Help with Classical Music Record Labels.


Hello,

I have had some good and some bad experience with classical music records so I would like to know what are your favorite recoding labels for Classical?
Which label will always guarantee a great listening experience?
So Far for me Deutsche Grammophon, Decca and RCA Victor are  the best but I am sure there are many others I am not familiar with. 
All input will be greatly appreciated.

Be Safe,
Emil


emilm

Showing 4 responses by lowrider57

@edcyn, good descriptions and recommendations.
Something I've noticed, DG somehow managed to make Abbado's recordings sound good...thankfully.

Are you talking vinyl? DG is very inconsistent, 1980’s digital are very poor recordings.
Decca, London (Decca USA releases), Philips, EMI, RCA Red Seal, Mercury Living Presence, RCA Living Stereo, Telarc (digital releases). Columbia which was bought by Sony, L’Oiseau-Lyre.


Worst... Everest, Columbia House, Angel (EMI budget releases), Seraphim (Angel reissues).

My great aunt, Dorle Soria, was the founder of Angel records. As well as being a producer, she also was looking for talent both new and established and was instrumental ( no pun intended ) in helping new talent get recorded. I can't attest the sound quality of all the recordings, but the ones I have sound pretty decent on my system. Although I may be biased.
It seems that the Soria's did a fine job of distributing classical recordings in the US for EMI. 
At some point EMI/Angel stopped importing and began production and distribution in the US only. This is when different masters were used to press vinyl, and to my ears, never matched the quality of the original UK masters.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angel_Records