Furtwangler's 1942 Beethoven 9th - finally!
George Murnu
last listened to this rightfully-praised legendary recording. Others
have commented - and better than I could ever have - on the intensity
and fury of the performance, and I can only second them. This is the
kind of performance that makes you long for more, that keeps you glued,
breathless to the chair. I have Music and Arts recent transfer by Maggi
Payne and I am really pleased with it. In fact the sound is great.
This is indeed stuff of legends and my words simply cannot do justice so
I will stop here and listen to the CD again.
Regards,
George
John Thomas
Right you are! I have this on the M&A Furtwangler wartime Beethoven
recordings set, and all the performances are outstanding. Is your
recording a more recent transfer than the one on this set?
--
Regards,
John Thomas
Fredric J. Einstein
>recordings set, and all the performances are outstanding. Is your
>recording a more recent transfer than the one on this set?
The latest M&A transfer of Beethoven's 9th is superior to the one that
you have on the wartime Beethoven set.
I think that the 6 CD (?) Wartime Beethoven set on Tahra is superior
to the latest M&A transfers. Also, M&A always includes such LOUSY
booklets with their CD's. Many times, the booklet doesn't even
describe the material on the CD! The booklet that came with the
Tahra set is a real education on the history of these recordings,
including an interview with the engineer who taped them! The Tahra
set is a really great investment sound and presentation-wise.
Fred
Lionel Tacchini
And it's out of print.
Lionel Tacchini
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
phlmaes...@my-deja.com
classical performances forever. I came across it by accident and it
just stunned me. It's still my favorite performance of any piece of
music. I can't decide which transfer I prefer between the Music & Arts
and the Tahra. I seem to go back and forth.
Barry
8H Haggis
<fein...@mw.mediaone.net> wrote:
>On Tue, 10 Oct 2000 04:57:49 GMT, John Thomas
>> Right you are! I have this on the M&A Furtwangler wartime Beethoven
>>recordings set, and all the performances are outstanding. Is your
>>recording a more recent transfer than the one on this set?
>The latest M&A transfer of Beethoven's 9th is superior to the one that
>you have on the wartime Beethoven set.
The problematical sound of the 1942 Furtwaengler RRG tapes has puzzled
me, since the 1943-44 material is often MUCH better. I wonder if some
substantial change was made in the Magnetophon used: either altered
bias frequency or current, or a setup process that enabled recording
higher amplitude signals with less distortion. Perhaps the tape oxide
was improved... at any rate, it is a consistent and repeatable effect
that one can readily detect, and often is so pronounced that an
examination of the waveforms of the recordings will show evidence of
severe saturation or clipping. The spectral signature of almost all
the '42 items is quite similar (with the possible exception of the
brighter Melodiya LP transfer of the Schumann concerto): the energy
falls off at a higher rate than the expected 1/f function that you see
in the excellent 1943 Tahra Beethoven Fifth transfer. Most of the
loud passages have been saturated, and some of the extremely loud
dynamic waveforms have acquired a triangular shape: evidence of
magnetic oxide overload, which is in effect soft clipping.
>I think that the 6 CD (?) Wartime Beethoven set on Tahra is superior
>to the latest M&A transfers.
It would be interesting to have a very detailed professional analysis
of these various transfers, with referential graphs of the spectra and
dynamic range (Tony: hint, hint!) I cannot remember how many people
have commented on RMCR that one or another CD or LP of this amazing
1942 Ninth is superior to another, but no data are given and little in
the way of detailed analysis is offered. Of course, we are not all
audio hobbyists and/or engineers, but it would be nice to find the few
morsels of objective fact that might be uncovered. Then, fair-minded
people might still disagree but we would have at least one snapshot
reference. In other words, I would hope for more substantial guidance
than was offered in a discussion thread about the famous 1943 Brahms
Fourth, which I summarised in my article entitled "What Does Superb
Really Mean?"
http://www.2xtreme.net/regina-r/tmov/superb.htm
It is incredibly easy, using such software as CoolEdit, to compare the
frequency spectra of two versions of the same recording. One merely
prepares identical samples, normalizing the peak levels, and then
selects the "Analysis" button to obtain a Fast Fourier Transform
process that charts the frequency response. There is no "well, I
think the ONE transfer has a few more highs than the OTHER" ambiguity
about this!
