Mendelssohn: Violin Concertos (CD review)

Also, Violin Sonata
in F minor. Tianwa Yang, violin; Romain Descharmes, piano; Patrick Gallois,
Sinfonia Finlandia Jyvaskyla. Naxos 8.572662.

Because there’s a rule in the music industry that all
violinists must record the Beethoven, Brahms, Violin Concerto in E minor. At Amazon I quit counting at a hundred, and I had quite
a ways to go. The point is that somebody looking for a first-choice disc or
just something to line up on the shelf next to a few first-choice discs may
find the assortment of possibilities rather daunting. And the question here is,
How does violinist Tianwa Yang’s interpretation, Maestro Patrick Gallois’s
conducting, the Sinfonia Finlandia’ playing, and Naxos’s sound stack up against
formidable competition from the likes of Perlman (EMI), Heifetz (RCA), Zukerman
(Sony),  Szeryng (Philips), Chung
(Decca), Chee-Yun (Denon), and a slew of other equally recommendable folks? The
answer: Ms. Yang does all right, if maybe not quite in the highest echelon.

Mendelssohn, Mozart, and
Tchaikovsky violin concertos at least once in their lifetime, the listener will
find perhaps hundreds of different recordings of the Mendelssohn

The still-youthful Ms. Yang, raised in China and now
residing in Germany, began playing the violin in 1991 at the age of four,
received her first media attention at the age of ten, made her first CD in 2000
at the age of thirteen, and debuted on stage in Europe in 2001. The present Mendelssohn
disc makes the eighth album in her discography, so she’s not exactly a
newcomer, and she does know what she’s doing.

Ms. Yang opens the show with the Violin Concerto in E minor, Op. 64, which Felix Mendelssohn
(1809-1847) premiered in 1845, his last large orchestral work. Audiences pretty
much loved it from the outset, and it’s been one of the most-popular staples of
the violin repertoire ever since. The violin enters immediately, without
introduction or fanfare, and Yang takes it head-on. Indeed, she takes all three
movements at a heady clip, outpacing all of the other recording artists I had
on hand for comparison except Heifetz, who sprints to the finish line ahead of
everyone. Not that Yang’s performance ever sounds winded or short-breathed, just
quick and lively.

Anyway, Yang has a good grasp of the situation, producing
a heady combination of excitement and passion in the faster sections and much
beauty in the slower ones. She obviously possesses a remarkable technique, and
she displays her virtuosity at every turn. Moreover, while her propensity is
for lively rhythms and zippy tempos, she leaves enough spaces in her phrasing
to allow the music to breathe freely and come alive. This isn’t a rush job but
one of accomplished dexterity in the manner of Heifetz.

The second movement glides effortlessly by with a lovely
luminosity. Then the finale exudes all the light, bouncy spirit one could hope
for, if maybe a little too much for some traditional listeners.

Mendelssohn was only thirteen when he wrote the Violin Concerto in D minor, leading some
critics to dismiss it out of hand. Nevertheless, it has its charms, not the
least being its characteristically classical tone and structure and its
slightly plaintive, sometimes melancholy solo passages. Yang continues her
emotionally compelling reading in an effective Andante and a jaunty Allegro
conclusion. 

The final selection on the disc is the Violin Sonata in F minor from 1833 in
which pianist Romain Descharmes joins Ms. Yang. While neither of the disc’s
companion pieces can touch the great Violin
Concerto in E minor, they offer pleasant variety and accomplished playing,
particularly in the Sonata’s
whirlwind finish.

Naxos recorded the two concertos in 2010 at Hankasalmi
Church, Jyvaskyla, Finland, and the sonata in 2011 at Clara-Wieck Auditorium,
Sandhausen, Germany. They obtained a nicely balanced sound, the violin well
integrated with the orchestra and not completely dominating it as we sometimes
hear. The midrange appears clean, the bass adequate to the occasion, and the
dynamics steady. Maybe the sonics aren’t in the highest ranks of audiophile
stardom, but along with a moderate degree of orchestral depth, they exhibit a
welcome realism.

To hear a brief excerpt from this album, click here:

JJP

Declarations: Music Between the Wars (CD review)

Chamber works by Leos Janacek, Ruth Crawford Seeger, and Paul
Hindemith. Pacifica Quartet. Cedille CDR 900000 092.

I admit I find it
hard to concentrate for any amount of time on much twentieth-century chamber
music.

Largely, this is due to my having the attention span of a gnat; partly,
it’s because I often find the music repetitious and unengaging. But I must also
admit I found the three pieces on this Cedille album fascinating and appealing,
particularly in the hands of the Pacifica Quartet, fascinating and appealing
enough to keep me seated between the speakers for over an hour.

The three composers
involved are roughly contemporaneous, the works coming from the period as the
title says “Between the Wars.” Certainly, the First World War changed the
entire world in general as well as the world of music. Mainly gone was the
lush, lyrical Romanticism of the nineteenth century, replaced by the more daring,
more experimental, sometimes atonal, sometimes disharmonic music of the
twentieth. The Janacek, Seeger, and Hindemith pieces come from a period less
than a decade apart, from 1922 to 1931, and they reflect a new age.

Of the three works,
the opening one, Janacek’s String Quartet
No. 2 from 1928, is the most traditional. Called “Intimate Letters,” its
four movements convey the composer’s feelings toward a loved one in his life,
an affair beyond his marriage that he may or may not have consummated but
according to his letters was apparently quite intense. The music alternates
between strong, dramatic emotion, tranquil contemplation, and not a little
melanchoy, some changes of moods occurring within seconds, which the Pacifica
Quartet are quick to relay to the listener.

The Seeger piece
from 1931 that follows, simply called String
Quartet, is more atmospheric and moody, most of it sounding eerily sinister
in its minimalist tone. The final work, Paul Hindemith’s String Quartet No. 4 is the earliest of the compositions, premiered
in 1922, and it is perhaps the most unconventional of the trio in that it can
sound both modern and Romantic by turns; but, ironically, it is also the freer
in its composer’s flowing, unscheduled, yet strict musical notations.

The Pacifica
Quartet--Brandon Vamos, Simin Ganatra, Masumi Per Rostad, and Sibbi
Bernhardsson--play with a welcome finesse and intense enthusiasm. And the
Cedille engineers--Judith Sherman and Bill Maylone--capture the sound quite
realistically, with a strong sense of presence and without a trace of
forwardness. For fans of chamber music or for folks looking toward something a
little different, Declarations makes
an arresting listen.

To hear a brief excerpt from this album, click here:

JJP

Falla: El Amor Brujo (HQCD review)

Also, Nights in the
Gardens of Spain. Amarito Peris de Pruliere, mezzo-soprano; Yvonne Loriod,
piano; Manuel Rosenthal, Orchestre du Theatre National de L’opera de Paris. High
Definition Tape Transfers.

Whenever I see or hear the name of French composer and
conductor Manuel Rosenthal (1904-2003), I Gaîté
Parisienne Rosenthal put together in 1938 from bits and pieces of
Offenbach’s works. I also think of the several recordings Rosenthal made of the
ballet, especially the one he did for EMI late in his life. But I don’t think
of things like El Amor Brujo or Nights in the Gardens of Spain by Manuel
de Falla (1876-1946), the two numbers we get on this remastered HDTT (High
Definition Tape Transfers) HQCD. Rosenthal recorded the music in the late
1950’s for Westminster, and HDTT took the present copy from a Westminster
4-track tape. I had never heard the recording before, and I don’t believe
Westminster or anybody else ever released it on CD until HDTT came along. Since
both the performances and sound are worth hearing, one might view the HDTT disc
as something of a godsend.

think immediately of Jacque Offenbach
and the celebrated ballet score

First up is El Amor Brujo
(“Love, the Magician”), the rather grim tale of a dead, unfaithful husband
haunting his former wife and her new lover. The woman’s gypsy friends help her
get rid of the ghost through a “Ritual Fire Dance.” Falla presents the story as
a pantomime divided into three major parts for mezzo-soprano and orchestra,
thirteen sections in all, each with its own track on the disc.

