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All 150 great performances in the new Great Recordings series have enjoyed the application of ART - an acronym for Abbey Road Technology - and means that they have all been remastered at the music world's most famous studio, a subtle modification that enhances each and every one with a stronger sense of presence and realism to bring out the best sound quality.
Every set has a new booklet and it is fair to say that even those who possess earlier versions of the great recordings will find new pleasures in the realisation. Price is clearly an issue when it comes to record buying, but EMI Classics is investing more than faith in its important re-statement of recording excellence. Great Recordings of the Century will be sold at mid-price and they will be issued in a sequence that is designed to show their variety. Since its launch in 1998, the series has grown to 150 titles with sales in excess of four million units. Taking pride of place as the 150th title is Jacqueline du Pré’s legendary account of Elgar’s Cello Concerto.
THE MIRACULOUS MASTERS OF ABBEY ROAD The address made famous by the Beatles finds a new way to enhance the wonder of the world's greatest musicians
Sir Paul McCartney said: "I love Abbey Road because it has depth, back-up, tradition and all those things." And the Beatles made the address internationally renowned when it featured on the cover of their 1969 album. But it was a Mecca to a lot of other great stars long before that. With the advent of electrical sound recording, the newly-created EMI Company wanted the most sophisticated recording sound studios it could get and so they paid £100,000 for number 3, Abbey Road, St. John's Wood, a substantial and spacious house not far from Lord's cricket ground. Sir Edward Elgar opened the studios in November 1931 and the following year it was there that he conducted the 16-year-old Yehudi Menuhin in what remains the classic recording of his violin concerto.
The thousands of artists who have come to Abbey Road have endured through recording. The technology has changed many times, with the inception of tape recording in the late forties, the first long-playing records of the fifties, to stereo and digital and computer-based recording. Now Abbey Road, the thoroughfare that has made more great music than any other in the world, has reached a new standard of recording excellence that has made a crucial contribution to the finest series of classical recordings ever issued. EMI Classics Great Recordings of the Century, is a treasure house of 150 of the most notable and revered classical performances ever made, and each recording has been through a remarkable process called ART, Abbey Road Technology. A further 10 landmark catalogue titles will be released in August 2005. The fifties, sixties and seventies were extraordinary years for classical performance and recording. Some very great artists made some very great firsts. Dennis Brain's recording of the Mozart horn concertos (the first ever of all four) was made with von Karajan and the Philharmonia in 1955; Schubert's Die schöne Mullerin was recorded by Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau with Gerald Moore in 1961. Klemperer's Mahler (Das Lied von der Erde); Previn's classic 1975 Carmina Burana; Furtwongler's memorable performance of Beethoven's Choral Symphony recorded at the first post-war Bayreuth Festival, were all made to the highest technical standards of the day, but technology was advancing all the time.
These notable classical landmarks, like all the other releases in EMI's definitive treasure house of Great Recordings of the Century, have been remastered by Abbey Road Technology (ART). Analogue originals have been remastered and the process subtly modifies recordings where needed, enhancing the sense of presence and realism and reducing the level of background noise.
Andrew Walter, classical re-mastering engineer at Abbey Road Studios says: "It has been an extraordinarily satisfying experience for us to be given 150 truly great recordings and to be able to improve, as it were, old recording values with sensitive modern technology. And that's an important word. ART is an art, it is artistically sensitive and every so often it enables you to sit up and enjoy the astonishment of freshness that is revealed." Theo Lap, EMI Classics' Vice President of International Marketing, said: "The company has made a major technical investment and a major value commitment since the series will sell at mid price. We believe that collectors who may have owned one or two major performances in the series when they were originally issued will be delighted by the sound quality of these new releases."
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