This is one of the latest of the Classic Records’ series of double HDAD disc sets – many of them from the former audiophile label Everest – and in this case one from the advanced original recording medium of 35mm magnetic film which Everest pioneered. With a much larger physical area on which to record the magnetic signals than with magnetic tape, and with a much thicker oxide layer, 35mm film offered probably the best analog recording medium of the time short of direct disc. It also enabled the recording of three separate tracks on the same film – at the time used only for more flexibility in making the final two-channel mixdown for LP mastering, just as the RCA and Mercury labels were doing.
The five different options for playback across these three disc sides are clearly directed to the audiophile and not the casual buyer of CDs. It reminds me of the even more varied options offered on the AIX DVDs. (At least both audiophile labels are struggling to keep the DVD-Audio format alive in spite of most others having given up on it.) On the DVD-A side you have a choice of playing back a pure two-channel signal which is 192K/24-bit if you just hit “play.” If you select Group 2 from an on-screen video display, and have a multichannel setup with a center channel, you will get three front channels as with the RCA and Mercury SACDs, all at 96K/24-bit.
Turn over the DVD disc to its blue side and if you lack DVD-Audio playback, you will now have a choice of either two-channel 96K/24-bit Dolby Digital playback or three-channel Dolby Digital playback at whatever sampling rate the standard Dolby codec allows.
The separate standard CD is mixed from the three-channel original film track, and is designed for playing on standard players, portables, or in your car. I have nearly all the original Everest CD reissues of about 1992, but for some reason I couldn’t locate the Scriabin for a comparison. In previous A/B comparisons of the Classic and Everest CDs I have found the earlier reissues to have the sonic edge – these were some of the best reissues released – better than the Mercury and RCA CDs. Unfortunately they are out of print.
The Poem of Ecstasy is probably Scriabin’s best-known orchestral work, and in it he pulls out all the stops of his mystical, emotional sound-world. And no conductor squeezes out the utmost over-the-top expressiveness of Scriabin as well as does Stokowski in this recording. It’s always made my spine crawl a bit (in a good way, mind you), whereas competing versions leave me cold. The 14-minute Amirov dance rhapsody on Azerbaijan folk tunes is a very different sort of musical world, but one equally sonically colorful. Would have been nice to have a third selection on these premium-priced discs.
– John Sunier
