Music lovers over 50 will recall the Ace of Clubs label: a series of reissues of mono recordings from the 1950s. They sold in Australia for $2.95, enticingly cheaper than full price stereo LPs at $5.95. The latest in a series of Decca Sound boxes, delving into the old Decca catalogue, brings back many of those recordings, encased in reproductions of the original sleeves and with bonus tracks to take each CD beyond 70 minutes. 

Decca’s Full Frequency Range sound quality was always a feature and is enhanced in the digital remastering, although violin sections are occasionally toppy. For instance, you have to listen through the harsh string sound of Elgar’s Introduction and Allegro to appreciate the bracing vitality of Anthony Collins’s performance. His Falstaff has no such caveat: it sounds great and is enthralling from beginning to end.

Sadly there is too much here to cover in a short review. Conductors include stalwarts like Ansermet, Argenta, Boult, Martinon, Fistoulari, Erich Kleiber (beautifully unaffected in Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony), Van Beinum, and the earliest discs by Solti: a riveting Bartók Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta and a lively Haydn Symphony No 100. Unique and celebrated recordings abound: Britten’s Diversions with Julius Katchen, Walton’s Façade with Peter Pears and Edith Sitwell, the Griller Quartet’s unsurpassed performances of Ernest Bloch’s string quartets, and Moura Lympany playing concertos by Rachmaninov (the Third) and Khachaturian. 

Rarities include Handel’s 12 Concerti Grossi Op. 6 from the Boyd Neel Orchestra, and several names forgotten today: Erik Tuxen, conducting Prokofiev’s and Sibelius’s Fifth Symphonies, Edouard Lindenberg in Bizet and Chabrier, and the Quintetto Chigiano playing piano quintets by Bloch, Shostakovich, Brahms and Boccherini. Pianists include Curzon and Magaloff, while among the violinists are Campoli (in concertos by Lalo, Elgar and Bliss), Ricci’s Paganini and Ferras’s Brahms. A vocal box will follow.