Here are some reviews and comments

regarding Klassic Haus CDs:

"The Elgar disc (KHCD-2010-006 (MONO) - Elgar: Nursery Suite; Serenade for Strings; Three Bavarian Dances - Lawrence Collingwood/London Symphony) arrived and after two listenings to it I must say that I am impressed with the work you did to make this item available on CD. There is a naturalness and a warmth to the sound on your disc that is most welcome. The choice of this LP for reissue on CD was a capital idea on your part. Collingwood's NURSERY SUITE is the best performance I have ever heard of this music; I have all the recordings made of it and this goes to the head of the class. Keep up your work. It is excellent. I will be back for more!" -Walter W., PA

"As promised, here are a few impressions after several listenings to both the CDs you sent me. (KHCD-2010-032 Haydn Symphonies 6-7-8 and KHCD-2010-041 Beethoven 3rd/Mozart Divertimenti) First of all, the sound is very clear. No click, pop, hiss, hum or un-needed reverberation. Of course, Ristenpart benefited of some of the best sound engineers of the time. André Charlin , to name but him, engineered quite a few of his recordings. Then, the sound is very dynamic. The dynamic range is wide, nothing muffled here. Every instrument is well placed and can be heard clearly. Obviously, the digital transfer has been made very carefully and respectfully.Then for the music. Haydn's symphonies (Morning, Noon, and Evening) are delightful pieces of music. They are played with both grace and strength. Ristenpart loved Haydn's music, and this is audible in these renditions. Beethoven's Eroica is something completely different. This is the first time I hear Ristenpart conducting a symphonic orchestra. Yet the subtlety is here, as with his Saar chamber orchestra. Beethoven's driving force is here too. This record makes me regret even more that Ristenpart never had the opportunity to record his favorite composer, Mahler. Now, I would like to hear his Schubert's symphonies. Hopefully, this wish might come true some day not too far away. Thanks again for those very welcome additions to my collection." - Louis I., France

"The Ristenpart arrived Tuesday and I listened last evening. It is excellent! A nice transfer. This is a vigorous account of the EROICA, lean but not dry, with a nice warm sound in the slow movement. I never heard it before but I had his Beethoven 7th. That's a fine performance but this EROICA is at a higher level. And Ristenpart in Mozart is something you can never get enough of. KR never feels rushed or nervous. In all his musicmaking, he gives the impression hat he understands the importance of pulse in the music. Too many current practitioners in the music of Mozart and Haydn - well, other composers too - seem to think that tempo equals pulse, when we well know this not to be true. K.136 is so well-known, yet with Ristenpart it sounds so fresh." - Walter W., PA.

"The Schubert CD (KHCD-2010-054, Schubert Symphonies No. 1 & 2) has arrived yesterday, and I have listened to it several times since then.The music in the 2 symphonies is of course a young Schubert (16 an 17 years of age respectively when he composed them), with more than hints of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven, but also his own mature language making its way between these influences. Ristenpart had already recorded both symphonies with his own Chamber Orchestra of the Saar in 1954 and 1956. This time, the orchestra is the Stuttgart Symphony Orchestra. Although not a world renowned orchestra to the general public, its history started more than 400 years ago. To make a long story short, suffice it to list some of the conductors under whom it played in the more recent years : Carlos Kleiber, Vaclav Neumann, Silvio Varviso, Janos Kulka, Dennis Russell Davies, Garcia Navarro, Gabriele Ferro, Sir Georg Solti, Carlo Maria Giulini and Riccardo Chailly.... The playing is just what I expected from Karl Ristenpart : always lively, always in tempi giusti, never trying to make the music say more than it has to say. The conductor is there to serve the composer, not the contrary. Finally, to the technical part : an excellent sound captation by Marc Aubort, who has been Vanguard’s chief engineer for eight years from 1958 to 1965, and then worked a lot for Nonesuch. His recordings are still very highly regarded by technicians and audiophiles alike. From what I can hear on my home system, your remastering remains faithfull to the analog original. This is in my mind the best that can be said about any remastering." Louis I., France

"The two discs arrived Tuesday. Many thanks. I have only had a chance top listen to the two Vaughan Williams symphonies (KHCD-2011-006) but you have a real winner here. Your issue of the Goossens performance of no. 2 is vastly superior to the Beulah disc; I listened to both. You present greater detail, and a clarity of sound that the other release can only guess at! The power of this interpretation really comes across here. For the composer's own rendition of no. 4, I have this on three other CDs, including an expensive Pearl set, but your issue holds it own with any and in the case of that Pearl issue, is greatly superior. I have said this before but in your reissues the mid-range comes out so very well. Many thanks." Walter W., PA

