{"product_id":"lisztpiano_richt_2606","title":"Liszt - Piano Concertos 1 and 2 \/ Kondrashin \/ Richter - Super Hot Stamper","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eNOTE:\u003c\/strong\u003e Unlike Concerto No. 1, The Second Piano Concerto opens very quietly, so there will likely never be a vintage pressing of the album that will get that opening to play like a CD. Expect to hear some random ticks, ticks we consider a small price to pay to hear these wonderful performances with top quality analog sound.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eRichter and Kondrashin deliver the finest Liszt 1st \u0026amp; 2nd Piano Concertos I know of, musically, sonically and in every other way. Richter’s performance here is alternately energetic and lyrical, precisely as the work demands. The recording itself is explosively dynamic. The brass is unbelievably full, rich and powerful. You won’t find a better recording of this music anywhere, and the best pressings of this recording just cannot be beat.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBig and rich (always a problem with piano recordings: you want to hear the percussive qualities of the instrument, but few copies can pull it off without sounding thin). We love the big, fat, Tubey Magical sound of this recording! The piano is solid and powerful -- like a real piano.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHuge amounts of hall space, weight and energy, this is Demo Disc quality sound by any standard.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eWhat The Best Sides Of Liszt's Piano Concertos Have To Offer Is Not Hard To Hear\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eThe biggest, most immediate staging in the largest acoustic space\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eThe most Tubey Magic, without which you have \u003ci\u003ealmost\u003c\/i\u003e nothing. CDs give you clean and clear. Only the best vintage vinyl pressings offer the kind of Tubey Magic that was on the tapes in \u003ca href=\"\/search?q=tag:%221964%22\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e1964\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e\n\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eTight, note-like, rich, full-bodied bass, with the correct amount of weight down low\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eNatural tonality in the midrange -- with all the instruments having the correct timbre\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eTransparency and resolution, critical to hearing into the three-dimensional studio space\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eNo doubt there's more but we hope that should do for now. \u003ci\u003ePlaying the record is the only way to hear all of the qualities we discuss above,\u003c\/i\u003e and playing the best pressings against a pile of other copies under rigorously controlled conditions is the only way to find a pressing that sounds as good as this one does.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eLive Sound\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAs we noted above, the better pressings of this album are more like \u003ci\u003elive music\u003c\/i\u003e than any other classical recording I have played in longer than I can remember. I don't know of another piano concerto recording that more correctly captures the relationship between the piano and the orchestra. The piano is huge and powerful, yet the percussive and lighter qualities on the instrument are clearly heard in proper relation to the orchestra as a whole.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI simply cannot criticize the work that \u003ca href=\"\/search?q=tag:%22robert-fine%22\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eFine\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e and \u003ca href=\"\/search?q=tag:%22wilma-cozart%22\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eCozart\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e have achieved with this recording, and believe me, there are very few records in this world about which I could not find something to criticize. It is, after all, our job, and we like to set \u003cu\u003every\u003c\/u\u003e high standards for the work we do.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eWhat We're Listening For On Liszt's Piano Concertos 1 and 2\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eEnergy\u003c\/strong\u003e for starters. What could be more important than the life of the music?\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eThe Big Sound\u003c\/strong\u003e comes next -- wall to wall, lots of depth, huge space, three-dimensionality, all that sort of thing.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eThen \u003cstrong\u003etransient information\u003c\/strong\u003e -- fast, clear, sharp attacks, not the smear and thickness so common to these LPs.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eNext: \u003cstrong\u003etransparency\u003c\/strong\u003e -- the quality that allows you to hear deep into the soundfield, showing you the space and air around all the instruments.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eExtend the top and bottom\u003c\/strong\u003e and \u003ci\u003evoila\u003c\/i\u003e, you have The Real Thing -- an honest to goodness Hot Stamper.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eHolland versus Italy\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSome pressings come from Holland. Some are made in Italy. Which country produced the consistently best sound?\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFor any given side, one country's pressings might be better than another's, and thinking that you can predict the results of the shootout is mistaken indeed. That said, in our shootout from two years ago one country tended to do better on one side and one country tended to do better on the other. How did we know that?\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAt the end of the last three or four shootouts -- all done without the person playing the record or the listener judging it having a clue as to which country's pressing was on the turntable -- one country tended to win one side and one country tended to win the other.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis time around one country produced the two better sounding copies. Next time around, who knows which country will win? That's what shootouts are for.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eVinyl Condition\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMint Minus Minus is about as quiet as any vintage pressing will play, and since only the right vintage pressings have any hope of sounding good on this album, that will most often be the playing condition of the copies we sell. (The copies that are even a bit noisier get listed on the site are seriously reduced prices or traded back in to the local record stores we shop at.)\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThose of you looking for quiet vinyl will have to settle for the sound of other pressings and Heavy Vinyl reissues, purchased elsewhere of course as we have no interest in selling records that don't have the vintage analog magic of these wonderful recordings.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIf you want to make the trade-off between bad sound and quiet surfaces with whatever Heavy Vinyl pressing might be available, well, that's certainly your prerogative, but we can't imagine losing what's good about this music -- the size, the energy, the presence, the clarity, the weight -- just to hear it with less background noise.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Liszt, Franz","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51949019693352,"sku":"lisztpiano_richt","price":199.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0257\/3415\/2295\/files\/lisztpiano_3bed1d4f-691a-410f-8743-c23e86eb2c66.jpg?v=1693326929","url":"https:\/\/better-records.com\/products\/lisztpiano_richt_2606","provider":"Better Records","version":"1.0","type":"link"}