What classical music you listening to, luv?

S Clark · « **Reply #1060 on:** 3 Apr 2014, 08:23 pm »

Although I agree that you can move toward or back from the stage with the volume control, my experience is that it doesn't change the ambience of the recording hall. A piece recorded very close to the piano (Yarlung records "Evening conversations") is what you hear if you were at the keyboard, loud or soft. Earl Wild on Chesky and the Rachmaninoff 2nd concerto is miked way too far from the piano, IMO. Crank the volume, and it still sounds like a piano on a distant stage, just loud. The old Mercury Living Presence got the balance right most of the time. So did many of the RCA engineers, especially Wilkerson and Layton. In their best recordings, the hall makes an important contribution to the sound of the recording. Is it volume sensitive? To a degree, but turning up the volume doesn't always put you next to the first chair violin. The "Phase 4" recordings took this to the extreme, placing microphones next to every soloist or lead instrument. It's dynamic, but is it what an orchestra sounds like in a particular hall? Not especially.

jimdgoulding · « **Reply #1061 on:** 3 Apr 2014, 09:17 pm »

Yeah, but Scott, your speakers are 12' tall! And couldn't we play tennis in that room of yours

? My speakers are point sources and in a wee room

. Didn't mean to say my experience is universal. Perdoneme.

steve in jersey · « **Reply #1062 on:** 3 Apr 2014, 10:49 pm »

Ok Jim, I'm going to try this again (I'll eventually get what I'm trying to describe across,I hope)

I thought I had forgotten to add the word "not" in one of those sentences, would in effect makes me sound like
I'm contradicting what I'd just mentioned in the sentence before.

It's not really a matter of be able to hear "more" it's more a matter of being able to listen further into a "3d"
like "soundscape" of what going on "on stage". This one of the "magic tricks" that the RCA Living Stereo
production team of Layton & Mohr pull off over 60 years that still blows my mind today. If you choose to go for
this kind of very dynamic & lush detail you will have to sacrifice some of the "air" that is being created by the
decibels of sound pressure being sent into the hall by the entire orchestra as a whole . A simplification of this would be to say if you want to emphasize something small amidst some much bigger you have to have some
way to interrupt the constant effect the bigger thing is having.

I have no real lack of Orchestal recordings that I enjoy listening to among my collection . I'll stand by what I've been saying though I really don't have to play the adjust the volume game to "fix" recoding technique deficiencies if I do that label may not see me again for a while.

While I'm on the subject of Labels . I came across a really nicely recorded piece of music on of all place the
Grammaphone Magazine free CD-R they used to stick on the front in a plastic sleeve. The piece was from a small Polish (I think) label call Dux . The 4 or 5 recording on this label I've gotten from Archiv Music have been very nice.
sounding

Oh, one other thing . I have'nt listened to music through loud speakers for some time now since I moved a few years back & it really is a crime that I'm not listening to a pretty nice pair of Magneplanar 2.7QR speakers.
My music front end equipment along with a few $K of power filtration (& if you listen to digital & are a musical detail fanatic you need to lower your systems noise floor by very significant amount to really hear fine detail; or have any chance of getting sound closer to analog) is quite a bit better sounding then was when I last listened through them. I'm listening to music through my DHC cabled Hifiman HE 6 planar headphones.(which I'll be re headbanding with the Audeze headband assembly; I don't know what Fang was thinking when he came up w/ the headband for the HE HPs but he should have thought a bit longer)

S Clark · « **Reply #1063 on:** 3 Apr 2014, 11:18 pm »

Quote from: jimdgoulding on 3 Apr 2014, 09:17 pm

Yeah, but Scott, your speakers are 12' tall! And couldn't we play tennis in that room of yours ? My speakers are point sources and in a wee room . Didn't mean to say my experience is universal. Perdoneme.

Very true ,Jim! Your room is dialed in so well, you may get ambience clues that less symmetrical rooms may not pick up.

jimdgoulding · « **Reply #1064 on:** 15 Apr 2014, 02:49 am »

etcarroll · « **Reply #1065 on:** 18 Apr 2014, 10:05 pm »

Corelli Concerti Grossi, Op. 6
The Academy Of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, Directed by Neville Marriner
Label: Argo Records ‎– ZRG 773-5
Format: 3 × Vinyl, LP, Box
Country: UK
Released: 1974

Leading into a peaceful weekend.

etcarroll · « **Reply #1066 on:** 18 Apr 2014, 11:09 pm »

Vivaldi ‎– Le Quattro Stagioni: - Roberto Michelucci / I Musici
Label: Philips ‎– 6500 017
Format: Vinyl
Country: Netherlands
Released: 1977

As Winter gives way to Spring...

simoon · « **Reply #1067 on:** 18 Apr 2014, 11:23 pm »

One of the masterworks of the early 20th century.

Bartok - Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta

Vinyl - Deutsche Grammaphone.

