Yuja Wang

Rachmaninoff: the Piano Concertos & Paganini Rhapsody Yuja Wang Japan Import edition

To commemorate the 150th anniversary of Rachmaninoff's birth in 1923, pianist Yuja Wang performed all four of the composer's piano concertos as well as the Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini with the Los Angeles Philharmonic under the baton of Gustavo Dudamel, with whom Wang had already worked extensively. The sold-out and critically acclaimed performances took place at the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, the city where Rachmaninoff spent the last months of his life. The concertos were first released on Deutsche Grammophon and are now available in an audiophile pressing from Universal Japan.

UHQCD stands for Ultimate High Quality Compact Disc and is a joint development of the Japanese CD replication company Memory-Tech and the Audio Quality CD Company from Hong Kong. Unlike conventional CDs, UHQCDs are not pressed from polycarbonate, but cast from a photopolymer and cured with UV light. Another layer of high-purity polycarbonate is applied to the softer photopolymer for scratch protection. The combination results in significantly reduced reflection of laser light inside the CD and an unmatched precise edge transition between pits and lands of the CD. UHQCDs are 100% compatible with standard CD players. Musically, the result is a sound image strongly reminiscent of analog master tapes.

While Universal Music Japan's first UHQCD series relied on the DSD data of previous SHM-SACD releases, with increasing popularity, albums that had not previously been released as SHM-SACD are now appearing. Typically, the Universal Archive master tapes are re-converted to DSD for this purpose. UHQCDs are ideal for music lovers who want to get as close as possible to the sound of the recording, but do not own an SACD player.