James Jolly on a stunning transfer of Cantelli's last NBC concert, Pristine's Ambient Stereo, a wealth of lossless music, Gramophone's own 'label' and a not-so-clever Genius

One of the dangers of the record catalogue, and the need to weigh one disc against the next, is that there are certain recordings that hold such an unassailable position that they tend to obscure the fact that there are numerous ways of interpreting every Piece of music. For people of my generation, the arrival of the DG recording of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony with the Vienna Philharmonic under Carlos Kleiber made such an impression that few other recordings seem to get a look-in - it has become a kind of knee-jerk recommendation (though it certainly doesn't disappoint!). The thought is prompted because as I write this I'm listening (for the second time on the trot) to a quite astounding performance of the Beethoven Fifth with the NBC Symphony Orchestra under Guido Cantelli, his last concert with the orchestra before it was disbanded on Toscanini's death in 1954. Cantelli himself was killed in a plane crash a couple of years later, ending a career that would no doubt have taken him right to the top of the profession. He was held in extraordinary regard by Toscanini, who clearly saw in him his natural successor - apparently the first time the old man heard his young countryman conduct he turned to his companion and said to him, "That's me conducting!"

The concert took place on February 21, 1954, and also contained a thrilling reading of Stravinsky's Le chant du rossignol. Cantelli's conducting style has an urgency and high-wire tension that Toscanini must have been drawn to, but it also has a songfulness and lyricism that is very appealing. And this Beethoven Fifth, taut and Historical hunt: Pristine Classical's website lithe, sounds quite terrific in its latest incarnation from Pristine Classical, hence its inclusion in this column. Andrew Rose, Pristine's founder and "patron", has been busy not only developing new ways of enhancing the historic recordings he remasters, but also attracting some of the great names in the field to his "label" - more anon.

The transfer of this Cantelli concert is Rose's own handiwork, and as well as applying his XR transfer technique, which has given the recording impressive presence and detail, he has used ___ what he styles Ambient

Stereo. Explaining the system, Rose writes that "with mono recordings, such as the vast majority to be found at Pristine Classical, it offers something quite new - and sonically very interesting indeed. Now we have the ability to extract from a mono recording that same room ambience and spread it into the stereo field - in a very natural and neutral way. The direct signal (ie the original mono sound of the musicians) is preserved and is tonally unchanged. What appears to the listener is a whole new sense of place, and a degree of 'air' around the performers which is entirely believable and consistent with the recording." Listening to some of his Ambient Stereo transfers you really do seem to hear the music spread out between the speakers - though kept fairly central - and there's even a clear sense of depth (and the recordings were most definitely mono in origin). Listening to the detail in the Stravinsky, I was struck by the immediacy of the wind and brass - it has great presence and each instrument seems to occupy its own "space".

I needed to keep reminding myself that this concert took place 54 years ago, so vital is the sound (and so vivid is the playing).

I listened to it as a lossless FLAC file via both a downloaded WinAmp player and the speakers attached to my PC, and also through my hi-fl using my Squeezebox. Each time I was amazed

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C a ork Philharmonic Brahms Second conducted by runo Walter. Looking back to our April 1956 sue, I see that Lionel Salter found the recording ither over-reverberant, but maybe the Ambient tereo effect has tamed it because it struck me having a nice halo around the orchestra and

B is r S a ti e balance seemed fine. Like LS, I responded to Valter's "deliberate" tempi - this symphony, of ie four, surely benefits from taking its time.

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Pristine has recently added another eye (ear?)itching feather to its cap as the destination people interested in historic recordings y engaging the services of the crème de la ème of the transfer world to its roster of ci e k n b to burn to a DVD for the 24-bit file. Other recordings I've been enjoying in ristine's Ambient Stereo as FLAC files are erhard Husch's 1934 Die schone Müllerin and gloriously autumnal and mellow 1951 New ngineers. Mark Obert-Thorn, one of the US's ading restoration engineers and a familiar ame to collectors of historic recordings, will responsible for a new release each month, rid knowing the collections he draws on I'm sure there are going to be some treats in store. His "debut" on Pristine is the 1930 (premiere) recording of Constant Lambert's Rio Grande with Hamilton Harty playing the piano and Lambert conducting the Hallé Orchestra. I must say that it sounds splendid - but then I love the work. I notice, though, that Gramophone's reviewer back in 1930 was less than taken with the music: "I think that music such as this of

Mr Lambert's is very limited in scope, but we are happy to have so entertaining a specimen of it."

Before I move on from Pristine, a quick reminder that Gramophone's own "label", the National Gramophonic Society (which operated between 1924 and 1931), is being gradually transferred and being made available as downloads. There are some really fascinating recordings here - many, of course, firsts. There are also some musicians who went on to great things captured early in their careers - John Barbirolli, for example, or the pianist behind the latest release, Kathleen Long. Her reading of Haydn's G minor Piano Sonata, HobXVI/20, is a model of taste and discernment, and despite its age sounds pretty good! (pristineclassical.com)

The latest version (8.0. 1) of iTunes has a feature called Genius, the idea being that it will analyse your music library and make further recommendations based, presumably, on other people's aggregated purchasing/listening habits. Out of curiosity and by way of research I thought I'd see what happened with classical music. It took quite a long time to find anything in my classical playlist that the Genius seemed to recognise (even the first movement of Beethoven's Fifth was beyond its reach). However, I thought Carmina Burana's opening "0 Fortuna!" chorus might do the trick.. .and yes, it did. But the suggestions were very strange indeed, no doubt owing to the highly eclectic library of music I store on my laptop. I'd be interested to hear from anyone who has found the experience enlightening!

If you've come to downloading via MP3 files and are finding the sound quality disappointing (though the 320kbps offered by stores like Passionato.com and Chandos are pretty impressive and virtually indistinguishable from CD quality), then explore the world of lossless downloads. I've already mentioned FLAC files in connection with Pristine, but leading the way here is Chandos and theclassicalshop.net. There you can acquire your music either as a WAV file (quite large in size but pretty standard for high-quality sound), or as AIFF files, which are recommended for Mac users. I really would recommend spending some time on the site; and try out some of their recordings - which you can be pretty certain have been well engineered in the first place! (