New Philharmonia Chorus & Orchestra, Otto Klemperer - Beethoven: Missa Solemnis (2012) [Hi-Res]

This is an ear-shattering performance of a masterpiece by the legendary composer Beethoven. His Missa Solemnis was written to inspire feelings of profound enlightenment executed brilliantly by this cast of exquisite musicians. Otto Klemperer built a formidable reputation as one of the greatest conductors of the twentieth century and he is joined by Elisabeth Soderstrom, Marga Hoffgen, Waldemar Kmentt, Martti Talvela and the New Philharmonia Orchestra and Chorus. Klemperer’s command of the score and control of the orchestra is magnificent and the soloists display masterful virtuosity. Absolutely essential.

Four engineers at Abbey Road Studios in London have remastered these historic EMI recordings from their original analogue sources for release in pristine hi-def. Between them, Simon Gibson, Ian Jones, Andy Walter and Allan Ramsay have many years of experience remastering archive recordings for EMI and other record labels. The process always starts with finding all of the records and tapes in EMI's archive in London and comparing different sources and any previous CD reissues. We consult each recording's job file, which contains notes about the recording made by the engineer and producer. For example, this sometimes explain why there is more than one set of tapes to choose from. All of the tapes are generally in good condition and we play them on our Studer A80 π inch tape machine, after careful calibration of its replay characteristics.

In order to have the best digital remastering tools at our disposal for the remastering, we transfer from analogue to the digital domain at 96 KHz and 24-bit resolution using a Prism ADA-8 converter and capture the audio to our SADiE Digital Audio Workstation.