Willi Boskovsky & Vienna Philharmonic New Year's Day Concert in Vienna (Decca Pure Analogue Series) Numbered 180g 2LP

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Tracking Angle Rated 9/10 Music, 9/10 Sound!

Pressed at Pallas on 180g virgin vinyl, these limited edition deluxe gatefold releases will feature: the original artwork and liner notes; archival photos and facsimiles of original recording session sheets. Each individual release includes bespoke notes detailing the history of the recording, the technical background and the mastering process.

The 1979 New Year's Day Concert in Vienna proved to be a watershed moment both musically and technically. It was both the end of an era for Willi Boskovsky, the Wiener Philharmoniker's longstanding concertmaster, and the dawn of a new age in recording technology. Long fêted as Decca's first digitally recorded release, recent research has unearthed a set of ¼-inch two-track analogue safety masters which have remained undisturbed in Universal Music's vaults for almost half a century — until today.

Decca had made a huge investment in the new digital technology and with this at stake, it wasn't just precautionary to run trusted analogue machines in parallel with digital, it was essential. This dual approach was used throughout the late 1970s and into the early 1980s. Decca was not alone. Most famously, perhaps, the 1981 Glenn Gould Goldberg Variations was recorded by CBS both digitally and in analogue. Indeed, since the 2002 State of Wonder reissue, the analogue tapes have always been preferred.

This is a riotous issue … This is truly a demonstration record in every way.

The needle dropped on the reissue, and we were in another world. Strings were sounding not just like real strings, but VPO strings — a very particular breed with its own golden rich patina — with nary a trace of that digital glare and edge; winds sounded like winds, brass like brass... The percussion had lost none of its impact, but finally sounded like it was a part of the orchestra rather than an outside aggressor trying to mow it down. The soundstage is wide and full, but not enormous... The integration between the Vienna Philharmonic, the Musikverein and the audience sitting in it is seamless and very organic sounding, and by a wide margin superior to the electronically induced version of same on the CD reissue of this album in the Decca Classic Sound series... For my money it's the most iconic — and essential — representation of the live New Year's Day Concert from Vienna on recorded media.