"You have done a wonderful job in restoring this stunning performance (Stainer: The Crucifixion - KHCD-2011-030) to the world! I have 5 recordings of the work and this is far and away the best. Tempi are well-judged, and the balance between all the vocal forces and the organ is excellent, far better on your CD than on my original EMI LP. It amazes me that performances like this are ignored by the major companies. Alexander Young gives a clinic in how to sing this music and he shows us that, yes, English is a wonderful language in which to sing. The chorus has a rich, bold, warm sound which fits this music so well. I have a couple of recordings of this work with boys voices. Much as I love the sound of boys voices, they fall short in this work for me. It's a dramatic work and and needs to be treated as such. That happens here. Thanks for putting this back in circulation!"

"French Baroque music has always had a special place in my heart, especially when they do big triumphal pieces like a Te Deum. Not just Lully or Charpentier or Delalande but even lesser light like Blanchard. There is something about high trumpet parts - harkens back to my early days as a mediocre trumpet player! - florid vocal lines, with trills all over the place, long, elegant lines in slower movements. Ah, heaven! Your new reissue of French Baroque music by Monteclair, Corrette, Leclair and Boismortier (KHCD-2010-029) of course has one of these pieces: Monteclair's LE RETOUR DE LA PAIX. Claudie Saneva was not a big name to me or to any of us, I think, but it is a brilliant, flexible voice, with the ability to trill the ears off you or spin a long, elegant legato line. A delightful piece in a performance sure to delight the soul. If you're ntot up off your seat and dancing at th efinale of the cantata, you well may be dead1The concertos and sonata which fill out the disc are more subdued works, but imbued with a sense of sheer delight. I had the Nonesuch LP of this and wore it out in the Monteclair and Bosimortier tracks! Very few people would have thought of resurrecting this LP. I am grateful to you that you did so. You have restored to us music that delights the heart, enriches the soul and makes you glad you'realive. Anyone hearing this disc and not believing that the glass is half-full simply isn't listening! Many thanks! I welcome back an old, and dear friend"

"I don't know how you managed to achieve such a fantastic quality from a 1968 LP (see KHCD-2011-034, Art of the Baroque Trumpet). (I have a copy here myself of the EMI original, bought all those years ago) but it's fairly worn out at this stage, so it's great to have a pristine copy of an album I regard as among the greatest trumpet recordings ever made. You realize of course that this month (June, 2011) is Edward Tarr's 75th birthday: I don't know if your release was coincidental, or timed to coincide with that, but it couldn't be more opportune. My heartiest thanks for all the trouble you have taken." David Grant, Waterford, Ireland

"I just wanted to thank you. I received my CD, Man of La Mancha (KHCD-ST002, 2-CD set in Soundtracks), on Saturday. I had purchased this on tape almost 20 years ago. I listened to it so much that it broke. I have been looking for this particular version on CD for years and finally found it on your site. I received it in a timely fashion and I am enjoying it as much as I did when I first got it. I am so happy to have this again. Thank you." O. L.

FROM JOHAN HERRENBERG, DELFT, NETHERLANDS - Yesterday I downloaded the restorations of two pioneering Brian recordings. Now, after listening to them and comparing them (in the first case to the CD Unicorn-Kanchana later brought out, in the latter to an amateur digitisation), I am very very enthusiastic. The sound is really excellent. The official CD of 10 & 21 really didn't do the LSSO justice - the sound is too light and tinny, there isn't the weight I remembered from the LP. That LP really had an enormous impact on my younger self. In the early '80s I was obsessed by Symphony No. 10, and that wasn't only because it is one of Brian's best and most gripping symphonies, but also, simply, because that band of very young people played this music amazingly well. As for the CBS LP, that never sounded very appealing in the first place. It was all rather harsh and shrill, with not enough warmth. Well, I don't know how restorer Curt Timmons did it, but his restoration is a great improvement on the original! The orchestra has enormous presence, there is the 'pressure of the basses', which Brian liked. The same goes for the LSSO performance of No. 10 - Brabbins has given us a great reading on his recent CD for Dutton, where many new details stand out. But - there are a few passages where I think the youngsters and James Loughran still have not been bettered. So, to cut a long story short - I recommend these restorations unreservedly. At $5 a download, it won't burn a hole in your wallet... And the CD isn't too expensive either.

