ReviewIf anything ever screamed: "Grandma's record collection", it has to be the cover of this doesn't it?
I think my instincts were right regarding these Heliodors...
I've played three of the four I've got, and they sound like older recordings, in that you can hear the recording set-up was just one mic at the front near the conductor, so that were there is a soloist performing on a concerto like this, they come through very nicely, but the supporting orchestra lacks presence, power, and is a little indistinct.
While this particular record has no date for recordings or issue visible on the sleeve or labels, it is stamped in the deadwax on both sides: Side 1: 1955, and Side 2: 1958....
So side 1 is certainly too early for any original stereo recording, side 2 may be just about possible, but I rather think, having heard the others, which have the same kind of sound staging, even though they have a later dates, these are re-processed mono recordings for stereo.
But that's not really an issue to be honest, because in that regard, you wouldn't be able to tell if it was an original stereo recording, or a re-process... very subtly done, which may be the unintended virtue of a less sophisticated recording set up: Less they could get wrong in the translation, so to speak.
I also think of a statement found on old CDs in this respect too:
"These discs may expose the short-comings of the original recordings"
(Or words to that effect)
...Which is essentially what is going on here, as these are Polydor vinyls (I looooove Polydor vinyl from the seventies onward... the best around at the time in my opinion... pre-sixties to mid sixties (for classical at least) it's got to be Columbia- but that's a whole different ball game) ring everything out of the recording they can, but it's the recordings themselves that were limited by the times they were made.
So these performances won't necessarily be found better presented on another label or press, so any extra money spent on them may be considered a waste, and rather these are DG going back to earlier archive recordings and re-presenting them for a seventies market, cleaned up a bit, and stereo-ised (just a tad).
I'd say they might be interesting to someone who wants to hear a performance by a particular soloist performing a particular piece, such as a concerto like this, where they are the main focus, but full a full Symphony or orchestral work where it's about the orchestra as a whole, I don't think they can deliver the OOooooomph you may require.