Rosenthal had a good feeling for the idiom, catching most
of the color, excitement, and romanticism of the music. He maintains a strong
rhythmic pulse throughout, yet never pushes the tempos or contrasts too far in
any direction. He also brings out the rich textures in Falla’s tunes as well as
almost anybody. There were times, it’s true, when I thought Carlo Maria Giulini
in his justly praised EMI recording with the Philharmonia Orchestra sounded a
touch warmer and more loving, but Rosenthal seems a degree more thrilling,
making Giulini appear a little too refined. Regardless, it’s close.

If anything, Rosenthal’s way with Nights in the Gardens of Spain is even more compelling, or maybe I
just like the music more. Here, Falla created a set of three nocturnes for
piano and orchestra, each of them depicting a Spanish garden, the music
characterizing the type of flora found there. This is some of the most
descriptive, evocative music ever written, taking its cue from Debussy as much
as anyone. Falla wrote a sumptuous score, and Rosenthal and Westminster did it
full justice.

Westminster originally released the recording in 1959, and
HDTT remastered it, as I said, from a 4-track tape. It sounds quite fine in its
newly minted form, as we expect from this source. Burning the recording to an
HQCD no doubt helps to retain most of the remastering’s luster. The highs are a
tad brighter than I expected but quite realistic in their definition and
transient response. The midrange is smooth, natural, and transparent. Bass
shows up commendably taut and no doubt represents what Westminster initially
captured. Orchestral depth is moderate, and Ms. De Pruliere’s voice seems
appropriately lifelike. Although the miking places the piano in Nights a bit forward, it’s OK because it
sounds so brilliantly crisp. Most of all, though, the dynamic range is wide,
and the impact is impressive. I liked it a lot.

To hear a brief excerpt from this album, click here:

For further information about the various formats,
configurations, and prices of HDTT products, you can visit their Web site at
http://www.highdeftapetransfers.com/storefront.php.

JJP

Raff: Symphony No. 2 (SACD review)

Also, Four
Shakespeare Preludes. Neeme Jarvi, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande. Chandos CHSA
5117.

Here’s another of those composers who was popular in his
own day but whose music people forgot once he passed. The Swiss-German
composer, teacher, and pianist Joachim Raff (1822-1882) seems to have been more
influential than he was enduring, having a greater impact on future classical
composers than on his future public. He wrote quite a lot, too: eleven
symphonies, nine concertos, and a slew of other things--operas, suites,
overtures, preludes, and chamber works--some of it descriptive, much of it
Romantic. Whatever, Maestro Neeme Jarvi and the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande provide
a well-rounded overview of the man’s orchestral output, and, who knows, perhaps
if enough people hear Raff’s music, the fellow will come back into vogue. There
are certainly enough recordings of his work to earn him a top spot again, so at
least some conductors still like him.

Raff wrote his Second
Symphony in 1866, and it begins with an opening that resembles something by
Sibelius, though long before Sibelius, with touches of Wagner and the future
Richard Strauss thrown in. I had never heard the work before, so I trust that
Jarvi knows what he’s doing. The initial Allegro
has a wonderfully rippling gait, warmly melodious and rhythmic. It’s
essentially sunny music, energetic at times, with a welcome ebb and flow.

There follows a slow movement of both grandeur and grace,
beginning with a hymn-like motif of refined beauty. It proceeds to get more
dramatic as it goes along but quickly returns to a pastoral calmness. Jarvi
appears to give it full due.

The third movement scherzo is a rather blustery affair,
which apparently Jarvi does his best to modulate. By around the two or
three-minute mark, it settles into a far more lyrical mood before returning to
its tempestuous roots.

In contrast to the preceding movement, the finale starts
very slowly and builds up to a lively, almost frenzied middle section, with
Jarvi and his players hanging on for dear life. It’s all rather spirited, if
somewhat disjointed. While the music has much to offer in bits and pieces, one
can see why it didn’t remain in the public’s fancy. Maybe Jarvi’s recording
will win it some new friends.

The companion works on the disc are four orchestral
preludes Raff wrote in 1879, overtures to Shakespeare plays although not really
programmatic. We hear the preludes to The
Tempest, Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, and Othello, each piece lasting from eight
to fourteen minutes. Rather than actual tone poems, they are more like little
atmospheric pieces describing moods and characters in the plays, sometimes
filled with sound and fury but signifying little. Still, Jarvi has a way with
them that makes them fun, especially Macbeth,
with its Mendelssohnian overtones. I admit I enjoyed these little preludes more
than I did the symphony.

Chandos used their new 24-bit/96kHz technology to record
the music in multichannel SACD, although as with most such discs, this one is a
hybrid. So you can listen in 5.0 multichannel SACD, 2.0 SACD, or 2.0 CD, the
latter from a regular CD player. I listened mostly in 2.0 SACD, which provided
a pleasantly full and dynamic sound.

Using Victoria Hall, Geneva, Switzerland as their
recording venue in 2012, Chandos obtained, as I say, a pleasing if not
extraordinary product. The highs seem a bit hard and fizzy on occasion;
otherwise, the recording projects a widespread, well-balanced, well-orderer
sound, with moderate depth and a smooth overall response. The SACD layer
appears to have more impact than the regular CD layer and at times can be quite
thrilling.

To hear a brief excerpt from this album, click here:

JJP

Mendelssohn: String Quartet No. 2 in A minor (CD review)

Also, Theme and
Variations, Scherzo, Capriccio, Fugue; Schubert: Quartet Movement in C minor,
D703. Quartetto di Roma. La Bottega Discantica 225.

One cannot judge any group of performers merely on how
precisely they play together or even on how virtuosic they can be; one must
also take into account how expressively they respond to one another, how well
the separate voices combine and interact. In all of these regards, the
Quartetto di Roma, founded in 1995, succeed well. The group’s members--Marco
Fiorini and Biancamaria Rapaccini, violins; Davide Toso, viola; and Alessandra
Montani, cello--say their desire is to continue the distinguished Italian quartet
tradition.

The players begin the album with Felix Mendelssohn’s String Quartet No. 2 in A minor, Op. 13,
which the composer wrote in his youth, beginning it around 1827 and completing
it in 1832. He said he wrote it in tribute to the death of Beethoven and based
it on a song he had recently written. The Quartet
No. 2 may be an early work, but it is mature in tone, and the Quartetto
perform it with a warm, easygoing grace.

The first movement comes off as particularly captivating
in the Quartetto’s hands, lyrical and flowing. They handle the slow,
second-movement Adagio non lento,
eloquently. The Intermezzo seems
appropriately serious though not quite as cheery or as folklike as I’ve heard
it done. And the Presto finale
strikes me as appropriately melodic, intense, and serene.

The interaction among the Quartettto di Roma members
appears cultivated by years of association and offers the listener a polished,
harmonious presentation. Their playing sounds relaxed in a cultured, civilized
manner, making for easy and obviously pleasurable listening.