JOHN WHITMORE, OLDHAM, UK - I am delighted that I sent my amateur transfers of the two Havergal Brian LPs to you for consideration. The restored Unicorn coupling of symphonies 10 and 21 sounds like the original LP played on a high quality turntable but without the clicks and pops - I don't hear any tinkering with the superb analogue sound, just an overall cleaning up excercise which has been very well done. It's a huge success. I always disliked the actual sound quality of the CBS Classics issue with it's bright, oppressive top end and lack of ambience. I didn't hold out much hope but your transfer now sounds much more like the Unicorn with warmth, depth and presence. The biggest surprise is Symphony 22 which is absolutely wonderful and the removal of the background crackle has brought up some of the inner details that weren't there before. These are important recordings of some magnificent music. You have done them proud. They honestly have never sounded as good as this before.

I fell in love with the music of Monteverdi and Schütz during my teens in the early 1970s after picking up a Nonesuch lp featuring Monteverdi's "Magnificat a 6" along with Schütz's "Warum toben die Heiden", "Saul, Saul, was verfolgst du mich" and "Deutsches Magnificat" conducted by Helmuth Kählhofer. I have never heard the Monteverdi shaped with more finesse, and given more light and shade than I hear in this performance, nor have I ever heard Schütz's Heathen rage as fiercely as they do in this great psalm setting. Therefore, I was thrilled to see that someone had finally transferred these sublime recordings to CD. There is much to be said for the insight into early music gained over the past decades, and I admire many of the recordings of both these composers by the likes of Bernius, Gardiner, Herreweghe, Jürgens, Suzuki, Wilson, et al. Nonetheless, a great number of excellent performances of this music were created before HIP became a virtual hegemony, and I rejoice at being able to hear performances like this again, long after my own vinyl discs were worn practically flat from frequent play over the past several decades. Discussion with Mr. Timmons yielded two more long-treasured, long-treasured discs of Schütz's music from Nonesuch - originally purchased within weeks of that first Nonesuch disc, and like its predecessor, long-since played into near-nonexistence - namely Wilhelm Ehmann's great selection of Psalmen Davids and Willi Träder's long-loved selection from Cantiones Sacrae. The first is as thrilling a performance of this music as I have ever heard. There may be more precision in some of the more recent performances, but Ehmann's tempi regularly allow his soloists and choirs to make the most of Schütz's obvious delight in Luther's German translation of the Bible. Listen to the delightful clashes between vowels and consonants Schütz produces from his echoing soloists during the passage "Der Kön'g schafft Recht, behütet" in the "Canzone: Non lob, mein Seel', den Herren", a wonderful effect lost during the more rapid traversals of this music currently in fashion. Then turn to the delicacy with which he limns the differing images in the 23rd Psalm or the massive effects unleashed during the celebratory 138th Psalm. Ehmann even offers a glimpse of this music in its simpler form, minus the extra choirs of instruments, by giving us the first verse of the Canzone a capella, followed by the second verse with the full complement of supporting instruments and voices - an exhilarating effect. Ehmann's recordings of Schütz were "state of the art" when they were made, but the Cantate and the other labels who originally released these has reissued only a handful of them. That only makes this reissue all the more welcome. Equal joy attends this reissue of Willi Träder's selection from the Cantiones Sacrae, though the effect is quite different. The English have been rather good at preserving the recordings David Willcocks and George Guest made of their college choirs at their peak during the 60s and 70s, but recordings of equal value produced by Träder and others at nearly the same time in Germany have not fared as well, though some of the heavier, dour recordings by Mauersberger have appeared again and again, doing little service either to the reputation of German choirs at this time or to Schütz. Träder's choir, like Willcocks's at King's College, produces a bright, sweet treble sound and a solid, ringing bass, without sacrificing the clarity of inner voices. Polyphonic passages twine with an almost effortless beauty, dissonances are poignant, and there is a weight at climaxes that aids expression without obscuring individual lines. The music has not been recorded as often as Schütz's other two a capella (or choir with optional basso continuo) cycles, the Italian Madrigals and Geistliche Chormusik, and the current trend is to record these with one voice to a part, which, so far, has lent these exquisite pieces a rather cold and distant beauty. Here, they are warm, expressive, and very beautiful. Nonesuch produced, or reissued in the US, a great many recordings of music written during or before the 18th century performed in styles currently out of fashion. This is a pity, because although some of these recordings have not dated as well as others, much of this music was played with great warmth and finesse, and deserves to be considered alongside the current fashion for "historically informed performance". Some of Karl Ristenpart's many recordings of music from the Baroque and Classical periods are also appearing from Mr. Timmons, and all I can say is, it is about time! What other treasures can we expect? Send in your wish-lists and see what happens. One guilty pleasure I shared with my entire family while growing up was placing Charles Ravier's lavishly realized performance of The Play of Herod (yet another Nonesuch lp) onto the spindle every Christmas day. Authentic? No, but the alternation of colorful instrumentals and chant-like vocal purity held us all spellbound from beginning to end - we even had two copies so that we could hear both sides in succession without having to flip over the disc. Jim Rockhill

