Pristine Classical

The finest historic recorded music, remastered to award-winning acclaim

Casals' classic solo Bach

Pristine Classical

The finest historic recorded music, remastered to award-winning acclaim

Klemperer in Philadelphia

Pristine Classical

The finest historic recorded music, remastered to award-winning acclaim

Horenstein's Mahler 5

Pristine Classical

The finest historic recorded music, remastered to award-winning acclaim

Die Walküre - Met Opera '40

Pristine Classical

The finest historic recorded music, remastered to award-winning acclaim

Schnabel plays Beethoven

Most Recent Releases

BARBIROLLI conducts Brahms Symphonies

Sir John Barbirolli’s recordings of Brahms’s Third and Fourth Symphonies with the Hallé Orchestra remain among the most personal and humane accounts in the catalogue. Shaped by long melodic line, subtle internal balance and an instinctive sense of musical speech, these performances avoid monumentality in favour of continuity and expressive truth. The result is Brahms that feels lived-in rather than imposed, unfolding naturally over broad spans with warmth and inward intensity.

Recorded seven years apart — the Third in 1952, the Fourth in 1959 — these performances also chart the evolution of Barbirolli’s Brahms across mono and early stereo. The Third glows with intimacy and lyric poise, while the Fourth expands onto a darker, more uncompromising canvas, culminating in a finale of stern grandeur. Together, they form a compelling portrait of one of the twentieth century’s most individual Brahmsians, now newly restored in XR sound.

We also mark the approach of Jascha Heifetz’s 125th anniversary (born 2 February 1901) with a special 15% discount on all Jascha Heifetz recordings in the Pristine catalogue this week. Widely regarded as one of the greatest violinists of all time, Heifetz’s recorded legacy remains central to the violin tradition, and this anniversary offers an ideal moment to revisit some of his most essential performances.

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BOULT conducts Mahler

This week’s release brings together two strands of Sir Adrian Boult’s Mahler in a rare collaboration between Andrew Rose and Mark Obert-Thorn. The First Symphony, recorded in stereo in 1958 for Everest with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, is a performance of striking poise and architectural clarity. Boult resists grandstanding or rhetorical exaggeration, instead shaping the work as a coherent, forward-moving whole. It is a reading that still sounds remarkably modern in its balance, momentum and structural integrity.

Set alongside it are Boult’s 1950 studio recordings of Songs of a Wayfarer, preserved in mono and again featuring the London Philharmonic Orchestra, with Blanche Thebom as soloist. Mark Obert-Thorn’s work on these performances brings renewed focus to their intimacy and control. Thebom’s singing is inward and unsentimental, while Boult draws out Mahler’s instrumental commentary with quiet authority, allowing voice and orchestra to move together as equal partners.

Pristine Classical is also marking the 125th anniversary of Giuseppe Verdi’s death with a special promotion across its catalogue. To commemorate the occasion, all Verdi recordings are available at 15% off for a limited time, offering an opportunity to explore a wide range of historic performances at a reduced price.

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REINER conducts Salome & Elektra

When Fritz Reiner brought Richard Strauss’s Salome and Elektra to the Metropolitan Opera in 1952, he revealed these scores in their most uncompromising light. These are performances of iron discipline and fierce dramatic focus, where nothing is allowed to sprawl, soften, or indulge. Strauss’s modernity is laid bare with brutal clarity.

Heard today in Pristine XR remastering, these historic Met broadcasts sound anything but historical. With Ljuba Welitsch’s legendary Salome and Astrid Varnay’s searing Elektra, Reiner’s Strauss emerges with terrifying momentum and psychological force — performances that still feel shockingly modern more than seventy years on.

We also mark the 140th anniversary of the birth of Wilhelm Furtwängler, one of the most probing and philosophically minded conductors of the twentieth century, with a 20% discount on all his recordings at Pristine.

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