The same program will show the true absolute dynamic range and the
unweighted signal-to-noise ratio.
As the 1942 Ninth bothers me for reasons I won't go into, I have only
one copy. It sounds substantially the same as the old Everest LP did,
and most of the other CDs that I have had an occasion to sample have
the same characteristics, too. Only the "names have been changed to
protect the innocent": i. e., some are in fake stereo, some have
boosted highs or lows, added echo, etc. The same muddy, compressed,
and soft-clipped tape seems to be at the bottom of every one of 'em.
Can someone kindly indicate some detailed sonic data to illustrate if
the recommended version is INDEED from a different and superior
source?
>Also, M&A always includes such LOUSY
>booklets with their CD's. Many times, the booklet doesn't even
>describe the material on the CD! The booklet that came with the
>Tahra set is a real education on the history of these recordings,
>including an interview with the engineer who taped them!
Let me take a moment to commend M&A for the booklet included in
CD-815, the Gieseking/Rother 1944 stereo recording. It is a model for
others to emulate: the music and performances are brilliantly analysed
by Mark W. Kluge. The technical aspect is discussed in fascinating
detail by Tom Null, with references one may investigate for further
information. The originating engineer who supervised the recordings
is attributed, the history of early stereo is outlined, and there is
information included that otherwise may be found only by consulting
obscure professional papers or university library references -- if one
only had known WHERE to find them!
This excellent production is a relatively rare event in the gigantic
catalog of M&A-ATRA-BWS productions dating back decades, but at least
it illustrates that the company can rise to such heights. Sadly, the
transfer of the "filler", the '42 Schumann concerto with Gieseking and
Furtwaengler, is sub-standard (as I and others have mentioned here a
number of times) but the 1944 stereo Emperor Concerto is in quite
impressive sound, save for a very few moments of slight distortion.
Most of the better Furtwaengler recordings on M&A have been provided
with excellent commentaries by Mark Kluge, or with authorised quotes
from Ardoin.
I hate to say this, but I would rather read fifty program booklets
like Mark's analysis of the Furtwaengler early studio recordings, than
ONE essay by Sami-Alexander Habra.
Here's an example of the latter's florid style:
"Without going to the length of talking of 'Furtwaengler's 1st manner,
2nd manner, etc.', each version symbolises an artistic period of the
great conductor. Nobility and Lyricism (1937), Rebellion and Tragedy
(1943), Supreme Sovereignty (1954). Other features of his Art are not
dealt with here: youth and vehemence (1926), rebirth and hope (1947),
etc., even if these last assets remain still underlying or present in
all three versions...
"...every single note shall be made of iron in this passage where we
witness the theme falling down, only to be reborn of its embers and
rise in the spectacular way that only a Beethoven could have
achieved...
"...This non-written *molto ritardando* - which sounds nothing less
than a resurrection -- may shock purists and throw off time beaters
(dixit Wagner) but it has always brought enchanted music-lovers
springing to their feet! We have no doubt that the composer himself
would have been overjoyed."
(comments by Sabra in Tahra FURT 1032-33, containing the superb
sounding transfer of the '43 Beethoven Fifth, with also a fair one of
the '37 and a very, very blowsy and echoey, shrill, and boomy fake
stereo one of the '54 RIAS recording.)
If I had tried to turn in purple prose like that to my university
English professors, I would have received scathing remarks on my
papers. Mortimer Frank once wrote about such idolatrous comments --
in this particular case addressed to Toscanini -- in a review in ICRC,
suggesting that the enthusiastic statements of Richard Caniell of the
Immortal Performances Recorded Music Society, included in the Naxos
Toscanini Concert Series booklets, were typical of the uncritical
superlatives of the "fanatic fans" rather than reasoned analysis or
objective criticism. Compard to poor Richard Caniell, Sabra is
Bulwer-Lytton.