By coincidence, not long before my listening to the
present album, I listened to and reviewed another recent recording of
Mendelssohn’s String Quartet No. 2,
one by Quatuor Ebene on Virgin Classics. I won’t try to play favorites here or
steer you to one or the other disc, but I will say the two performances are
somewhat different in style and sound. The Quartetto di Roma appear smoother
and more refined, Quatuor Ebene more robust and individualistic, with a tad cleaner
recording. Which rendition you prefer may depend on what mood you’re in.

Filling out the Quartetto di Roma disc are several more,
shorter chamber pieces by Mendelssohn and the single-movement Quartet in C minor by Franz Schubert.
Mendelssohn’s Theme and Variations,
Scherzo, Capriccio, and Fugue
date from a period spanning about twenty years, but Mendelssohn’s publisher
collected and released them under the single opus number 81. They are all
delightful, of course, especially the unfinished Schubert movement and the Scherzo with its similarities to A Midsummer Night’s Dream, yet I would
have preferred another single, longer work instead, another quartet perhaps. As
it is, the disc contains less than an hour of music.

Discantica chose to record the music in 2009 at the Church
of San Sebastiano al Palatino, originally a tenth-century basilica dedicated to
Saint Sebastian, rebuilt in the seventeenth century and located on Rome’s
Palatine Hill. It’s obviously a place with much history, and it makes a fairly
good recording location for the chamber music of Mendelssohn and Schubert.
There’s a mild reverberation present but never so much as to cloud or veil the
sound too seriously. Mostly, the venue imparts a sweet warmth to the occasion,
a pleasing resonance. The miking is relatively close, so the instruments loom
somewhat large, and the group does tend to spread out across the room. While
it’s not as realistic or as transparent as I’d like, the recording provides a
big, impressive sonic picture.

To hear a brief excerpt from this album, click here:

JJP

The Strauss Family (CD review)

Willi Boskovsky, Johann Strauss Orchestra of Vienna. EMI 5 86019 2
(six-disc set).

I read somewhere
that the performers in his orchestras didn’t particularly like working with
conductor and violinist Willi Boskovsky, but he fashioned some of the most
beautiful recordings of the Strausses ever made. First playing the violin with
the Vienna Philharmonic, Boskovsky went on to lead and record the orchestra in
Strauss waltzes in the 1950’s and 60’s, and audiences adored him, which in the
end was all that mattered. His Decca recordings from those early years are
still the yardsticks by which we must measure all Strauss waltzes. By the early
1970’s he was recording for EMI with the Johann Strauss Orchestra of Vienna,
and he re-recorded much of the major Strauss repertoire for them. Then, when
digital entered the scene in the 1980’s, he recorded them yet again!

What we have in this
six-disc EMI box set is a collection of some seventy-nine of the Strauss
family’s most famous waltzes recorded by Boskovsky with the Johann Strauss
Orchestra in the 70’s (analogue) and 80’s (digital).

Personally, I find
Boskovsky’s digital recordings slightly more sprightly and open than his analogue
recordings with the same orchestra a decade before. Fortunately, most the
recordings chosen for this collection are from the later digital group. The
digital sound is a little less warm and slightly less full than the analogue
sound, but it seems more detailed and carries with it no obvious digital
brightness or edginess, so sonic differences among the various pieces on the
six discs is practically nil. More important, all the performances are light
and spontaneous, a total delight in every way, and except that the Strauss
Orchestra appears to be much smaller than his old Vienna Philharmonic and miked
a bit closer, they at least match the Decca renderings in spirit.

Among the waltzes
are practically everything you’ve ever heard of: “The Blue Danube,” of course,
“Roses from the South,” “Vienna Blood,” “Voices of Spring,” “Artist’s Life,”
“Tales from the Vienna Woods,” “Emperor Waltz,” “Morning Papers,”
“Accelerations,” “Lagoon Waltz,” “Du und Du,” “Wine, Women and Song,” “Danube
Maiden,” and a few you might not have heard of like “Leading Article,” “Kiss
Waltz,” “Watercolours,” and “Flight of Fancy.”

More important, EMI
organized the music by Strauss family member, from oldest to youngest. The
first disc includes several things by Strauss the elder; then there are works
by the “Waltz King,” Strauss II, grouped as “Favorite Waltzes”; more “Waltzes”
on discs two and three; and “Polkas” and “Overtures” on discs three, four, and
five. Then on the second half of disc five and the first half of disc six, we have
“Polkas” by brother Josef Strauss. And on the second half of disc six there are
“Polkas” by brother Eduard Strauss. 

It’s a terrific
collection of waltzes, polkas, overtures, and galops even if this box set,
which EMI originally issued in 2004, may be a little hard to find anymore. Oh,
and the folks at EMI have fixed one minor concern I had with a another
collection of Strauss waltzes with Boskovsky. In a previous EMI set, they took
“Tales from the Vienna Woods” from a session in which Boskovsky substituted a
violin for the more popular zither. This time, they provided his later
recording with Rudi Knabl on zither, and all is right with the world.

For fans of Strauss
or Boskovsky, this is an indispensable set.

To hear a brief excerpt from this album, click here:

JJP

Lord Gallaway’s Delight (CD review)

An Excellent
Collection of Dances & Gaelic Laments. Les Witches, with guest Siobhan
Armstrong. Alpha Productions 534.

Quoting from a very old music publication, the French
ensemble Les Witches describes the present album as “An Excellent Choice of the
most celebrated Irish tunes, the finest English Country Dances & the best
Scotch Humours, with several additional Fancies and Divisions never before
recorded!”

OK, you might say, what’s a group of French musicians
doing playing traditional Irish, English, and Scottish music? I suppose you
could say the music transcends the boundaries of place and time, and Les
Witches do as good a job as any I’ve heard of bringing this kind of music to
life. The group comprises five members: 
Pascale Boquet, lute and guitar; Odile Edouard, violin; Freddy
Eichelberger, harpsichord and cistre (a sort of ancient mandolin); Claire
Michon, flutes; and Sylvie Moquet, viola da gamba. Joining Les Witches is guest
Siobhan Armstrong on the Irish harp because, as they say, you cannot have Irish
music without a harp. And what better an exponent of the Irish harp than Ms.
Armstrong, the head of the Historical Harp Society of Ireland.

Still, this kind of music is a bit of an acquired taste.
All of the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth-century Irish, Scottish, and
English instrumental tunes on the album appear tinged with melancholy, either a
quality of the people who wrote them or a predilection of the musicians who
chose to include them. In either case, it doesn’t change the eighteen tracks on
the disc, which are delightful in their way but whose mood tends to sound
slightly the same after a while. A little goes a long way? It helps, of course,
that the players use historical instruments, which makes it all the more
authentic and fun.

Anyhow, on the opening number, “She Rose and Leit Me In,”
the six instruments enter one at a time, creating a surprisingly rich and
complex texture. And so it goes.

Flutist Claire Michon tells us in a booklet note that
“with traditional musicians we share the pleasures of variation, ornamentation
and improvisation, so expect to hear a bit of each style. Expect mainly,
though, to hear gentle, committed, expressive playing, be it in dances or
Gaelic laments. The music is melodic, sometimes rhapsodic, lilting, lyrical,
and haunting. Most of all, it’s lovely, played with plenty of sweet, loving
care.

While in fairness, I could not single out a “best tune” in
the bunch, I know I strongly enjoyed the first number above, plus “Mary
O’Neill,” “On the Cold Ground,” “Mary Halfpenny” (which sounds faintly of
tinkling wind chimes), “Siege of Limerick,” and the closing air “Da Mihi Manum”
(a melody that will have you close to tears). Yet, for that matter, they’re all
gems, which, as I say, take a little getting used to. Once you acquire the
taste, however, it’s hard not to want more.

