Tone-Pearls Records Released Full Analogue “Hungarian Songs in a Chateau” Tape Recording
Tone-Pearls Records has introduced a fully analogue recording of classical music on master tape and cassette. The release, titled Hungarian Songs in a Chateau, features previously unreleased songs by Hungarian composers Béla Bartók, Ernő Dohnányi and György Ligeti, performed by Anne Sophie Petit and Marcel Vina and Marcell Vigh).
The performers met at master classes on contemporary music at the High School of Music in Lausanne and played together for several years: they were brought together by a common interest in 20th century composers, including Hungarian, and a love of foreign languages.
The songs on the album, as the description says, “open a dialogue between songs in Hungarian and the innovative sounds and harmonics that pervaded Europe in the first half of the 20th century.” The mixture of folklore and modernity in the melodies awakens a variety of images – the songs talk about the amazing nature, and about carefree drunken fun, and about summoning a demon.
The album was recorded using fully analog technology: a pair of AKG C 414 Limited Edition microphones (ORTF stereo), directly connected to a Nagra IVS tape recorder with Vovox cables. The tape recorder was powered by batteries rather than an outlet to avoid noise.
On this recording, Nagra worked only as a preamplifier, namely the recording was made by the Lyrec PTR-1 Frida tape recorder. Recorded music to RTM SM468 tapes at 15 speed using CCIR equalization. The recording was not processed in any way, the master only changed places of some compositions. The master is assembled from original recordings – in the studio he was called the “director’s cut”.
The tape album is available in three versions, priced from 159 to 199 euro. There is also a cassette version for 15 euro, as well as a digital version in 24/96 format for 19 euro. You can buy the recording on the .