8H Haggis
8H Haggis
>Yes......this is the recording/performance that changed the way I view
>classical performances forever. I came across it by accident and it
>just stunned me. It's still my favorite performance of any piece of
>music. I can't decide which transfer I prefer between the Music & Arts
>and the Tahra. I seem to go back and forth.
>Barry
I feel exactly this way regarding the Bayreuth Festival performance
released as a commercial "approved" recording. In addition, I waver
back and forth between the EMI References original CD issue (processed
by Michael Dutton) and the latest "ART" transfer. But unlike Barry,
who offers no reason for his ambiguity and no information about the
differences or virtues of each, I will explain MY observations:
The EMI References CD (CJD 7 69801 2), issued in 1984, has been
"Duttonised" but in a minimalist fashion, quite similarly to Mike
Dutton's treatment of Boult and Barbirolli material for the 1980's
issues on PRT. The monaural orchestra is centered equally between the
left and right channels, with no differential frequency or phase
shifting, but the overall stereo presentation has been enhanced with a
very small amount of background digital ambience. Furthermore, I
suspect that the bass has been slightly increased, and the treble
region somewhat smoothed. When I got the CD, I found it to be more
impressive sonically than my old 1960's Seraphim set.
The later EMI transfer issued in 1997, remastered at the Abbey Road
Studios by Simon Gibson (5 566218 2) has the "ART" logo, and is in
pure, unadulterated mono with NO stereo ambient enhancement. The bass
is tighter but thinner, and the highs are more "clinical" with
slightly greater presence. On one or two of my systems, it is a bit
thinnish and glaring sounding, but on my AKG phones it seems natural.
On the speaker systems that make this CD sound a bit thin, the EMI
References sounds "bigger" and more satisfying.
Dutton, sadly, has apparently decided to add much greater amounts of
stereo ambience to the monaural originals issued on his own label
(though I suspect that he may be backing off a bit, because the
Beecham RPO Legacy, Vol. 5, is not nearly as blowsy as some of the
earlier Beecham and Barbirolli material. Yet, two of his early ones
(Beecham's Wagner and Barbirolli's 1937 Live PSNY Wagner concert) are
also pretty decent transfers and are not objectionably boomy and
hollow due to the added echo. He is maddeningly inconsistent!)
I hope that this information is by no means complete gibberish to the
marjority of readers. I recall a post by Tony Duggan regarding the
comparison he made between the EMI and Dutton issues of Walter's
Mahler Ninth, in which this musically sensitive expert eloquently
described certain instrumental details that were remarkably different
in each processing job. Sadly, he did not include any information
regarding the presence of enhanced ambient echo but otherwise this
non-engineer did a thorough job of explaining his perceptions (though
I might have phrased some of them differently, hearing the same things
but being able to directly infer the exact audio engineering processes
that created the differences.)
So, I would beg that rather than supplying a voluminous series of
posts that merely state "the Tahra is better" or "the M&A is
superior", that contributors take the time to tell us also WHY you
think so. As a retired sound engineer, I respect your aesthetic
perceptions, your hearing, and your judgments. It is interesting to
ME to know how non-engineers perceive sonic differences, and to read
their descriptions. I very often agree with non-engineers'
perspectives. We all revere the Ninth and Furtwaengler's incomparable
art. We're all familiar with many examples. Let's try to assemble a
body of useful, transferrable descriptions rather than a mere
tabulation of "yeahs" and "nays".
8H Haggis
8H Haggis
wrote:
>I hate to say this, but I would rather read fifty program booklets
>like Mark's analysis of the Furtwaengler early studio recordings, than
>ONE essay by Sami-Alexander Habra.
That's not exactly what I had really intended to write. Perhaps I
should have said:
"I would rather read ONE program booklet like Mark's analysis of the
Furtwaengler early studio recordings, than FIFTY essays by
Sami-Alexander Habra."
However, it strikes me that *both* are accurate statements, though
they are not exactly orthogonal.
