Check out the following:
1. Claudio Arrau: Chopin 21 Nocturnes
2. Helen Grimaud: The Messenger
3. Evgeny Kissin / James Levine: Schubert: Piano Music for Four Hands
4. Diana Krall: All For You (piano solo on Boulevard of Broken Dreams)
Most Realistic Recordings
I was recently listening to my daughter practice the piano and I was enjoying quite a full-body sonic experience. I later went to my system and picked out a few piano recordings that I suspected were recorded well, but as I listened, I just didn't have anything close to the same experience. The piano just didn't sound right, nor nearly as full as I had just experienced while listening to my daughter. I know what pianos sound and feel like. I grew up playing many different types and understand their differences. I've done some research on recording pianos and have learned they are particularly difficult to record well.
As I've delved deeper into this audio hobby/interest and acquired more respectable gear, the more general question that keeps coming to my mind is this: How did this music sound at the time it was recorded? (presuming it was a person playing an instrument, not something "mixed" or electronic). Meaning, if I had been in the room, would I have heard or felt the same? Or is there something about the recording setup/micing/mixing/etc. that has failed to capture the moment? Or has the audio engineer intentionally filtered some of that out?
Now, being an audiophile (i.e., a music lover) has many paths and many goals. For me, I love lots of different kinds of music and am not too caught up in the ever changing landscape of audio gear and the need to try something new. I hope to get to the point where a well-captured recording sounds realistic in my room on my system. I like full-spectrum sound (i.e., if the note/sound is in the track, I want to hear it). I know that accurate, realistic reproduction through any system is depends a great deal on the equipment and the room it's being played back in. I don't expect my system to give me that jaw-dropping "I'm there" experience (yet), but some day I hope to get there.
So, to my question above, I would very much love to hear if anyone feels they have heard an album, a track, a recording of some kind that could be used to test out the "realism" of one's system. What would you say is a recording that more accurately captured the sonic hologram of the moment it was performed. Any genre is ok. And if you think a particular studio/company does this well, I'd love to hear about it!
And, please, I don't want the conversation to about gear or room treatment. This is about the recording itself, the source material, and how accurately the entire moment is captured and preserved. I respect everyone's personal experiences with your system, whatever it's comprised of. So, please don't argue with each other about whether a recording didn't sound realistic to you when it sounded realistic to someone else. Let's be civil and kind, for how can you deny what someone else's ears have heard? Thank you! I'm excited to learn from you all!
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Thanks, @audphile1! Will do. |
Yeah, I have a piano and play it practically every day, but I still can't give you a definitive answer as to what recording best approaches the sound I hear "live." The major problem is that my piano sits in its own special, but quite small Piano Room and my stereo is in its own stereo room. It doesn't help that when I play the piano my ears are a mere two feet away from the sound board. Then, when I do go to a concert, the piano is often at least 25 to fifty feet away in a very large room. |
@edcyn, exactly. That seems to be a common challenge. And I don't mean this to be just about piano recordings. I'm interested in all kinds of live recordings, vocal, instrumental, solo, ensemble, etc. |
I was also going to bring this up. Do you want to hear a realistic sounding piano as if you are in the same room with it, Or a realistic piano as if you are in a small venue, or as if you are sitting 10 rows back in a concert hall? Lots of recordings on the ECM label have great sounding piano. Art Land and Rubisa Patrol - kind of a small venue feel Keith Jarratt - Koln Concerts - solo piano in the center of a big stage, as if from 10 rows back I could list many classical recordings with realistic piano, but my tastes tend toward the avant-garde, modernist, atonal side of things, so, YMMV. I just tend to avoid Deutsche Gramophone, They tend to record instruments too close up, and they end up sounding like way larger than they would at the concert hall. And if they are being played from your lap.
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