John Williams

John Williams Live in Vienna Special, Japan Import edition

Legendary American film composer John Williams conducted the Vienna Philharmonic for the first time in January 2020. This recording documents the historic performance and has been supplemented for the Special Edition with three additional titles that he recorded in March 2022 at the same venue with the same orchestra.

Symphonic Hollywood sounds resounded on the stage of the Vienna Musikverein. The world-renowned orchestra played cult themes from Star Wars, Harry Potter, Indiana Jones, Jurassic Park and other milestones of film history. The star guest was Anne-Sophie Mutter with adaptations for violin arranged especially for her by Williams.

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.