8H Haggis
phlmaes...@my-deja.com
> I feel exactly this way regarding the Bayreuth Festival performance
> released as a commercial "approved" recording. In addition, I waver
> back and forth between the EMI References original CD issue (processed
> by Michael Dutton) and the latest "ART" transfer. But unlike Barry,
> who offers no reason for his ambiguity and no information about the
> differences or virtues of each, I will explain MY observations:
>
Pardon the "ambiguity" and lack of information as to my lack of
preference with regard to transfers. The reason for it is that I have
NO interest when it comes to audiophile issues besides finding what
works best for me. I don't read articles on technical sound issues,
because to me, it's as boring as reading a science text book. I
honestly don't know what language I would use to differentiate between
the Tahra and Music and Arts transfers. They both sound find to me. I'm
primarily concerned with performance issues. If you wish to devote
great space to getting into minute details of varioius transfers, then
have a blast. I simply go with reputable lables until I find a transfer
that satisfies me. At times, there are huge differences (i.e. comparing
the LvB wartime 5th on Tahra as opposed to Gramophono 2000). At times,
there aren't.
phlmaes...@my-deja.com
> So, I would beg that rather than supplying a voluminous series of
> posts that merely state "the Tahra is better" or "the M&A is
> superior", that contributors take the time to tell us also WHY you
> think so. As a retired sound engineer, I respect your aesthetic
> perceptions, your hearing, and your judgments. It is interesting to
> ME to know how non-engineers perceive sonic differences, and to read
> their descriptions. I very often agree with non-engineers'
> perspectives. We all revere the Ninth and Furtwaengler's incomparable
> art. We're all familiar with many examples. Let's try to assemble a
> body of useful, transferrable descriptions rather than a mere
> tabulation of "yeahs" and "nays".
>
> 8H Haggis
>
because it's not something I'm interested in discussing. I'm always
happy to go into what I like about a particular performance, but what I
like or dislike about audio qualities is something different. Were you
to ask for a more detailed discription of what I like about the
performance, I'd be happy to oblige.
In this case, the first movement, in particular, of the 1942 ninth
absolutely blows me away. The climax about 9 or 10 minutes in is so
explosive that it leaves me breathless. It's as if every time I sense
this particular climax is about to end, it re-explodes in an even more
intense display of emotion and power.
The complete stop and build up at the start of the coda is so
remarkable that it gives me the sense of listening to creation itself.
After listening to this movement, I'm often too emotionally drained to
go on to the other three, although when I do, they're also overflowing
with intensity and emotional power; not to mention the beautiful
serenity of the third movement.
Tony Movshon
> Haggis spracht:
> > So, I would beg that rather than supplying a voluminous series of
> > posts that merely state "the Tahra is better" or "the M&A is
> > superior", that contributors take the time to tell us also WHY you
> > think so.
> >
> because it's not something I'm interested in discussing.
Even so, it's helpful for those of us with a more technical interest
to hear your judgements on transfers. Words like "brighter", "cleaner",
"murkier", "more dynamic" or whatever may capture differences that seem
important to you, and also convey something to us. "Better" and "worse"
don't do much. It's just like writing about a performance. Knowing
*that* you like something is only modestly interesting. Knowing *why*,
on the other hand, is much more valuable.
--
Tony Movshon mov...@nyu.edu
Center for Neural Science New York University
Tony Movshon
> The problematical sound of the 1942 Furtwaengler RRG tapes has puzzled
> me, since the 1943-44 material is often MUCH better.
Not sure that's consistent. The 1942 Schubert 9, for example, is quite
good. Surely things improved from 1942-1944, but I think not hugely.
phlmaes...@my-deja.com
like "brighter" or "more dynamic" really don't mean anything to me. The
initial post in this thread didn't ask for a comparison of various
transfers. When I post on the various message boards that I am active
on, I stick with performance issues for the most part. There are plenty
of other people who can fill in the details when it comes to transfers.
I simply said I have no preference between the Tahra and Music and Arts
transfers of the 1942 ninth. Had I said one was better than the other,
I'd have an easier time understanding why people would be pressing for
my reasoning.
8H Haggis
wrote:
>They say it's better late than never, so here I finally am: I have at
>last listened to this rightfully-praised legendary recording. ...
