Decca Classics is thrilled to announce that the label have taken home the Gramophone Spatial Audio Award for the Dolby Atmos restoration of Sir Georg Solti’s recording of Wagner’s Die Walküre at this year’s Gramophone Classical Music Awards 2023. It is often considered one of the greatest studio recordings ever made, and now expertly restored for the 21st century by Label Director Dominic Fyfe and Sound Engineer Philip Siney. To receive the award, Gabrielle Solti, the daughter of the conductor was here in person at the De Vere Grand Connaught Rooms in London’s Covent Garden and has graciously accepted the prize on behalf of the production. She spoke about how her father would have been proud: “I’m sure he is looking down on us… He would be so thrilled to see the new talent that’s out there and how the recording industry is still so vibrant.”

Label Director Dominic Fyfe and Gabrielle Solti

Label director Dominic Fayfe says: “We are honoured to have Gabrielle Solti receive the award for her father’s legendary recording of Wagner’s Ring Cycle. It is still the most honoured classical recording in history and Gramophone’s Spatial Audio Award comes some 65 years after the project first started in Vienna in 1958”.

This recording has been meticulously saved and restored to its original glory, in honour of the legendary conductor. The remastering of the original recording for Dolby Atmos, a spatial audio technology that faithfully reproduces a multi-dimensional sound, is in line with the visionary approach of the original producer, John Culshaw, who aimed to create a “theatre of the mind.” This remastered version offers a completely immersive listening experience, transporting the audience back in time as if they were present during the original recording.