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Discussion: Bartok: Concerto for Orchestra etc. - Zoltan Kocsis

Posts: 10

Post by Julien July 27, 2007 (1 of 10)
My comment is on the stereo version only.

This is I guess the finest performance I could imagine of these works, and this is also what I used to think of the recording. But the more I listen to it, the more I find the sound too perfect. The overall balance is excellent, but each instrument sounds too clear to be real. Absolutely beautiful though, just too much every instrument in your face, and this is somewhat not the reality of a live music experience. I'd be interested to know how many microphones and how much mixing were used.

Anyway, highly recommended. And this is the kind of recording that sounds amazing on cheap systems too for sure.

Post by Beagle July 27, 2007 (2 of 10)
Julien,

I've no idea how many microphones... But I got this as a 'modern update' for the ancient but belovéd Fritz Reiner version. The Kocsis disc is, as you say, very clear, very well along the path to perfection -- but listening to it made me want to go back to the soggy but warm sound of the 1955 version.

Such is the music-listening brain: desiring perfection but measuring it against nostalgia.... I wonder if this is the same emotional reaction which made several users here call the Gould Goldberg re-performance 'inhuman'? These Bartók pieces are too wonderful to have just one Ultimate Performance; like you I recommend this disc in spite of its perfection.

PS: I think we are all still in the process of "getting used to" higher fidelity....

Post by Julien July 27, 2007 (3 of 10)
This higher fidelity concept is a funny thing actually. When I was new to hi-fi I was always thinking of more detail being the better (that improvement you hear with new cables etc...). But actually more details can be simply more of everything (especially air, hall sound...), so that the inner details of the instruments are not so obvious. A bit like what many of us hear I guess when we find CD too "analytic".

I goes the same for recordings, and sometimes I cannot help but thinking how the technical choices for a recording are a hard task, because one really needs a good system, and possibly multichannel, to appreciate the ones that are the closest to a live experience.

A funny thing also, is how most musicians I know don't care about recreating a live performance, because they simply don't believe you can come close, but how they focus on what can be better than a concert, a way to give back everything the live experience doesn't give them. They see live as "not good enough".

Actually the recent Brahms double concerto release from Pentatone (Fischer-Muller-Schott) is very interesting to me, because it has been criticized by some, and I would say it is just because it is such a good recording, so close to the imperfections of a live performance that we so-called audiophiles (supposed to want live music from our speakers) cannot take that much. The microphones are far, which means not much of close details but incredible hall sound experience. In the Bartok recording of this thread, the attacks of each instrument are clear and fast. In the Pentatone Brahms, it is one of the rare times that in a stereo recording I hear truly the inertia from the attacks in the violin sections of the orchestra, that is a normal thing we are not used to in a recording, because there always are some closer mikes in the mixing to give the strings some more "punch". In other words the Brahms could be the closest to live recording there is out there!
Listen to the balance between the soloists and the orchestra at the beginning (I suspect they augmented the volume of the soloists after the second entrance), it is just right if you speak of a concert. They sound small compared to the orchestra and far away, like in a concert. But I've never heard that in a recording, at least stereo.

(I will copy these comments to the Brahms thread, and if anyone wants to discuss the brahms I suggest we do it on its own discussion thread)

Maybe what we all want is the best from a live experience, but too much fidelity gives us what's not that good either, so maybe we all want to compensate the fact of not being there breathing live air with some new air that's better than live.

Post by terence July 31, 2007 (4 of 10)
Julien said:

....but each instrument sounds too clear to be real.... just too much every instrument in your face, and this is somewhat not the reality of a live music experience.

i found the same with the MC layer - an unpleasantly unrealistic listening experience. i sold my copy.

Post by Beagle July 31, 2007 (5 of 10)
terence said: i sold my copy.
By chance, I listened to this disc again last night. This will never be my favourite recording, but hey! I wanted higher-fidelity and I got it, so I'm not selling my copy.

Julien speaks of "the reality of a live music experience", presumably from the audience's viewpoint. My own criterion would be how listenable a disc is, back in my own living-room (circa 12 x 30 feet). I expect recording engineers to utilise higher-fidelity in order to create discs which are pleasing to listen to at home, with spatial and timbral detail -- and enough dynamics to suit the composition (I enjoy a bit of brass section, but I would not buy a recording miked from the viewpoint of the musician who sits in front of the trumpets).

Post by Windsurfer July 31, 2007 (6 of 10)
Beagle said:

I would not buy a recording miked from the viewpoint of the musician who sits in front of the trumpets).

Can you imagine playing bassoon in an orchestra? Depending on the orchestra, one's head must be almost in the bell of a trombone!

Post by Julien July 31, 2007 (7 of 10)
Some of the instruments are just terrible for the ears. Many trumpet or picolo players in an orchestra have lost about 50% hearing capabilities by age 50. And sometimes people who sit in front of them. I wouldn't want to be the violonist that sits always in fornt of the picolo... (luckily they always keep moving)

Post by Julien July 31, 2007 (8 of 10)
Some of the instruments are just terrible for the ears. Many trumpet or picolo players in an orchestra have lost about 50% hearing capabilities by age 50. And sometimes people who sit in front of them. I wouldn't want to be the violonist that sits always in front of the picolo... (luckily they always keep moving)

Post by Beagle July 31, 2007 (9 of 10)
Julien said: Many trumpet or picolo players in an orchestra have lost about 50% hearing capabilities by age 50...
Maybe that's why they are forced to retire before age 100?

Post by Julien July 31, 2007 (10 of 10)
Beagle said:

Maybe that's why they are forced to retire before age 100?

Yeah! How did you know...

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