>I have Music and Arts recent transfer by Maggi
>Payne and I am really pleased with it. In fact the sound is great...
>Regards,
>George
The problem that I have, as a long-time Furtwaengler collector who
purchased his first WF recording in 1963, is that by calling the '42
Ninth's sound "great" we skew our ENTIRE concept of the progress of
recordings of the work way off the scale. By using George's
unqualified "great" as a reference, I'd postulate the following list
of Beethoven recordings:
1913 Nikisch Fifth: very good sound
1926 Weingartner Ninth: extremely good sound
1935 Weingartner Ninth: excellent sound
***1942 Furtwaengler Ninth: great sound***
1951 WF Bayreuth Ninth: spectacular, super-realistic, staggering sound
1956 Horenstein Vox Ninth: unimaginably superb, fabulously realistic
sound
1957 Klemperer stereo Ninth: gloriously accurate, quintessentially
honest, fabulously true sound
198? Muti EMI Ninth: a 'near-death experience' of awesome perfection
199? Blomstedt Decca Ninth: like having a thousand orgasms
You see, we really should readjust the scale somewhat.
8H Haggis
Tony Movshon
> I simply said I have no preference between the Tahra and Music and Arts
> transfers of the 1942 ninth. Had I said one was better than the other,
> I'd have an easier time understanding why people would be pressing for
> my reasoning.
But, Herr Maestro, you must tell us *why* you haff no preference ...
samir golescu
On Tue, 10 Oct 2000, Tony Movshon wrote:
> 8H Haggis wrote:
> > The problematical sound of the 1942 Furtwaengler RRG tapes has puzzled
> > me, since the 1943-44 material is often MUCH better.
>
> Not sure that's consistent. The 1942 Schubert 9, for example, is quite
> good. Surely things improved from 1942-1944, but I think not hugely.
I think "8H Haggis" is correct overall, but with exceptions, like the one
you mention or, at the other end, the 1944 Bruckner Ninth, worse, I'd say,
than the 1942 Schubert Ninth. Overall though, a difference could be
noticed, especially if other 1944-1945 RRG tapes are taken into comparison
(the "Jochums"'s WWII Bruckner cycle with the Bruckner Linz orchestra has
*admirable* mono sound, IMO).
Without claiming any of the sonic expertise you both gentlemen have, I am
tempted to ask myself whether or not the difference in the tapes's quality
might come from many variables, like where and how they were deposited,
how many times they were played and on what etc. What about the 1945 VPO
*one* concert, with a better preserved Brahms Second than the Franck
Symphony?! The original recordings must have had a consistent quality in
both symphonies, but the tape of the Franck Symphony (particularly in the
beginning) probably deteriorated more.
regards,
SG
phlmaes...@my-deja.com
mov...@nyu.edu wrote:
> phlmaes...@my-deja.com wrote:
> > I simply said I have no preference between the Tahra and Music and
Arts
> > transfers of the 1942 ninth. Had I said one was better than the
other,
> > I'd have an easier time understanding why people would be pressing
for
> > my reasoning.
>
> But, Herr Maestro, you must tell us *why* you haff no preference ...
> --
> Tony Movshon mov...@nyu.edu
Because they both sound good to me :).
phlmaes...@my-deja.com
transfers back to back, I could give some specific differences.
As it is, I haven't listened to either recently. This performance has
ruined all other LvB 9th's for me, so I've been taking a break from it.
I'm hoping when I see Barenboim conduct it in NYC in December, it will
be an enjoyable experience, and I won't just sit there thinking that
this isn't as good as the Furtwangler, which I always seem to do when I
hear any other recording of the work.
Barry
8H Haggis
>I have NO interest when it comes to audiophile issues besides finding what
>works best for me...
>..I honestly don't know what language I would use to differentiate between
>the Tahra and Music and Arts transfers. They both sound fin[e] to me.
Pardon me for a misunderstanding of this point of difficulty of
preference for one over the other, inferred from your earlier
statement "I can't decide which transfer I prefer between the Music &
Arts and the Tahra. I seem to go back and forth."
