NAGRA 75th Anniversary Collection UHQCD

NAGRA: 75th Anniversary Collection Album

A celebration of performance, precision and musical heritage

Few names in recorded sound carry the history of Nagra. Its 75th Anniversary Collection Album brings that heritage into focus through a programme of jazz, orchestral music and intimate acoustic performances, presented here in a Japanese-manufactured UHQCD edition from 2xHD.

The collection’s appeal begins with its musical choices. Bill Evans’s These Foolish Things opens the programme, followed by Sonny Rollins’s Blue Room and Emilie-Claire Barlow’s La belle dame sans regrets. Piano, saxophone and voice provide three contrasting starting points for exploring phrasing, instrumental character and the relationship between a performer and the surrounding acoustic.

The Montreux selections featuring Miles Davis and Quincy Jones add a different dimension: the historical significance of their collaboration and the atmosphere of a live event. The spoken introduction remains part of that story, leading into Boplicity and The Maids of Cadiz.

From there, the programme broadens. Stade’s Château de Chillon and the Jazz Ensemble’s The Pink Panther sit alongside John Williams’s Raiders March and Hedwig’s Theme, performed by Orchestre FILMharmonique under Francis Choinière. These contrasting selections invite attention to ensemble scale, rhythmic interplay and orchestral colour.

The closing works bring smaller instrumental combinations and sacred vocal music into the collection. Mathieu Désy’s Bend, the introduction to Théodore Dubois’s Les sept paroles du Christ, Saint-Saëns’s The Swan and David Jacques’s interpretation of Piazzolla’s Oblivion give the programme a thoughtful progression beyond its familiar jazz names.

The recording details matter

The accompanying booklet offers more than a list of performers. It identifies recording equipment and microphone arrangements for several selections, giving listeners useful context for the different approaches represented.

The FILMharmonique recordings are credited to René Laflamme using two battery-powered Neumann M50 tube omnidirectional microphones. Other tracks document Nagra IV-S, Nagra VI and Nagra-T recording equipment, with microphone configurations ranging from a Schoeps cardioid pair to a single Josephson 700S.

Editing and mastering are credited to René Laflamme at the 2xHD Mastering Lab using Nagra equipment. These details make the album particularly interesting for listeners who value recording provenance alongside the performances themselves.

The UHQCD Edition

Manufactured in Japan, UHQCD uses a photopolymer process to reproduce the disc’s microscopic pit structure. It conforms to the audio CD specification and plays on conventional CD players. Its distinction lies in disc manufacturing; the DXD designation on the packaging should not be read as the playback resolution of the CD itself.

The silver-alloy presentation and substantial illustrated packaging give this edition a suitably considered physical identity. Any judgement about audible improvements, however, deserves a listening comparison rather than an assumption based on the format name.

Editorial perspective

The strongest reason to explore this collection is its combination of musical variety and documented recording practice. It offers an opportunity to move between celebrated jazz performances, cinematic orchestration and smaller acoustic settings while considering how each recording preserves its own musical character.

For Nagra enthusiasts and collectors of carefully presented audiophile releases, this is an anniversary programme with substance: music, recording history and production craft brought together in one edition.

UHQ-CD Edition details

Various Artists — Nagra: 75th Anniversary Collection Album
Label: 2xHD / Fidelio Technologies, Canada
Catalogue number: 2XHDFT-C1304
Format: UHQCD · Stereo · Compilation
Manufacture: Made in Japan
Release date: October 2026 — to be confirmed

Track list:

1. Bill Evans — These Foolish Things — 4:15
2. Sonny Rollins — Blue Room — 4:49
3. Emilie-Claire Barlow — La belle dame sans regrets — 4:03
4. Miles Davis & Quincy Jones — Introduction by Claude Nobs and Quincy Jones — 1:21
5. Miles Davis & Quincy Jones — Boplicity — 3:36
6. Miles Davis & Quincy Jones — The Maids of Cadiz — 3:37
7. Stade — Château de Chillon — 3:39
8. Jazz Ensemble — The Pink Panther — 4:04
9. Orchestre FILMharmonique, Francis Choinière — Raiders March — 5:37
10. Orchestre FILMharmonique, Francis Choinière — Hedwig’s Theme — 5:07
11. Mathieu Désy — Bend — 4:27
12. Monique Pagé & Chœur Radio Ville-Marie — Les sept paroles du Christ: Introduction — 5:46
13. Stéphane Tétreault, Noémie Raymond & Valérie Milot — The Swan — 3:06
14. David Jacques — Oblivion — 2:15

Co-production: Audio Technology Switzerland, Pascal Mauroux, and Fidelio Technologies, René Laflamme & André Perry.

Producers: René Laflamme and Matthieu Latour.
Editing and mastering: René Laflamme, 2xHD Mastering Lab, using Nagra equipment.

Which selection would you play first and what do you listen for when assessing a carefully mastered recording?

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