Peter Bernstein

On the eve of his centenary in 2018, Sony Classical releases the most important collection, Leonard Bernstein’s classic American Columbia recordings, remastered from their original 2- and multi-track analogue tapes. This has allowed for the creation of a natural balance (for example, between the orchestra and solo instruments) that brings the quality of these half-century-old recordings, excellent for their time, up to the standards of today’s audiophiles. In addition, there has been a meticulous restoration of some earlier masterings in which LP surface noise was too rigorously eliminated at the expense of the original brilliance.

On the eve of his centenary in 2018, Sony Classical releases the most important collection, Leonard Bernstein’s classic American Columbia recordings, remastered from their original 2- and multi-track analogue tapes. This has allowed for the creation of a natural balance (for example, between the orchestra and solo instruments) that brings the quality of these half-century-old recordings, excellent for their time, up to the standards of today’s audiophiles. In addition, there has been a meticulous restoration of some earlier masterings in which LP surface noise was too rigorously eliminated at the expense of the original brilliance.

Leonard Bernstein’s recording with the New York Philharmonic of Gustav Holst’s famous The Planets, along with Benjamin Britten’s Four Sea Interludes from his opera Peter Grimes. There is a difference of opinion as to whether this multi-channel SACD is a good re-mastering of the original discrete 4 channel Quadriphonic master in which the orchestra actually surrounds you or is it taken from a 2 channel master and the rear channels and center channel have been re-produced artifically with just reverberation sounds which means the orchestra only sounds like it’s in front of you, but not behind you.

There is something to be said for moving the music forward while remaining deeply rooted in and respectful of the tradition. North Carolina-born jazz pianist Thomas Linger threads that needle masterfully on his debut album Out In It…