They are obviously of the same musical performance. If one is only
interested in "performance issues" as you are, then there is surely NO
difference whatsoever. If one only considers the interpretation,
there would be NO difference between the Tahra, M&A, G2K, HP or any
other CD version, nor any difference between those and the Everest LP.
Wasn't there an interim Turnabout vinyl release also? I have quite
forgotten if so.
>I simply go with reputable lables until I find a transfer
>that satisfies me. At times, there are huge differences (i.e. comparing
>the LvB wartime 5th on Tahra as opposed to Gramophono 2000). At times,
>there aren't.
>Barry
Hmmm. But there ARE differences between the wartime Fifth in your
estimation: in fact, huge ones. Unspecified ones. Not, however, any
significantly interesting differences in the Ninth.
I am extremely confused by this inconsistency of approach. In fact,
trying to sort our the myriad comments on RMCR about the imponderably
large variety of digitisations of the Furtwaengler recordings, I am
constantly confronted by such vagueness or generalities from MOST
posters.
To some, the '42 Ninth is in "superb" or "beguiling" sound (I once
recall this amazing description that still leaves me shaking my head.)
To others it is distorted, harsh, cold, even ugly. To some people,
there is next to no significant difference between Brand A and Brand
X. To others, there is a HUGE and significant difference. It is a
fascinating phenomenon.
Now, I am sure that we can all agree that there IS such a concept as
accurate, pleasing, sound quality that 1) conveys the instrumental
sounds in an identifiable, if not perfectly realistic, manner; 2) has
sufficiently low background noise and distortion as to allow the
listener to focus on the music; and 3) is truthful in pitch, dynamic
contrasts, and 'hall acoustic' to a live experience of the same work.
We can also imagine that the sound quality of any given recording is
on a continuum between WRETCHED & UNACCEPTABLE at one extreme, and
PERFECT at the other.
Why would it be of no consequence to know how successfully the
commercial sellers of a Furtwaengler recording managed to package the
product? Is there a reverse-snob effect among "pure musicians" that
suggests that it is a better thing to IGNORE the sound quality, in
order to get closest to the 'spirituality' of the music? Does anyone
suggest that it betrays a lack of musical culture or comphrehension of
Beethoven to inquire about the honesty and fidelity of a given
recording transfer?
Is Furtwaengler the Artist so above human criticism that it is in bad
taste to even WANT to know which might be the factually, objectively
most accurate "versions" of a given recording?
I found evidence of all these attitudes in some discussions of WF here
in RMCR, and in posts to Furt-L, though I don't mean to imply that
these are the feelings of Barry.
In his followup post, Barry comments interestingly that:
"The climax about 9 or 10 minutes in is so
explosive that it leaves me breathless. It's as if every time I sense
this particular climax is about to end, it re-explodes in an even more
intense display of emotion and power."
When I listen to this excerpt from the '42 Ninth (I suspect you are
referring to measures 293-314 of the first movement, marked with a
global *fortissimo*, beginning at the elapsed time of 09:34 on my CD
copy, which is HP 6) , I detect that part of the "effect" of explosive
"power" is an audio reproduction artifact, not merely an entirely
musical one. Anyone following the score and listening to the
recording, even without access to an audio meter, can tell that all
instrumental dynamics above about mf are being distorted (indeed, even
some parts marked *p* start to sound distorted.) At *ff*, the
distortion is total: the sound turns into a crumbling, nasty mess.
The loudness does NOT increase, as it does in a live performance. But
the quantity of distortion and sense of strain and congestion DO
increase.
Furthermore, the "punching through" the strands of the
string-brass-wind tone by the overloaded recording of the timpani adds
an even greater fuzz to the envelope of sound of the ensemble. Mere
"clipping" saturation by an overloaded tape does not create this
effect. It was achieved by a limiter, "gulping" on the high amplitude
signal of the drums, being struck VERY sharply and with great
intensity. Arguably -- and here's where we move from a discussion of
the 'sound' per se to one of interpretation -- the tympanist is
playing his part, marked *ff*, as though it is marked *fff*. (One
often discerns this in both the Furtwaengler and the Toscanini
performances, compared to those of almost any other conductor!)