Les Witches concocted their brew in 2012, with sound that
is every bit as fascinating as the music. Indeed, the sonics steal the show.
The highs sparkle, the midrange glows with clarity, and the bass, what there is
of it, shows commendable tautness. There is a fine separation of instruments
and a quick transient response, too. Most important, the recording venue
imparts a sweet, natural resonance to the occasion, making the performances
warmly lifelike.

To hear a brief excerpt from this album, click here:





JJP

Berlioz: Overtures (SACD review)

Sir Andrew Davis,
Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra. Chandos CHSA 5118.

You’d think that given the familiarity of Berlioz’s
various overtures, there would be more stereo albums devoted to them. It
doesn’t happen. If you look them up, you’ll find maybe a dozen or so discs
devoted exclusively to the overtures. What most companies do is include a few
Berlioz overtures along with Berlioz’s longer works, the Symphonie fantastique or Harold
in Italy for instance. And, of course, we often get one or two of the
composer’s overtures mixed into collections of other famous overtures. Seems a
little unfair, but it means that this new SACD recording of seven Berlioz
overtures from Sir Andrew Davis and the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra doesn’t
have a lot of competition. Not that competition would have diminished the
merits of this outing in any case; Andrew Davis does quite well.

Before we begin, however, I’d like to refute a claim I
read once from a noted music critic who said that all conductors with the name
Davis were boring, meaning Sir Andrew Davis and Sir Colin Davis. That, to me,
is pretty unfair, making a generalization based on...what?  Both Sir Andrew and Sir Colin Davis have made
tons of albums (Colin Davis far more and for far longer) and have millions of
fans. No conductor attracts that much positive attention by being boring. I
mention this because certainly there is nothing boring about Andrew Davis’s
handling of the Berlioz overtures on this album, and they are almost as
expressive, emphatic, lyrical, and exciting as Colin Davis’s RCA set. So, take
that, noted critic.

Of the seven overtures on the disc, three of them Berlioz
(1803-1869) wrote as preludes to operas--Les
Francs-juges (1826), Benvenuto
Cellini (1838), and Beatrice et
Benedict (1862)--and four as self-contained concert works--Waverley (1828), Le Roi Lear (1831), Le Carnaval
romain (1844), and Le Corsaire
(1844). The concert overtures are like miniature tone poems, the composer
basing them mostly on literary sources (Sir Walter Scott for Waverley, Shakespeare for King Lear, elements of James Fenimore
Cooper and Lord Byron for Le Corsaire,
and his own Benvenuto Cellini for Le Carnaval romain).

Anyway, the program begins with the fiery Corsaire, which conjures up images of
dashing pirates and sleek pirate ships. Davis maintains a swaggering forward
momentum that seems ideally suited to the swashbuckling music. Contrasted with
the thrills of the Corsaire is the
overture to the comic-opera Beatrice et
Benedict. It is of a lighter, more capricious nature, which Davis delights
in.  We see in these works why Berlioz
was so influential in the development of the modern orchestra and modern
orchestration, inspiring later composers like Franz Liszt (Les preludes), Richard Strauss (Don
Juan), Erich Wolfgang Korngold (The
Sea Hawk), and John Williams (Star
Wars). It’s all quite vivid, heroic, and picturesque.

Les Francs-juges
was Berlioz’s first substantial instrumental work, and he was justly proud of
it. It sounds appropriately grim, somber, yet lyrical in Davis’s hands, and the
Bergen Philharmonic seem more than up to the job, playing in rich, strong,
precise accord.

And so it goes. Le Carnaval
romain takes us back to the exhilarating
pace of Le Corsaire, with a little
more lilt in the melodies. Davis handles it in high style. Next, the score for Waverley bears the inscription “Dreams
of love and lady’s charms, Give place to honour and to arms.” Davis does a
commendable job with the work’s opposing ideas and readily points up the
music’s importance to that of later Romantic composers. In Le Roi Lear we get all of Shakespeare’s emotion, turmoil, and
poetry compressed into a few minutes. Davis and his players never overdramatize
the piece, which I appreciated.

The program ends with the overture to Benvenuto Cellini, music I have sometimes found ponderous and
boring in its melodramatic manner. Here, Davis is able to bring out a little
more of its color and variety, ending the set in satisfying fashion.

In 2012 Chandos used Grieghallen, Bergen, Norway, as the
recording venue for this 24-bit/96kHz 2.0/5.0-channel SACD hybrid
surround-sound recording. Like other hybrid SACDs, this one plays back in two
channels on a regular CD player and two or five channels on a Super Audio CD
player. I popped the disc into my Sony SACD player and listened to the
two-channel stereo SACD layer.

The sound I heard was nicely dynamic, with a clean
midrange and more than adequate lows. The sound field is a tad on the forward
side, but not much. It hasn’t quite the warmth, air, or ambience of the Colin
Davis set for RCA, but again it’s close. The clarity and impact of the
recording show themselves most noticeably in things like Les Francs-juges, where the timpani and bass make a case for
themselves.

To hear a brief excerpt from this album, click below:





JJP

Schubert: Trout Quintet (CD review)

Also, Adagio in E
flat (Notturno). The Nash Ensemble. CRD 3352.

Does it sound familiar? No, I don’t ask that because the “Trout” Quintet is one of the
most-popular and therefore familiar things Schubert ever wrote. I mean if this
particular recording of the “Trout”
sounds familiar, it might be because if you watch at least some British comedy,
the British television series Waiting for
God used portions of this very recording during its opening titles and
closing credits. CRD originally released it over three decades ago, and they
decided to reissue it in 2012.

Austrian composer
Franz Schubert (1797-1828) wrote the Piano
Quintet in A major, D667, “The
Trout,” in the summer of 1819 while visiting the town of Steyr in the north
of Austria. A wealthy music patron in the area, Sylvester Paumgartner,
suggested Schubert include in the music a set of variations based on the
composer’s earlier song "Die Forelle" (“The Trout”). But apparently
few people outside Schubert’s friends and family ever heard it in his lifetime
since the work did not see publication until 1829, a year after the composer’s
death. Nevertheless, today practically every chamber group in the world has
played and recorded “The Trout” Quintet.

Britain’s Nash
Ensemble quintet at the time of the recording (Clifford Benson, piano; Marcia
Crayford, violin; Brian Hawkins, viola; Christopher van Kampen, cello; and
Rodney Slatford, double bass) do as good a job with the music as almost anyone.
In terms of tempos, they fall somewhere between the period-instruments
liveliness of Jos Van Immerseel and friends (Sony or Newton Classics) and the
easygoing geniality of Clifford Curzon and his Vienna partners (Decca). In terms
of style, the Nash players combine some of the charm of the Beaux Arts
performance (Philips or PentaTone), some of the joyfulness of the Schiff/Hagen
Quartet recording (Decca), and some of the richness of Alfred Brendel’s
rendition (Philips) thrown in. Meaning the Nash Ensemble is in good company.

The group get the
music off to a smooth, graceful, flowing start in the first movement, yet with
much freshness and vitality as well. Schubert marked it Allegro vivace, so I suppose the Nash players could have taken it a
bit faster, but, really, it sounds just fine as they perform it, full of gentle
good cheer. The second-movement Andante
is more sedate and serious than the first movement, with the Nash Ensemble
maintaining a serene sense of forward momentum, never pushing the music too
hard.  It’s all quite comfortable.

