picked up by Decca, there was this wonderful resonant ambiance that gave the orchestra a golden glow. The old Concertgebouw recordings, like this one, were little gems that shone radiantly in the world of classical music. It's nice to have some of them back more radiant than ever.

I mentioned a while back that during the early 1970s when Quadraphonic sound was the short-lived rage, companies such as Philips had experimented with the technique but never actually issued much of it in anything but straight two-channel stereo. Now, over thirty years later and the advent of the SACD's multichannel capabilities, PentaTone Classics are rereleasing a number of Philips' old four-channel recordings on hybrid discs; they can be played back in four channels or two, depending on your equipment.

I played the Mozart on my regular two-channel system, and it sounded terrific. Very clean, very smooth, and, most happily, very glowing and ambient, better than I ever recalled hearing them before, perhaps because both the multichannel and stereo layers have been remastered. ...