The Audio Beat‘s Mark Blackmore reviews our LP re-issue of Arnold Overtures!
“Twenty-five years after releasing the Grammy-nominated Arnold Overtures, Reference Recordings has reissued it as a 180-gram, half-speed-mastered LP, and what an LP it is. Paul Stubblebine, who mastered the original CD, returns to do the remastering for this fine reissue pressed at Quality Record Pressings. …
Film buffs know Arnold’s music from his award-winning score for The Bridge on the River Kwai. Audiophiles may have discovered Arnold through recordings of his English, Irish, Scottish or Cornish Dance Suites. The overtures here are stylistically closer to film scores than the folk songs used in the Dance Suites, and one can hear some influence of Sibelius, Tchaikovsky and Gershwin in them. …
I owned two versions of this recording — CD and 24-bit/176.4kHz download — but this new LP has become my new favorite, best illustrated by a single passage in A Sussex Overture, which begins with an enormous cymbal crash. With the CD, that passage sounds like a large pair of cymbals with a good recorded decay. The high-resolution download shifts the focus, emphasizing subtle overtone variations of the cymbals during their decay. The new vinyl retains the timbral variations of high-res, but now the focus is on the air and reverb around the crash itself, revealing the hall acoustics. For me, the musically true ambience in all the overtures makes the vinyl superior and greatly enhances my listening sessions. …
This re-release of Arnold Overtures is a gem and worth rebuying even if you own the music in another format. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed this recording and Sir Malcolm’s enthusiastic interpretation of his own compositions.
Music: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Sound: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️