The third-movement Scherzo displays a pleasantly youthful
playfulness, again without leaving the listener groping for air. Then come the
celebrated Variations, which mark the
“Trout” as somewhat different from
other chamber pieces, the Nash Ensemble having the fish splashing and gliding
about in the stream most gently. Again, it’s the piano that stands out, as we
would expect, with the violin coming in a close second. Finally, the work ends
with an Allegro giusto that the Nash
players perform with high spirits.

The little Notturno (Adagio in E flat for piano, violin and cello, D897), published in
1847, makes a sweet companion to the “Trout.”
Schubert probably intended the Notturno
as the slow movement of a larger work, which he never got around to finishing.
In any case, it’s lovely, with to me its unmistakable Mediterranean overtones,
and I enjoyed the Nash Ensemble’s unmannered interpretation of it.

CRD recorded the album in 1978 at Rosslyn Hill Chapel,
Rosslyn Hill, Hampstead, London, under the watchful eyes and ears of balance
engineer Bob Auger. The sound comes across pretty well balanced, although the
piano seems at times closer than the other instruments. Midrange transparency
is fairly good, too, with a particularly natural-sounding violin and a warm,
ambient bloom on all the music. The frequency response appears slightly subdued
at the top end, and the double bass hasn’t a lot of weight. Still, it’s all
pleasant enough and reasonably lifelike.

In short, the Nash
Ensemble’s “Trout” offers a good
performance in good sound, both of which come up a tad short of the very best
recordings available, sounding just a trifle too straightforward and unadorned
by comparison. In addition, CRD provides one of the best album cover pictures
you’ll find. Drawbacks? Only one stands out: For reasons known only to CRD, the
company chose not to provide a separate track for the fifth and final movement.
So if you want to listen only to the Finale,
you have to click to the fourth movement and then fast-forward through almost
eight minutes of music until you get to the part you want. Of the half dozen
other “Trout” recordings I had on
hand, all of them include a track for the final movement. I dunno.

To hear a brief excerpt from this album, click here:





JJP

Elgar: Cello Concerto (CD review)

Also, Sea Pictures; Cockaigne Overture. Jacqueline du Pre, cello; Janet
Baker, mezzo-soprano; Sir John Barbirolli, London Symphony Orchestra,
Philharmonia Orchestra. EMI 7243 5 62887 2.

English composer Sir Edward Elgar (1857-1934) wrote his Cello Concerto in E minor, Op. 85 toward
the end of his career in 1919, and because he published it just after the close
of World War I, a lot of it sounds melancholy and solemn. Nevertheless, it’s among the most-popular things he ever wrote.
Therefore, it’s good to have this classic recording of it so readily available,
along with the Sea Pictures and the Cockaigne Overture, all of them
remastered by EMI in sound that’s as good as anything around and at a mid price
that’s hard to beat.

The fact is, no one has really topped this 1965
performance of the Concerto by young
cellist Jacqueline du Pre, conductor Sir John Barbirolli, and the London
Symphony Orchestra. The booklet note suggests that some people criticized Ms.
du Pre at the time for having too much spirit, too much energy, in her
interpretation, but Sir John, one of the world’s première Elgarians, defended
her, saying that such exuberance was necessary in the young. Besides, Elgar
himself had remarked years earlier that he preferred vigorous readings of his
works because “I am not an austere man.”

The first movement
of the Concerto offers a pensive,
bittersweet reminiscence of a quieter, more placid world before the War, with a
big, bold part for the cello that starts immediately, although it strikes a
rather solemn mood and grave air. The second movement Scherzo seems to represent the feeling of confidence and
exhilaration so many young soldiers felt going off to War, the music creating
an aura of light with its zippy pace, cavorting here and there. The
third-movement Adagio--the soul of
the work--seems more a touching, full-blown lamentation than a reflective or
contemplative piece; it also seems a little jarring in its musical
juxtaposition with the preceding Scherzo.
Then, in the finale, Elgar is all over the place, marking it Allegro - Moderato - Allegro, ma non troppo,
part grave, part celebratory. The Great War, devastating in its consequences,
was over, and there were new opportunities on the horizon, a new world shaping
up, and we hear the changes in lyrical, energetic, enthusiastic, melodramatic,
sad, quiet, and, finally, exuberant tones.

The first and forth
movements of the Concerto sound the
most wistful, even nostalgic, and it is here that no one can accuse Ms. du Pre
of being too spirited; she is, in fact, quite at peace with the world in a
heartfelt performance that commands one’s respect from start to finish.

The accompanying Sea Pictures, sung by Janet Baker,
appear more like the Elgar of old, having been written over twenty years
earlier, sounding in part, like “Sabbath Morning at Sea,” similar in mood to
his pomp-and-ceremony days. The addition on the disc of Elgar’s Cockaigne Overture is icing on the cake,
a wonderfully evocative, colorful, and affectionate orchestral description of
Victorian London.

EMI first issued the
Concerto and the Sea Pictures on CD in 1986, and this newer disc in their “Great
Recordings of the Century” series improves further upon the sound. Using EMI’s
“Abbey Road Technology” (ART), the remastering engineers noise-shaped the sound
“via the Prism SNS system for optimum sound quality.” The sound compared to the
older CD release is slightly smoother and a touch more dynamic. And, of course,
the overall sonic picture is vintage EMI, with a realistic orchestral stage and
a natural tonal balance. I might add that since EMI released this particular
disc, they found it so popular, they released it three or four more times. So, as of this
writing, you’ll find the exact same remastering in a number of different guises, different album covers.

To hear a brief excerpt from this album, click here:





JJP

Hear Here!

Seven suggestions for getting the most out of your home listening experience.

By John J. Puccio

There have been various hearing-aid shops, clinics, and
Web sites called “Hear Here,” all of them devoted to hearing loss and
hearing-loss prevention. It’s a clever title, and I hope they don’t mind my
borrowing the phrase for this article, because it pretty much sums up what I’m
about to say.

Understand, however, I have no intention of telling you
what audio equipment to buy or how you should set up your own system. Despite
what you may have heard from some other people--audio authorities and golden
ears--home audio remains a very personal matter, and only you can decide what
you like; I am not presumptuous enough to know your tastes. Besides, I am not
an expert in the field. I do, however, have a very good 2-channel
music-listening system (in my living room) and a 7.1-channel home-theater
system (in a smaller, adjacent room), and I have written about audio and
recorded music for over forty years. The fact is, most of you reading this
article already know the stuff I’m going to say. My purpose is merely to offer
a few obvious pointers for those of you who may have forgotten something you
always meant to do.

It’s like an old audiophile friend told me years ago: “No
matter how carefully you set up any system, no matter how much time you spend
on it, there’s always something you’ll forget.” Well, here are some reminders.

1. Clean Your Ears

No, I’m not being glib or facile when I say this. I really
mean it. It’s normal for everyone’s ears to produce and accumulate earwax. If
it’s not removed, it can impede hearing. Commonly, people let it accrue
unknowingly over time until little by little their hearing becomes obstructed.
Of course, if you have exposed your ears to very loud noises in your lifetime,
you may have a more severe hearing loss than you think, which no amount of
cleaning will help. (And if you grew up with iPods or earbuds, your life is
over.)

If you think earwax is a problem for you (and it probably
is if you’ve never done anything about it before), there are several
alternative solutions you might explore. The first and best solution is to have
a doctor look at your ears. If a doctor sees an issue, he will take it from
there.

