Jacqueline du Pré, Janet Baker & John Barbirolli - Dvořák: Cello Concerto; Elgar: Cello Concerto, Sea Pictures (2018) [SACD]

At the premiere of Elgar’s Cello Concerto in 1919, John Barbirolli – himself a cellist – was playing in the London Symphony Orchestra. When he recorded the work in 1965 he chose Jacqueline du Pré as soloist and she remains inextricably linked with this elegiac, but passionate work. Barbirolli’s special affection for Elgar’s music is just as evident in the glorious account of Sea Pictures with Janet Baker and the Philharmonia Orchestra.

On this magnificent audiophile download, world renowned cellist Jacqueline Du Pre renders a gut-wrenching performance of Elgar’s Cello Concerto in E Minor. This standard in the classical repertoire is delivered with unmatched emotion and virtuosity. This recording also features breathtaking vocals by Janet Baker on the Elgar classic, Sea Pictures. The purity of her tone is absolutely stunning. A highly recommended addition to any classical lover’s collection.

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.