But the recording level has been held back by a combination of
limiting and tape saturation, so all you hear is the strain produced
by the overstressed recording system; you don't hear the "real"
dynamic outburst.
I have written in my "Opinion Zone" website article "The Varying
Perception of Distortion" --
http://www.2xtreme.net/regina-r/tmov/distorted.htm
-- that experiments that I did, using an old RCA limiter, completely
changed the perceived *artistic* and interpretative character of the
climaxes in the Bruno Walter recording of the Bruckner Ninth, from the
rather tepid and flat effect on the record, lacking the nearly painful
power of Furtwaengler's reading, to one that -- with 20 dB of fast
limiting -- suddenly sounded harsh, stressed, and "powerful". This
aesthetic impression of the *interpretation* could be created merely
by manipulating the sound quality.
I can easily demonstrate by repeated analogue dubbing, each time
increasing the audio level into the region of slight soft clipping
saturation, that a "sane" performance slowly and subtly starts to
sound tense, harsh, and *perceptibly faster and more dramatic!*
This is an audio illusion, and it has been a recognized fact for
decades. Robert C. Marsh was fooled by this when he compared the old
Victor 78 disk of Toscanini's Meistersinger Prelude with a then-new
Victor LP copy, and thought that Toscanini had done a newer recording
containing a *completely different interpretation*. You have to use a
metronome and level meter, and go back and forth several times, to
realize that the perceived artistic differences is MERELY in the
reproduction character.
This alone is one reason to consider it important to wish to have the
purest version of a given Furtwaengler performance. Another reason
might be to want to hear the GENUINE hall sound, not an enhanced one
that had been diddled by a digital engineer playing with a Lexicon
reverb unit: see my article "The Great Debate:
Adding Echo to Mono Recordings" --
http://www.2xtreme.net/regina-r/tmov/addecho.htm
A final reason might be merely for the pleasure of getting as close as
possible to the Master by hearing a recording transfer that supplies
the concepts employed by the original recordist (for the RRG tapes, it
was Friedrich Schnapp, as discussed by Tony Movshon and Alan Spaeth in
that same article), working in conformance with the conductor's own
ideas of what a 'good' broadcast or recording should sound like. And,
YES, Furtwaengler DID have a pretty good conception of what an
accurate reproduction of his performances should be, as documented in
that article, thanks to two helpful contributors who provided fair-use
quotations from Furtwaengler history experts.
I don't believe that the versions of the 1942 Ninth that *I* have
heard over the past 30+ years come anywhere close to the finer RRG
tapes, not to mention the comparatively excellent 1947 live Beethoven
Fifth, or the near-high-fidelity recordings of the early '50's.
Arguably, the various editions of the RRG Ninth tape fail to convey
any true musical dynamics; fail to reproduce the accurate ensemble
blend of complex signals (since so much harmonic and intermodulation
distortion is present to cloud the mix of sounds); and have intrusive,
unpleasant elements of coarseness and overloading that require GREAT
effort to ignore and to "listen through", some of which surely alter
the *artistic* character of the interpretation.
I believe that David Hurwitz once had the temerity to say something
like this here on the ng. and was practically hanged for the offense.
So, as you can see, I have given these matters a great deal of
thought. A *really clean* and improved transfer of this recording
would be of great interest to me...but as far as I can tell from the
comments in this thread, its existence is in the "not proved"
category.
8H Haggis
samir golescu
On Tue, 10 Oct 2000, 8H Haggis wrote:
> >I have Music and Arts recent transfer by Maggi
> >Payne and I am really pleased with it. In fact the sound is great...