Among home remedies, the one to avoid is the cotton swab
or bobby pin. Do not go poking things in your ears; you risk rupturing the
eardrum or at the very least forcing the earwax back into the ear canal,
further impacting it and worsening the condition. No, the simplest, and safest,
way to clean your ears is to let warm water run through them (for example,
while you shower or with a bulb-syringe). Another remedy is to use a light
mineral oil, a few drops in each ear, letting it stand for several minutes
while you lie on your side, and then flushing with warm water. A further
possibility is a dilution of hydrogen peroxide; again, let it stand in each ear
for a few minutes and flush with warm water. Or there are various over-the-counter
products you can buy that are essentially combinations of mineral oils and
peroxide. The main thing is to cleanse the ear canals regularly, some doctors
suggesting every week, others no less than once a month. 

Note, too, that home remedies are basically for minor wax
buildup and daily maintenance. Again, consult a doctor if you think you have a
serious hearing issue. Also, if you do use warm water in your ears, be aware of
something called otitis, an inflammation of the ear that can develop when water
remains in it. It's also called “swimmer's ear.” The best way to dry one's ears
after showing or swimming is by using an over-the-counter product like
Auro-Dri, which is basically a solution of isopropyl alcohol and boric acid.
I've been using a few drops of isopropyl alcohol in my ears for about thirty
years now, each morning after showing; but I hesitate to recommend anything
medical that you haven’t already tried successfully or that your own doctor
hasn’t approved.

Anyway, cherish your ears. You may not know what sounds
you’re missing.

2. Speaker Configuration

People have been listening to sound through loudspeakers
for over 130 years, unless you count the megaphone as a loudspeaker, in which
case make that thousands of years. The most common speaker configurations
people use for the home are (1) a single speaker, 1.0, monaural; (2) two
speakers, 2.0 stereo, long the favorite of audiophiles for music listening; (3)
two speakers and one or more subwoofers, 2.1 stereo, if the two primary
speakers need bass augmentation, the .1 (or .2 or .3) indicating the subwoofer
or LFE channel, low-frequency effects; (4) three speakers, 3.0, left, right,
and center, or 3.1, three speakers and one or more subwoofers; (5) two speakers
front and two speakers back, also with one or more subwoofers, 4.0 or 4.1; (6)
three front and two back speakers, with or without one or more subwoofers, 5.0
or 5.1, the latter being in most common usage for films these days; (7) 6.0 or
6.1; and (8) 7.0 or 7.1, three front speakers, two sides (surrounds), two back,
and one or more subwoofers. Naturally, there are further possibilities than
these, specific needs and experimentation being the order of the day.

The advantage of having more than a single speaker is
obviously to reproduce more fully and more realistically whatever sound is
present in a a recording, a movie, or a broadcast. If there are 5.1 channels
involved, the listener might want to take full advantage of them. Certainly, if
you’re trying to replicate the experience of a movie theater, you might want a
surround-sound system in your home. If you’re reproducing only 2-channel
sources, like most music CDs, then a two-speaker setup might be more
advantageous (many audiophiles feel that trying to simulate rear-channel
activity from a 2-channel source only muddies up the front channels; as I say,
personal taste). And if you’re playing back multichannel music CDs, like SACDs,
then you might find a center and/or rear speakers to your liking.

The advantage of 7.1 (even though most movies on DVD and
Blu-ray don’t come with discrete 7.1) is that it fills in the sound in the rear
of the room better than not, especially for a listener slightly off center.
Plus, a 7.1 receiver or processor usually provides several options to simulate
additional rear-channel signals from a 5.1 source, so you don’t have to worry
if there aren’t 7.1 channels actually encoded on the disc.

3. Speaker Choice

Here the reader is pretty much on his own, especially for
the two main, front speakers. Nothing is more personal than one’s preference in
loudspeakers, and one’s speaker choices are endless. Ideally, a good
loudspeaker should reproduce the audio spectrum from 5 - 30K Hz evenly (or
flatly), with no undue emphasis in any particular frequency range from the
lowest bass to the highest treble; and it should do so with a quick, taut,
well-controlled transient response, replicating sounds with precision, clarity,
and a minimum of distortion. Unfortunately, no such loudspeaker exists, not
here, not anywhere. No matter what the advertising hype tells you or how the
reviews read, no speaker is perfect, no matter what the price. Usually, a
speaker won’t reproduce anything like the full spectrum of human hearing, and
it won’t reproduce the full spectrum evenly.

Then there is that matter of price. Remember, it’s all
relative. I know a lot of people talk about their super speakers costing in the
thousands of dollars--two, three thousand dollars for their 5.1 system. Yet if
you break that down, a $3,000 5.1 speaker setup is only about $500 a speaker.
In the broad scheme of things, that’s a mid-priced or mid-fi speaker. Why?
Because you can buy speakers anywhere from $50 or $100 a pair to well over
$100,000 a pair. Case in point: My old friend, the late Dave Wilson, sold his high-end speakers at Wilson Audio for some $200,000 a pair. Are they the perfect speaker, the
Holy Grail of audiophiledom? No, but they’re close. And they damn well ought to
be at that price.

My recommendation for choosing speakers is to use a little
common sense. How many speakers do you need? How much can you afford to spend
on them? Look on the Internet for speaker reviews and owner comments. Narrow
down your choices and then listen, listen, listen. Do you have special likes,
special tonal priorities? Do you want a nearly neutral speaker (the elusive
goal) or one that is bass prominent, or forward in the midrange, or bright in
the upper midrange and treble, or hollow, or boomy, or whatever. You’ll find
them all out there. It’s best, naturally, to be familiar with the sound of
live, unamplified music, so if you can get out to an orchestral or jazz concert
once in a while, one unhampered by being reproduced through a stage full of
loudspeakers, you might try to do it.

A few years ago I bought a pair of floor-standing VMPS RM40
speakers from the late Brian Cheney for my 2-channel living-room music system
because they were the best things I could find for the money (although still
pricey at about $6,500 a pair). Quite a ways back, I also chose Boston
Acoustics and Energy e:XL speakers for my home theater because I thought they
sounded as good as anything in their price range with movie material, and
because they were small enough for the restricted space in my home-theater
room. Would I have liked four RM40s in a home theater double the size of the
one I have now? Sure thing. Heck, I’d love to have four of Dave’s Alexandrias,
too. But for most of us there’s a limit to everything.

Be aware, too, that if you are going for full surround,
not all of your 5.1 or 7.1 speakers need to be exactly alike (and obviously not
the subwoofer), although, yes, the two main front speakers should be identical.
For instance, the center speaker needs mainly to reproduce midrange
frequencies, mostly dialogue. It does not necessarily have to be a full-range
speaker. The side (surround) and rear speakers need not be full-range, either,
if you’re using a subwoofer. The sub will fill in the lower frequencies nicely
from about 100 Hz (Hertz = cycles per second) on down, and bass frequencies
below about 80 Hz are omnidirectional, anyhow; that is, they don’t seem to be
coming from any specific point and can appear to be coming from wherever the
dominant note is coming from. So if a primary bass note is in, say, the 90 Hz
range, the primary signal will probably come from one of the five main
speakers, indicating its specific direction, and the bass woofer will fill in
the part of the signal beneath that, appearing to come from the same place as
the primary signal. Make sense? The upshot is that you can get away with
smaller side and rear speakers than front speakers. You can even let the
subwoofer do a lot of the work of the two, main front speakers as well, leaving
the possibility of small satellite speakers in front. The only minor issue with
small satellite speakers is that they can sometimes be too small to produce
convincingly the big sound fields needed for things like symphony orchestras.

