Pete is doing very interesting work. I first went to his studio 3 or 4 years ago, with one of my London record dealers Dave Parsons, who is one of Pete's partners in the venture. You can see the releases on his website www.classicalvinyl.com. When I first saw the equipment, it was in pieces and it took them quite some time to find the veteran EMI engineer - who narrates the video - to rebuild the tape recorder, cutting lathes, etc. A year later, I heard a lacquer from one of the Martzy set. Finally, last year I heard the first fruit of their labors, a test pressing of one of the 3 Martzy Bach Partitas and Sonatas. I had gotten the Coup d'Archet Martzy set sent to my London address and was able to bring it to the listening session and Dave had one of the original EMI pressings (worth 3-4 times the 300GBP asking price of the reissue). In our shoot out of the three records, Pete's remaster was the superior record, better than then Coup d'Archet and the original. The original was too bright, EQ'ed from the pre RIAA era. The Glenn Armstrong release (which as a single record would be less than 10% of the Electric Recording reissue) was too dull in my opinion and the Electric Recording Company was just right. I have asked to get the Martzy set reproduced on 15 ips 2 track tape by Pete. Hopefully I will be able to get them. Hope to see him next month in London along with Dave. They have also issued another classic French EMI set, Mozart a Paris, which is one of the rarest and priciest sets (around 2500GBP for the 7 record set). They have also spent a significant sum in reproducing the record sleeves, with off set printing and paper very close to the original. The only difference is that they cannot use the "Little Nipper" from the original (who is listening to "His Master's Voice" through the gramophone" since it was taken by RCA for their logo in the US. So they have substituted EMI in block letters.
I hope to be able to hear their next release, the Leonid Kogan Beethoven Violin Concerto in stereo in test pressing in June. Dave shared with me a list of their planned releases which include many of the most famous and rare EMI recordings from the mono and early stereo era.
Larry