Seiji Ozawa conducting the Boston Phil.

etcarroll · « **Reply #1068 on:** 19 Apr 2014, 06:19 pm »

Rubinstein*, Chopin* ‎– Polonaises And Impromptus
Label: RCA ‎– LSC-7037
Format: 2 × Vinyl, Stereo
Country: UK

S Clark · « **Reply #1069 on:** 22 Apr 2014, 04:29 am »

Mendelssohn's Piano Conc. in A Min w/Cyprien Katsaris
This in on Musical Heritage Society, of which I'm not a big fan usually, but this is a Teldec pressing and is using direct metal mastering. Very alive, dynamic, and resonant- a nearly great recording. Get it if you see it.

etcarroll · « **Reply #1070 on:** 24 Apr 2014, 08:55 pm »

Still my favorite version of Symphony No.3

Quote from: etcarroll on 19 Jan 2010, 05:56 pm

As I begin my immersion in Classical, I've already found this to be a favorite. I also bought the rest of the Klemperer - Beethoven Legacy series.

The Klemperer Legacy: Beethoven Symphony No.3 ("Eroica"); Grosse Fuge [ORIGINAL RECORDING REMASTERED]

etcarroll · « **Reply #1071 on:** 25 Apr 2014, 02:40 am »

Beethoven* / Otto Klemperer, The Philharmonia Orchestra ‎– Symphony No. 5

S Clark · « **Reply #1072 on:** 29 Apr 2014, 04:36 am »

Byron Janis w/Kondrashin and the Moscow Phil. O. on Mercury MG50300. I've got a copy or two of this in stereo, but found a mono copy to compare. These early pressing Living Presence lps in mono have fantastic clarity and dynamics.

jimdgoulding · « **Reply #1073 on:** 29 Apr 2014, 04:55 am »

Scott, I was over at a friend's house today with ADS 5 driver tower speakers in a big room driven by CJ gear and listened to Elgar's Enigma Variations with Monteux conducting the LSO on RCA. Dude, if I can get my behind up to your house you're in for a treat if you don't have it already. Those speakers of yours will be called upon and I would like to be there for it. Thank you, brother, for your visit to my rather small brothel of a hall. I really, really want to visit yours.

S Clark · « **Reply #1074 on:** 29 Apr 2014, 05:12 am »

Quote from: jimdgoulding on 29 Apr 2014, 04:55 am

Scott, I was over at a friend's house today with ADS 5 driver tower speakers in a big room driven by CJ gear and listened to Elgar's Enigma Variations with Monteux conducting the LSO on RCA. Dude, if I can get my behind up to your house you're in for a treat if you don't have it already. Those speakers of yours will be called upon and I would like to be there for it. Thank you, brother, for your visit to my rather small brothel of a hall. I really, really want to visit yours.

Come on up. As a matter of fact, I'm baching it this week with the wife back next Mon. Fix some steaks, drink a brew, spins some tunes.

jimdgoulding · « **Reply #1075 on:** 29 Apr 2014, 05:24 am »

Quote from: S Clark on 29 Apr 2014, 05:12 am

Come on up. As a matter of fact, I'm baching it this week with the wife back next Mon. Fix some steaks, drink a brew, spins some tunes.

Man o man, I really want to. Airfare is obscene so I guess I'm left with driving. I guess I could listen to my "Speak Spanish in 30 days" CD's all the way- might not need 30 days- but the drive is daunting none the less. I know, I'll get a bag of weed and coast all the way there.

jimdgoulding · « **Reply #1076 on:** 30 Apr 2014, 09:47 pm »

Seriously, thanks for the invite, Scott. I jus dunno, yet. My mind wants to, but my body is another story.

S Clark · « **Reply #1077 on:** 2 May 2014, 10:08 pm »

Found a 4 lp set called "Alicia de Larrocha- Pianist" the other day for $2 on Book of the Month Club label...hmmm??? Got it home to find that they are London/Decca recordings of very good quality. Mozart, Bach, Busoni, Mendelssohn, Schumann, Albeniz, Granados, Falla, Faure, Greig, Chopin, Franck... some famous bits, some obscure. I thought I knew every note Chopin had written..."Berceuse in D flat"??? which sounds more French impressionist- was Eric Satie/Claude Debussey inspired by this 80 years later? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9m-5YdBdXo
The Mendelsohnn variations are a virtuoso workout with every note singing like Horowitz at his prime. Very well recorded with the bass of the Steinway resonating with full force. Ms. de Larrocha should be listed with the best of the 20th century.

rockadanny · « **Reply #1078 on:** 7 May 2014, 08:26 pm »

S Clark · « **Reply #1079 on:** 13 May 2014, 02:33 am »

Clifford Curzon from a 1950 performance with George Szell in Kingsway Hall in London. This is a fine interpretation by Curzon of the famous Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto #1. Although a great pianist, excellent venue, more than competent director, these late 40's and early 50's recordings are often just a bit dull sounding. London LLP276