The very prospect of Dutton's British Composers Conduct on Acoustic may not strike one as particularly attractive: the idea of enduring the distinctive sound of sizzling shellac in order to hear the melodious will-o-the-wisps of the "cowpat school" may not seem like the most inviting listening experience. First, much of the material here is substantive; Frank Bridge's suite The Sea and Gustav Holst's Beni Mora are not considered small potatoes in the English orchestral repertoire, and Frederic Cowen's The Butterfly's Ball ...
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The very prospect of Dutton's British Composers Conduct on Acoustic may not strike one as particularly attractive: the idea of enduring the distinctive sound of sizzling shellac in order to hear the melodious will-o-the-wisps of the "cowpat school" may not seem like the most inviting listening experience. First, much of the material here is substantive; Frank Bridge's suite The Sea and Gustav Holst's Beni Mora are not considered small potatoes in the English orchestral repertoire, and Frederic Cowen's The Butterfly's Ball Overture is probably the best-known orchestral work of this primary figure of music in the Edwardian era. Second, Dutton's transfers are of astounding fidelity; even though these recordings were made between 1916 and 1924 on usually terribly noisy English 78s, there is not a hint of surface noise to be found in the whole disc. Although a tiny amount of reverberation is detectable here and there -- perhaps as an audio artifact of the noise reduction software -- the transfers are...
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