Sir Colin Davis, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, BBC Symphony Orchestra - Haydn: Symphonies Nos. 88 & 99; Beethoven: Symphony No. 1 (2003) [SACD]

PentaTone Music was founded in 2001 by three former executives of Philips Classics (one of the classical music labels of Universal) together with Polyhymnia International (the former recording center of Philips Classics). They have made it their mission to release historic (their term) recordings in SACD format, and are using, mostly, quadraphonic (four-channel) recordings initially released on LP in the 1970s. Quadraphonic LPs, as you probably recall, did not live up to their promise both because their incarnation on LPs didn’t actually produce all that had been encoded in the recording process, and because few listeners converted their home listening equipment to the quadraphonic format. However, with the advent of SACD (and with some tweaks of the recorded material by the engineers) many of the recorded performances on quadraphonic master tapes are getting a second life.
This CD contains three of the classical music world’s favorite symphonies — Nos. 88 and 99 by Haydn, and Beethoven’s First. All conducted by Colin Davis, the Haydns are played by the Concertgebouw (or the ‘Royal Concertgebouw’ it is now designated) and the Beethoven by the BBC Symphony Orchestra. All three performances are excellent. But the big selling point here is the sound. These are hybrid SACDs, so one can listen to the plain-vanilla CD layer nicely on one’s stereo, but when one listens on SACD equipment the sound blooms and it is really quite smashing.
The only complaint I have about these recording is that occasionally, as in the finale of the Beethoven, the pianissimo inner voices fade almost to inaudibility. This could be Davis’s doing; his orchestra was plenty capable of playing almost inaudible pianissimi at his command (unlike some lesser orchestras), or it may have been the recording technique. However, this is a small criticism when the performances are considered overall.
I’ve given the release four stars because I suspect most buyers will be playing it on regular stereo equipment and in that format the sound is adequate but not much more than that. For SACD buyers, it rates five stars, particularly considering that these recordings were made over thirty years ago.