Bruno Walter & New York Philharmonic/Columbia Symphony Orchestra – Schubert/Beethoven: Symphonies (1999) [SACD / Sony Classical – SS 06506]
Title: Bruno Walter & New York Philharmonic/Columbia Symphony Orchestra – Schubert/Beethoven: Symphonies (1999)
Genre: Classical
Format: SACD ISO + DSF DSD64 + Hi-Res FLAC
Just like the other three Bruno Walter releases in Sony Classical’s current crop of SACD reissues, this classic Beethoven/Schubert coupling benefits from the DSD transfer, which reproduces as faithfully as possible the musical content of the original reel-to-reel master tapes. The reviewers have noted elsewhere, the cost is a small amount of tape hiss, eminently preferable to the so-called “no noise” digital editing which tampers with the musical signal as it tries to remove noise. Here is a transfer which presents the original intentions of the artists in the best possible light, capturing the acoustic signature of the recording venue (American Legion Hall in Hollywood) perfectly — warm, reverberent, yet transparent, ideally matching Bruno Walter’s interpretive idiom.