Curt, The replacement cds came this morning and I am listening to them as I type this. Thank you so much for your consideration and outstanding customer service. Buying on the net is always a turkey-shoot. You have been a pleasure to deal with and your product is excellent. Keep up the great work and I will visit your site on a regular basis to see what is new. If a sound track should come to mind I will alert you. Thank you again for everything. Doug Spencer

I just wanted to say how impressed I am with the Garage Sale Classics issue of the Bongartz performance of Bruckner's 6th. (This issue has been deleted and replaced with a higher quality restoration) Well-nigh perfect, if anything can be. The playing of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra is amazing; it truly ranks as one of the great orchestras of any time. Those horns are astonishing! Bongartz captures a great deal of detail in the score without sacrificing the overall orchestral sound. I don't know the quality pf the LP from which this came but I found myself completely unaware of anything but the music. A real treat here and thanks for issuing it.

Just finished listening last night to these CDs (KHCD-2012-016 & KHCD-2012-017 with the LSSO) and I am so grateful for your collaboration in restoring these to circulation. The sound is superb, with more detail coming out than I recall from my LPs. (Still have them but haven't listened in a while.) The playing of the LSSO is so impressive and if I had to convince anyone of it I would play the Arnold, which seems to capture in a short time all the finest attributes of each section. Thanks so much for getting these back in circulation.

Just a few lines to congratulate you on a splendid job of producing the Hippolyte et Aricie (KHCD-2012-056-2CD). You've really filled a gap in the recorded literature: As far as I know, this was the first (nearly) complete recording made. Doubtless there are those who will quibble about D'Indy's edition of the score, the "inauthentic" instruments, and Janet Baker's mezzo being taxed in the soprano role. Some purists also complain that the diction is imperfect as the soloists and chorus are English. While maybe well-intended, these sorts of complaints are often just provincial. One need only recall Germaine Lubin's Isolde or Irma Kollasi's Dido to refute native-language objections. It may have been Elisabeth Schwarzkopf who remarked that Georges Thill's francophone rendition of Lohengrin was the finest she'd heard. As for Thurston Dart's performance, he was equally comfortable in English, French, and German repertoires. You've made an important contribution through this release. I've also received the Makkeras Rameau/Gluck. It's a lively and refreshing performance, although adherents to Historically-Informed-Performances would likely consider it utter heresy today. He certainly takes his time with the Gluck chaconne, and this is, I think, just as it should be. The bowing on both sides, especially in the Rameau chaconne, is sort of aggressive. Sir Charles may have consciously avoided the legato excesses of an earlier generation. The sound is extraordinarily good. I've got the old LP here, and in pretty good condition; your restoration has simply made the music a good deal better. Keep up the great work. Harvey Greisman

Having assisted Klassic Haus with two LSSO Havergal Brian releases earlier this year I was delighted to see that the Aries LP of Brian's Violin Concerto (KHCD-2012-061) has now been added to the catalogue. It sounds very good indeed and the performance by Ralph Holmes is superb. I warmly recommend this concerto to anyone who has an interest in British Music or the art of violin playing. Many thanks for making this magnificent interpretation available again. I've enjoyed it immensely. - John Whitmore

The CDs arrived today and I have had a chance to listen to two of them. First to Ristenpart's Beethoven 7th (KHCD-2012-054). I had the old Checkmate LP of this and have always been fond of this performance, but your CD is so much fresher-sounding than that LP. I had not been aware of so much detail in the recording. (KR) is able to achieve a lovely balance between the 'dance' and the drama in this work. While his finale is a tad slower than what we so often hear anymore, his sense of pulse and also his rhythmic integrity are welcome features that make this work so very well as a conclusion to the music. Then the Krips overture performances are a nice bonus here, especially the 'Egmont'. I freely admit that this overture is for me one of the composer's weaker works but this is a delightful, convincing rendition of it. Thanks for including these. Tippett's A CHILD OF OUR TIME (LSSO-CD2) was my introduction to his music: the LPs from Decca as conducted by Sir John Pritchard. I have all the commercial recordings of it and was fortunate a few years ago to hear it in concert here in State College, with our local orchestra and choral society. I must say that this LSSO 'live recording' really is amazing. The intensity of the performance, the immediacy of it all overwhelmed me. This may be a 'sleeper' in your catalogue but you deserve to reap great sales of it. The soloists from the choir are really quite fine . I think that there is a white-hot quality to this performance that touches me deeply; it is as though the ink was still wet on the paper. The singers all sound deeply involved in the text. Thank you for issuing this. Walter Wells