With classical music, I find the interpretation plays a huge role. Hearing a 1930’s recording of Toscanini conducting Beethoven’s 7th, or a 1960’s recording of Von Karajan conducting of the same or a 1980’s recording of Meta, the sonics are very different but so are the interpretations. I prefer the pace of Von Karajan but the DG recordings are a little flat compared to later recordings with better dynamics. I still pick the Von Karajan because I like his interpretation.
Recording as Artifact
The more I listen to classical music the more I feel as though the sound of the recording influences my opinion of a performance as much as the interpretation. The recording is an artifact of its own and necessarily should be judged as a total entity. Of course there are exceptions, such as horrid performances in great sound and visa versa. A legendary performance doesn’t have to have great sound to be appreciated. But other than that, generally I appreciate a recording as a combination of interpretation and sonics.
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Thank you so much for posting that expose of British HiFi from 1959! I would have been about 14, but we did not have TV so missed it. I would note that the MONITOR program went on to spawn one of Britain's best and most controversial filmmakers, Ken Russell. His MONITOR documentary on Elgar was the most popular TV program of the decade and is still available on DVD. I watch it at least once a year. My dad certainly fitted the mold, and I remember the thrill he got from pointing out the various valve factories around Cambridge, and getting exotic timbers to hand make cabinets. Hand-make because he had no power tools, not even an electric drill. The amount of physical exertion required to dress hardwood with hand planes is easily forgotten, but he made a corner reflex cabinet for 12" Tannoy dual concentric drivers just like the ones in the program. He even got me to design a console to house his Garrard 301 deck (as seen in the program). I now own and use the deck. So thanks for the memories |
Contrary to popular opinion regarding the ambiguity of accuracy in music reproduction, I have found a compelling way forward; one which underlines the fundamental importance of reproduction that is accurate to the live performance, the only cornerstone and datum one has in building an audio system. There will be many live performances we each will have attended, and more than a few of which would have found recorded production. These form the beginning of any kind of calibration regarding one’s system build; the more recordings of live performances one has attended that is discovered, the better. Large scale orchestral/symphonic pieces are the best, as massed strings, piano and the cacophony of grouped instruments in on a true live stage present the most nuanced and simultaneously powerful delivery of dynamics, timbre and subtlety of soundfield, and subsequently, the completeness of musical performance. This obviously does not preclude any other kind of live performance, as the greater the variety and number of attended live performances we are able to find recordings of, the better our ability to gauge those which correspond best to how we experienced them. Not many recorded tracks will sound accurate to those performances one has attended and remembered. A precious few will be outstanding and so very realistic, they will be remarkably close to our memory of what we had experienced in scale, timbre and dynamics, due to a number of factors; being one’s seated location; venue acoustics, spread of recording microphones; and skill of sound engineering; all in relation to each other. These few recordings form the basis of what one turns to whenever evaluating a fresh addition to one’s system, after which the invitation to other audiophiles is extended for their appraisal of the recorded tracks they have had privilege of having attended the live performance of, for further evaluation of our closest approximation to accuracy. This is not and has never been about a comparison to tracks we are familiar with, how banal and misleading that would be? It is about a critical test to those few live performances we have attended that have been recorded as closely as possible to what we remember. It may not be absolutely definitive, but it’s the closest to truth we have. Of course accuracy in audio reproduction exists. Finding the most accurate datum for that fundamental comparison is a vital part of what being an audiophile is all about, regardless of cost or what one is able to spend. Preference is the term given by those who are either too lazy to make the effort, too superficial to care for deeper understanding, cannot or do not want to afford more while claiming what they have is all they need, or are unable or too unfussed to want to hear a difference.
In friendship - kevin |
Good to see even lawyers can enjoy a Garrard 301! One of my picks for outstanding modern recording engineer is Morten Lindberg who founded the Norwegian label 2L.no, and has been nominated for many Grammy awards. Rather like Mercury's simple microphone layout before him, he uses a single microphone tree with multiple microphones, typically with the musicians arranged in a large circle around the tree. Most of his recordings deliver immersive sound, including height channels, and in my opinion are stunningly good. Morten notes that every recording is an illusion. I have just bought Deutsche Grammophon records of Mahler's Second Symphony recorded at the re-opening of the Sydney Opera House's main Concert Hall after its A$100-m refit, done mainly to improve the acoustics! Have not had a chance to play them yet, but I was there for the performance. The conductor Simone Young is very aware that what she hears from the podium is quite different from the overall sound delivered to the auditorium. She often gets the orchestra to play while she walks around the venue, in order to balance the instrumental sections. Morten's technique ensures that the recording captures approximately what the conductor hears, at least for chamber-sized ensembles. |
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