An interesting discovery on the Urania label

Posted by vinyl phanatic (A) on August 22, 2015 at 22:02:09

I picked up this recording of Gaite Parisienne with Rene Leibowitz and the London Philharmonic in the dollar bin, partly because of the cool (if somewhat unflattering) cover picture of Leslie Caron.

Once I got it home, I realized that it may be the only early Urania stereo record that I own (and this is indeed true stereo, not one the many later fake stereo issues on Urania). I poked around and discovered that this is at least somewhat sought-after, which piqued my interest, so I put it on. Lo and behold, it is a really good record! Compared to the other usual suspects, Leibowitz's tempi are, shall we say, deliberate, but he makes it work. Very well played, and a nice sounding recording with a big, reverberant soundstage. The percussion is somewhat spotlighted, which works fine when there are individual instruments playing, however when they all get going, it's a little too much and it muddies up the sound a bit. Pressing quality is very good, with quiet surfaces. A very nice listen. For at least a short time in the early days of stereo, Urania was considered a high quality "audiophile" label. At some point the label was sold, and it devolved into a budget reissue label, not unlike the fate that befell Everest a short time later.

On the subject of Gaite Parisienne, I have to get in a plug for my favorite performance of it, with Rosenthal and the RIAS Orchestra, originally issued on Remington. It was reissued on some other labels, but unfortunately it was not one of the ones reissued by Varese Sarabande in the 70's (the companion record "Offenbachiana" was, and it's great). Sound is quite good on the Remington (good luck finding a clean copy). That was a damn good orchestra, and they play the piece like their collective hair was on fire. It's just about as far away from the Leibowitz as you can get.

I started to take note of these Urania stereo recordings more as I got into 2 track reel to reel tapes. Urania issued about 15 classical titles on stereo 2 track tape, and they are very good, and quite sought-after. There was a 2 track issue of the Leibowitz Gaite Parisienne, and I would love to find a copy. I have only found this one Urania tape so far, and it is a great recording, for both sound and performance.

A little research determined that the "Vienna Philharmusica" is in fact the Vienna Philharmonic. Urania often used pseudonyms for orchestras and artists to dodge this or that issue concerning rights. The most interesting part of the history of Urania might be their earlier mono catalogue. There are some great performances of unusual repertoire and rarely recorded artists, most of which were sourced from German radio broadcasts, but there is also this cache of early stereo recordings of very high quality.

If anyone stayed with me to this point, I guess what I am saying is that there are a lot of great discoveries to be made, often where you least expect them.

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Topic - An interesting discovery on the Urania label - vinyl phanatic 22:02:09 08/22/15 (5)

RE: An interesting discovery on the Urania label - Icmblu1@yahoo.com 15:29:19 08/11/20 (1)

RE: An interesting discovery on the Urania label - alc777 07:29:29 08/13/20 (0)

RE: An interesting discovery on the Urania label - rbolaw 14:58:25 08/24/15 (0)

More Info on Urania - Botanico92007 07:23:42 08/23/15 (1)

RE: More Info on Urania - frankwm 06:07:26 08/12/20 (0)

An interesting discovery on the Urania label

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