Exceptions? Of course. For example, the folks at NHT (Now
Hear This) of Benicia, California, make a full line of speakers from satellites
to bookshelves to floor-standing models that all sound good
(http://www.nhthifi.com). You might check out several of their relatively
small, reasonably priced products, which along with a matched NHT subwoofer
produce big, neutral, well-balanced sound. Or, for that matter, you might
investigate all of NHT’s speakers; they are among the best values in the audio
market, and these days they’re ones I would choose over my Boston Acoustics
units. Still, I digress; I’m not here to sell you on anything in particular,
only to provide general guidelines.

4. Speaker Placement

As crazy as it may seem, speaker placement appears to be a
mystery to a lot of folks. I can’t tell you the number of homes I’ve been in
where people have placed two fairly expensive loudspeakers in oddball
locations: like both speakers sitting behind large pieces of furniture, or one
speaker sitting on the floor and another on a mantel, or both speakers mounted
on the ceiling facing downward, or one speaker facing a wall and the other
upside down, etc. You can imagine how much tougher the situation may be with
5.1 or 7.1 speakers to locate.

In a 2-channel system, the two speakers should be at ear
level and approximately as far apart as the listener is away from them. In a
5.1 or 7.1 home-theater system, the two main, front speakers would ideally sit
next to the television left and right, at a height that approximates the
listener’s ears from the central listening position. Floor-standing speakers
may already be at the proper height for good listening. Bookshelf speakers may
require a stand (or in the case of my home theater a column of large, 10” x 10”
x 4” concrete building bricks, spray painted flat black, the bricks providing a
solid, nonresonant foundation for the speakers). Furthermore, depending on the
directionality (or beaming, usually of higher frequencies) of the speakers, you
may have to angle them toward the listening area for best results.

The distance between the two front speakers, as I say,
should be about the same distance the listener is sitting away from them. Thus,
the listener would sit on one corner of the proverbial listening triangle.
Still, some listeners prefer to have their speakers closer together and other
listeners prefer them farther apart. Brian Cheney, who built and sold the VMPS
speakers I use, recommended that his VMPS RM40s be relatively close together
and angled in so that their sound waves cross about a foot or so in front of
the listener. Again, I suggest you experiment.

In addition, in a 5.1 or 7.1 home-theater system the
left/right front speakers should be approximately on the same plane as the TV
so that the sound doesn’t appear to be coming from any higher, lower, closer,
or farther away location than the action on the screen. The center speaker
should sit on top of or just beneath the TV screen (unless you have an actual
projection screen, in which case you could put the speaker behind it), so that
dialogue seems to be coming from the middle of the screen.

Now, for the back speakers in a 5.1 setup, they should be
on the back wall behind the listening position, preferably at the same distance
from the listener as the front speakers or maybe a little closer, and slightly
above the listener’s ears. In a 7.1 setup, the side (surround) speakers should
also be at the same distance away from the listening position as the front
speakers and, again, slightly above the listener. What’s more, Dolby Labs
recommends the rear speakers in a 7.1 setup be relatively close together. Take
a look at your own favorite movie theater for guidance. You’ll see loudspeakers
positioned along the side walls, above the seats, and you’ll see loudspeakers
on the back wall, again above the seats. Try to duplicate this arrangement as
well as you can in your own home-theater room. That’s what it’s all about.

Warning: Speaker placement may require rearranging the
furniture. I consider myself lucky in that the Wife-O-Meter has always been
very accommodating. However, not all spouses may see things the same way. If
you’re single, you’re probably OK. And later you can use the speaker-placement
test as one criterion for a prospective mate.

5. Initial Speaker
Settings

For a 2-channel stereo system, this should be simple,
unless you’re using a 5.1 or 7.1 amplifier. 
Be aware that filmmakers mix most of the motion-picture soundtracks you
hear in theaters today for 5.1 tracks, with only a few in discrete 7.1. In
order to play back these 5.1 and 7.1 combinations in the home, you’ll need a
receiver or processor capable of reproducing and amplifying the requisite
number of discrete channels. Also be aware that if you are going to play back
more channels than are actually present in the source, you will have to set
your receiver or processor to a “surround mode” that will simulate channels
that are not really there. For example, most modern receivers and processors
have several Dolby and THX surround modes (e.g., Dolby Pro-Logic IIx/Movie)
that do a good job simulating center and rear channels from 2-channel sources
and simulating 7.1 channels from 5.1 sources.

Moreover, if you are using a subwoofer, you will want to
cross it over at a point that takes full advantage of a receiver’s,
processor’s, and/or disc’s low frequency effects. Consequently, it’s best to
adjust the receiver/processor crossover to your preference and the subwoofer to
a by-pass setting, if possible. For instance, THX recommends 80 Hz as a bass
crossover point. In addition, THX recommends that if you use a subwoofer, you
set your other speakers to “Small.” If you don’t have a subwoofer, you should
set your speakers to “Large” and allow them to reproduce their full frequency
range. Have I mentioned experimentation before?

6. Speaker Balance

Now that you have chosen your speakers and placed them in
their proper positions, the next step is to measure the distance from the
listening position to each speaker and, if it’s a 5.1 or 7.1 setup, adjust for
this distance in your receiver’s or processor’s setup menu. The idea here is
that in a multichannel system not all of your speakers may be the same distance
away from the listening position, so the equipment can introduce delays to
compensate for lag times. That way, the sound from each speaker location
reaches your ears at the exact millisecond it should, depending on the surround
settings you have chosen.

After that, you should balance each speaker’s output
relative to the others. Many receivers and processors have built-in programs,
with microphones, to accomplish this and other calculations for you
automatically. Nevertheless, I prefer to do it manually rather than rely on
generalized estimates. As always, you have choice with most of today’s audio
equipment.

Here’s what I did: I bought an inexpensive sound-level
meter. Better yet for these purposes, if you own a smartphone or
iPhone, you can download a sound-pressure meter for free. It uses your phone’s
built-in microphone (which, again, hasn’t the widest range so you won’t want to
use it for frequency response tests), but it doesn’t matter much when all
you’re doing is comparing the midrange output of your various speakers to one
another in order to balance them. And you can’t beat free.

My point is that any sound-pressure meter will do nicely
for our purposes here, which is simply to be sure that each of your speakers is
producing the same sound level at the listening position for the same measured
frequency. For this procedure, you’ll use your 5.1 or 7.1 receiver’s built-in
test tones, usually centered in the 800 - 1K Hz range, so even if the microphone is not completely linear, you’ll be measuring
results at the same frequency, which should be relative to each other from
speaker to speaker (except in the case of the bass woofer, which we’ll get to
in a minute).

Now, your receiver’s manual will probably tell you that
all of your speakers should produce the same sound level at the listening
position. This is generally true. Just don’t trust your ears; use the meter.
And then you might find you want to make some further adjustments according to
personal taste. In my case, I have turned down the center speaker by three or
four decibels; otherwise, I have found most DVDs and Blu-rays produce for my
taste a little too much center-channel response, which tends to limit the
left-to-right stereo spread.

