The 1979 New Year’s Day Concert in Vienna proved to be a watershed moment both musically and technically. It was both the end of an era for Willi Boskovsky, the Wiener Philharmoniker’s longstanding concertmaster, and the dawn of a new age in recording technology. Long fêted as Decca’s first digitally recorded release, recent research has unearthed a set of ¼-inch two-track analogue safety masters which have remained undisturbed in Universal Music’s vaults for almost half a century – until today.

Decca had made a huge investment in the new digital technology and with this at stake, it wasn’t just precautionary to run trusted analogue machines in parallel with digital, it was essential. This dual approach was used throughout the late 1970s and into the early 1980s. Decca was not alone. Most famously, perhaps, the 1981 Glenn Gould Goldberg Variations was recorded by CBS both digitally and in analogue. Indeed, since the 2002 State of Wonder reissue, the analogue tapes have always been preferred.

“This is a riotous issue … This is truly a demonstration record in every way.” – Gramophone, 1979