Review by feinstei July 25, 2015 (5 of 7 found this review helpful)
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I have a wonderful recording of Concierto de Aranjuez on an Alahambra (Spanish Columbia EMI) LP with Narciso Yepes as the soloist and Atualfo Argenta that I consider to be the best performance and the best recorded rendering of this work.
This new mastering (although a valiant effort from Pentatone) suffers from the lousy DG transistorized miking and recording techniques of the '70's. The beautiful clarinet solo in the first movement is almost unrecognizable as a "clarinet" -- it sounds more like a plastic toy flute. The sound is shrieky throughout although the 4 channel gimmick is kind of cool -- you don't have a 10th row center seat in a fine auditorium -- instead, you have a seat between the horns and 2nd violins with the orchestra blasting all around you. Pretty cool, but probably not what Lewis Layton or C. Robert Fine would consider a good "Living Stereo" or "Living Presence" recording
The performance is pretty good on the Pentatone SACD, but the Argenta EMI recording is really the standard for this work, even though it's not available on SACD or Blu-Ray (you can find it in superb "vacuum tube" sound on a cheap reissue CD available on Amazon for about $10).
Pentatone please, in your liner notes, make some mention about the artist (Yepes), conductor, and orchestra! The biography of Rodrigo was very enlightening, but there was NOTHING about the artist, composer, or orchestra!
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