Thread: Exton's Scheherazade

Posts: 6

Post by Dinko December 9, 2003 (1 of 6)
I bought recently Exton's release of Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade, by Ken-Ichiro Kobayashi and the Japan Philharmonic Orchestra (excellent brass & percussion sections, first rate woodwind playing, good strings but not enough of them).

It's an HDCD release which has a bunch of DSD markings on it. Even the Exton logo on the cover has DSD written under it (like this one: Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 5 - Czech Philharmonic/Kobayashi), so I assume it's an original DSD recording.

In any case the sonics are splendid: rich; vivid; detailed; rather closely miked, but very fine nonetheless; with golden-toned strings; very clear and natural sounding.

Any serious chance this might turn up on SACD some day?

I emailed Telarc earlier this year to ask them about their DSD-recording of Scheherazade (Spano / Atlanta Symphony) and they told me that they had no plans to issue that on SACD, although Telarc's answer was not a categorical "no", just a moderate "not at this time, but maybe in the future" type of "no".

The Exton catalog number is OVCL-00049

Post by zeus December 9, 2003 (2 of 6)
Dinko said:

Any serious chance this might turn up on SACD some day?

It would appear that Exton does pretty well all of their recording now in DSD. Some end up as SACD's, some as CD's (often HDCD). I don't know what their decision process is but assume this is based on perceived market for each title. Other than the Dvorak 9th (which they reissued as a hybrid) all Exton SACDs that are coming out now are brand new recordings. There's no reason that they couldn't revisit their earlier DSD recordings in the future though.

Post by Dinko December 9, 2003 (3 of 6)
Guess so. Thanks.

Post by flyingdutchman December 10, 2003 (4 of 6)
Dinko said:

Guess so. Thanks.

Avoid Kobayashi like the plague. The man is a groaner, grunter, stomper, whatever noise comes from the human anatomy. I can't stand some of the things he's done to music.

Post by Dinko December 10, 2003 (5 of 6)
heh... I was afraid of that when reading some of the reviews on this site. But I can't say that I hear any "human" noises (grunting, humming, etc). However, he does jump about on the podium... which is annoying but has its own advantages: it's as if the percussion section had been expanded. :D

Post by flyingdutchman December 10, 2003 (6 of 6)
Dinko said:

heh... I was afraid of that when reading some of the reviews on this site. But I can't say that I hear any "human" noises (grunting, humming, etc). However, he does jump about on the podium... which is annoying but has its own advantages: it's as if the percussion section had been expanded. :D

You don't have to listen very hard to hear this man's grunts and groans. I have the Tchaikovsky Manfred. Such a beautiful performance is virtually ruined by Kobayashi's incessant grunting. It makes Glenn Gould look like nothing compared to Kobayashi.

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