OVERVIEWS - EVEREST RECORDS

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Mention Everest Records to anyone today and they will automatically assume that you are talking about mountain climbing stats. Unless you're from my generation, and/or a classical music collector, you could be excused for not knowing that Everest was one of the best classical music labels during the 1960s. (Remember the old analogue days?). Despite the fact that they didn't last long enough as a business to produce a comprehensive or in depth catalog, their reputation for top quality stereo analogue recordings still stands today.

I grew up with that label, and I'm convinced that many of my vinyl acquisitions back then were strongly influenced by that label. Even though all the major labels like Columbia, Angel (EMI), Decca, Mercury and so on, were very active at the time, Everest's sound quality, presentation, cover art and adventurous choice of music, never failed to capture my interest. Other labels like Vanguard, Pye Golden Guinea, and Turnabout also had interesting repertoire to offer, all at the time when "stereo" was the only thing audio buffs talked about, but to me it seemed Everest had the best sound. With the advent of the CD back around 1982, they all but disappeared on vinyl and have always been very difficult to find on CD. Until now that is. Thanks in great part to the efforts of Lutz Rippe from Countdown Media based in Germany, they are now readily available through the Amazon Disc-on-Demand service, at an unbelievable price.

Here is what Mr. Rippe himself wrote about Everest: "The Everest catalog is one of the truly historic and ground-breaking music catalogs of the past half century. Everest created a number of historical sonic and music benchmarks during its early history in the 1950’s and 60’s. Everest was one of only two labels (arguably the first, with the historic Mercury Living Presence to follow) to record in 3-channel stereo, mostly with the London Symphony, London Philharmonic, and New York Philharmonic (in the guise of the 'Stadium Symphony Orchestra' due to contractual obligations). Some of the famed conductors active during the middle of the century, including Leopold Stokowski, Sir Malcom Sargent and Sir Adrian Boult, were responsible for these ground-breaking recordings on 35mm video tape (also a landmark accomplishment which would hearken the arrival a decade later of the usage of 2” master tape for studio recording). The albums will be published with the original cover artwork, in many cases created by the “inventor” of the Vinyl Cover, Alex Steinweiss, plus a digital booklet containing comprehensive additional information on the recordings and the technical background."

Some of my personal favorites include the Villa-Lobos, (reviewed here) with sound that will stop you in your tracks (pun intended), the Dvorak Symphony No. 9 (I played that one until the needle poked through to the other side), the Shostakovich Symphony No. 6 conducted by Sir Adrian Boult (I believe that was my initial exposure to that composer), the Vaughan Williams Symphony No. 9 again with Sir Adrian Boult, the Respighi Roman Festivals conducted by Eugene Goossens, and Copland's Billy the Kid. This was the world première recording of Ralph Vaughan Williams' Symphony No. 9, I believe the first symphony to utilize saxophones as part of the orchestral fabric, and to great effect. The composer had planned to attend the Everest recording sessions, but passed away just a few hours earlier that morning on August 26, 1958. The original recording began with a commentary about the composer's death by Sir Adrian Boult himself.

Unbeknownst to them at the time, the recording engineers at Everest had discovered how to make music recordings sound as close to the real thing as possible, without the need to resort to extraneous tactics or techniques. No one else has ever really achieved the same results in over 50 years. Not all titles are available at the present time as all Amazon Disc-on-Demand releases. They are being remastered and released in small batches at the moment, but we will try to keep adding them to this list as they come out.

Here is a list of all the titles presently available for you to pick and choose from: