Antonio Lysy at The Broad: Music from Argentina, Yarlung 15th Anniversary Edition

When Bob Attiyeh sounds excited about some sonic improvement he's achieved, I pay attention. In this case it is Bob's announcement of a 15th Anniversary remastering of the famous Antonio Lysy At the Broad: Music From Argentina, a recording that has received rave reviews since its release on vinyl in 2010 and as an EP in DSD 256 in 2015. Could it sound even better?

Bob's announcement of the remastering and re-release in DSD 256 came in NativeDSD's weekly newsletter last night. This morning, I booted up my computer and hustled over to the NativeDSD website. And I've been listening to this new release now for the past two hours, going back and forth between it and the 2015 release (also DSD 256).

So, cut to the chase: does the 2022 DSD256 remaster sound better?

Oh, yes! Unequivocally.

Perhaps more importantly, we now have the complete album in DSD 256, not just the four tracks of the 2015 EP DSD 256 release. A huge thank you for now sharing with us in DSD 256 all of the tracks that were on the original LP release. I have missed them.

Indeed, everything does have a greater clarity, a greater transparency, a greater delicacy of harmonics, than in the original DSD 256 release from 2015. The original has a bit greater bottom end "oomff" and a bit more impact on some tracks. And some may prefer this. But by comparison to the remaster, these now sound like artifacts to me. The remaster sounds so much truer to the sound of the instruments as I would expect to have heard them in the hall. There is simply a greater clarity, a finer delineation of the harmonic overtones, a bit cleaner definition of transients. I am delighted to have this now in my library.

So, congratulations to Bob and his team for this remaster. It is tremendously well done.

This stunning all-analog [recording] issued by Yarlung Records gathers five works for cello and piano by three Argentinian composers.

Included are Alberto Ginastera’s earthy, rhapsodic Second Pampeana and his elegiac, nocturnal Triste, along with Lalo Schifrin’s moody sumptuous Pampas and two urbane tango-fantasies by Astor Piazzola (these last two adding a bassist to make a dark-hued trio).

Cellist Antonio Lysy and pianist Bryan Pezzone play gorgeously and are gorgeously recorded, the sound immaculately clear and immediate, rich in tonal splendor, and revealing of the venue (Santa Monica’s The Broad Stage). The deeply resonant cello pizzicatos at the end of Schifrin’s Pampas ring off into air-filled space like starlight into infinity.