Bass is always the bugaboo. Not only are the Radio Shack
and smartphone meters relatively unreliable at the lowest frequencies, so is
your listening room. Depending on where you take a measurement, the low-end
sound level could vary by as much ten or fifteen decibels. The same goes for
the placement of the subwoofer. Put it in a corner and it will produce louder
bass (not necessarily deeper, but surely louder mid bass). Measure the low-end
output in any corner of the room, and it’s liable to be quite a bit higher than
in any other place. My suggestion: Stick to a bass measurement at the exact
placement of your ears in the listening position and forget about the other locations
around the room (unless you want to play around with expensive acoustic
treatments, sound dampening pillars, and such). And here, too, because you may
not be able to trust the meter entirely, you should also use your own judgment.
Bass usually has to be louder in actual decibels than higher frequencies to
sound subjectively as loud as they do, so again experiment. Then, too, some
people just like more bass. And audiophiles often don’t like any deep bass at
all because low-frequency overhang can muddy up the all-important midrange.
Sill, movies are an entirely different matter, so, again, personal taste comes
into play.

7. Frequency Response

Oh, dear. What can one do about a system’s frequency
response? You’ll remember that nothing is perfect. Even if the speakers you
just paid an arm and a leg for are absolutely flat in their response from 5 -
30,000 Hz, your own listening-room acoustics and seating position would
doubtless mess them up. So, what to do? If you have a 5.1 or 7.1 receiver, you
could leave it to the equipment’s built-in microphone and metering program to
equalize and flatten out the room response, hoping for the best. Or if you’re
looking to get the best from even a two-speaker system, you could buy a costly
calibrated microphone and a costly one-half or one-third octave equalizer to
help flatten out the sound. Or you could buy equally costly sound-baffling
materials for the walls to reduce unwanted reflections and/or buy or build a
series of bass traps (porous or resonating absorbers) for the room to dampen
low-frequency energy. Or you could just play it by ear. Of the available
options, unless you have very deep pockets or you have a finicky audiophile
obsession, I recommend playing it by ear. If your system sounds too bright to
you, turn down the treble slightly. If it’s too bassy or not bassy enough,
adjust the bass slightly. If the frequency response is really out of whack, you
probably need to investigate new speakers or take the ones you just bought back
to the store and exchange them for something else.

Oh, and if you’re using a multichannel receiver or
processor, don’t forget to turn off the unit’s dynamic-range suppressor
(sometimes called the “Night Mode”). Nothing will kill the sonic impact of an
otherwise great audio system more than limiting its dynamic-range. Dynamic
range is the difference in measured output level between two different sounds,
the overall dynamic range of a disc being the difference in decibels between
its loudest and softest notes. If a disc’s output doesn’t go from very, very
soft to very, very loud, it probably doesn’t have a very wide dynamic range in
the first place, or the equipment has triggered the suppressor function by
mistake, or you’ve gone and turned on the dynamic-range compression yourself,
probably because you didn’t know what it was. Dynamic-range compression is good
for listening late at night when you don’t want to wake up the house, but,
otherwise, forget about it.

If you have any doubts or concerns, consider Mr. Neuman’s
philosophy: “What--me worry?” You’ll get through.

JJP

Prokofiev: Piano Concertos 2 & 3 (HQCD review)

Malcolm Frager,
piano; Rene Leibowitz, Paris Conservatoire Orchestra. Van Cliburn, piano;
Walter Hendl, Chicago Symphony Orchestra. HDTT HQCD270.

Like his contemporary Sergei Rachmaninov, Sergei Prokofiev
(1891-1953) was a Russian composer and pianist, and like Rachmaninov, Prokofiev
composed a number of piano concertos, five of them to Rachmaninov's four.
However, in a bit of irony, Rachmaninov left Russia at the time of the
Revolution, going on to produce fairly traditional Romantic music while Prokofiev
chose to leave and then return to Russia where he almost continually butted
heads with conservative Soviet censors for indulging in what they considered
“anti-democratic formalism.” Be this as it may, both men left us a considerable
body of works that remain popular to this day. The current disc collects two of
Prokofiev’s more-famous piano concertos, Nos.
2 and 3, remastered by HDTT (High
Definition Tape Transfers) from two equally celebrated recordings.

The first item on the disc is Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 2 in G minor, Op. 16,
which he completed in 1913, played by pianist Malcolm Frager, with Rene
Leibowitz and the Paris Conservatoire Orchestra. The National Academy of
Recording Arts and Sciences in 1961 nominated the Frager recording for a Grammy,
and since then the recording has become something of a cult classic, made all
the more desirable for its unobtainability until now on CD. Thank goodness for
HDTT.

In No. 2 we
notice an opening section of light delicacy from Frager, a characteristic of
the pianist we hear throughout the work, mixed in with all the hurly-burly.
Because Prokofiev intended the piece in part as a requiem for a deceased
friend, it can be somewhat somber at times. Yet Frager, with his legendary
dexterity, keeps it pulsating forward at a healthy clip. It is unlikely anyone
will ever surpass his warm, expressive rendering.

The second item on the disc is almost as good, Prokofiev’s
even more-popular Piano Concerto No. 3 in
C major, Op. 26, which he completed in 1921 from sketches he began in 1913.
The late pianist Van Cliburn plays it, with Maestro Walter Hendl conducting the
Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Unlike Frager’s recording of No. 2, Cliburn’s performance of No.
3 has never been out of the catalogue. Maybe it has something to do with
the public’s continued delight in Cliburn as well as their simply liking the Third Concerto more than the Second. Whatever, here on HDTT it sounds
better than ever. The Third is more
lyrical and melodic than the Second,
nicely complementing Cliburn’s style.

Like the Second
Concerto, the Third begins slowly
and softly, quickly building up a head of steam with the piano’s entry and
becoming ever more rhapsodic and tempestuous through its three movements.
Cliburn’s handling of the work’s central theme and variations is particularly
stimulating.

However, while I could not recommend anyone more highly
in No. 2 than Frager, I still prefer
Martha Argerich’s performance with Abbado (DG) and Byron Janis’s with
Kondrashin to Cliburn’s in No. 3, if
only by a small margin.

Decca (licensed by RCA) and RCA recorded the two concertos
separately in 1960, No. 2 done at La
Maison de la Mutualité, Paris, and No. 3
at Orchestra Hall, Chicago. HDTT’s remastering (and subsequent burning to an
HQCD) of these performances sounds quite good, especially for recordings made
over half a century ago. Or maybe they sound good because they’re over half a century old. I haven’t heard much in
the past few decades to persuade me that today’s digital stereo recordings
sound any better than what Mercury, Decca, RCA, EMI, Everest, Vanguard, Vox,
and others were doing in the late Fifties and Sixties.

In any case, although I did not have the recording of No. 2 with Frager on hand for
comparison, I had Cliburn’s RCA disc of No.
3, so let’s start there. What I heard tells me the HDTT remastering is
slightly cleaner, slightly airier, and slightly more transparent, with a
slightly better dynamic impact and slightly more-extended high end. No, these
were not night-and-day differences; hence, the qualifier “slightly.” Still, the
improvements in the HDTT sound were clearly noticeable and would probably make
most audiophiles happy. Besides that, I don’t believe the Frager performance is
even available on CD (at least, I couldn’t find it), so in that case one
essentially gets a freebie with the HDTT disc.

The Concerto No. 2
displays good punch, with a reasonably flat frequency balance and a fine
integration of the piano and orchestra. The overall impression seems a tad
thick and heavy in the lower midrange, the piano sound crisp, the bass taut,
and the orchestral support warm.

The Concerto No. 3
is a little more wide spread than No. 2,
creating a bit more of a left-right effect, with the piano a touch bigger in
the middle. The overall sound here is maybe a little clearer, with more
sparkling highs.

To hear a brief excerpt from this album, click here:





For further information about the various formats, configurations, and prices of HDTT products, you can visit their Web site at http://www.highdeftapetransfers.com/storefront.php.



JJP