> >George
>
> The problem that I have, as a long-time Furtwaengler collector who
> purchased his first WF recording in 1963, is that by calling the '42
> Ninth's sound "great" we skew our ENTIRE concept of the progress of
> recordings of the work way off the scale. By using George's
> unqualified "great" as a reference, I'd postulate the following list
> of Beethoven recordings:
>
> 1913 Nikisch Fifth: very good sound
> 1926 Weingartner Ninth: extremely good sound
> 1935 Weingartner Ninth: excellent sound
> ***1942 Furtwaengler Ninth: great sound***
> 1951 WF Bayreuth Ninth: spectacular, super-realistic, staggering sound
> 1956 Horenstein Vox Ninth: unimaginably superb, fabulously realistic
> sound
> 1957 Klemperer stereo Ninth: gloriously accurate, quintessentially
> honest, fabulously true sound
> 198? Muti EMI Ninth: a 'near-death experience' of awesome perfection
> 199? Blomstedt Decca Ninth: like having a thousand orgasms
May I say, with respect, that your charming sarcasm had more bite,
perhaps, than the opportunity called for? In collectors's jargon, we know
that a 1942 "great" recording is not like a 1992 "great" recording, and I
doubt anyone here might have been "tricked" into confusing the two.
On another note, even if all of us were as experts as you are in sonic
matters (which, for one, I know I am not), it would be a bit tiresome,
both for the writer and the reader, to ask, in every sound-assessment,
for such a long and pertinent analysis as the ones you are able to
formulate.
regards,
SG
8H Haggis
<gol...@students.uiuc.edu> wrote:
>
>On Tue, 10 Oct 2000, Tony Movshon wrote:
>
>> 8H Haggis wrote:
>> > The problematical sound of the 1942 Furtwaengler RRG tapes has puzzled
>> > me, since the 1943-44 material is often MUCH better.
>>
>> Not sure that's consistent. The 1942 Schubert 9, for example, is quite
>> good. Surely things improved from 1942-1944, but I think not hugely.
>
>I think "8H Haggis" is correct overall, but with exceptions...I am
>tempted to ask myself whether or not the difference in the tapes's quality
>might come from many variables, like where and how they were deposited,
>how many times they were played and on what etc. What about the 1945 VPO
>*one* concert, with a better preserved Brahms Second than the Franck
>Symphony?! The original recordings must have had a consistent quality in
>both symphonies, but the tape of the Franck Symphony (particularly in the
>beginning) probably deteriorated more.
An interesting line of conjecture. I would say that a tape will
deteriorate over time but that the deterioration will NOT include the
addition of greater amounts of distortion, a deterioration of the
actual dynamic range between loud and soft, or a deterioration of
speed or phase stability. Generally, deterioration will not even add
significant tape noise. What you mostly notice is rather inconsistent
HF response, print-thru echoes, and dropouts sometimes caused when
bits of oxide stick to the back of the adjacent layer of tape.
What I hear in various RRG tapes is that some are compressed and
saturated (can't be from aging), some have wow or speed fluctuations
(also not a product of aging unless the tape becomes stretched), and
that some have dropouts (such as the last movement opening in the
EMI-Toshiba Bruckner Eighth: that COULD be tape aging/damage, but
could also be from a poor quality dubbing.)
That there are two very different sounding recordings of works given
in the SAME program is also no great mystery. This is paralleled in
the Toscanini archives in dozens -- hundreds -- of instances. After
half a century, not every fragment of the authentic "first stratum" of
the original recording survives. We often must piece together a
compilation of individual MOVEMENTS of works from diverse sources: AM
airchecks, linecheck lacquers, amateur recordings, later tape dubs,
even wire recordings. This is audible on some of the Naxos Toscanini
Concert Series CDs, where the sound quality suddenly changes (as in
8.110809, the 5 December 1943 Mozart concert.)
In the days of the first Magnetophons, it was comparatively difficult
to setup and perfectly standardize two machines. (This might have
been true even in the years 1948-52, when the earliest Ampex and RCA
tape recorders were being introduced in America, at Columbia and
Victor.) I would imagine that the two Magnetophons that were used in
tandem to record a live continous musical performance might have
subtle but entirely detectable differences in performance that might
not have been significant BACK THEN, but now would stick out like a
sore thumb if you edited the two tapes together for a CD. Surely, no
two lathe recorders performed EXACTLY ALIKE, and the sound quality
changed from the outside to the inside of every disk.
Here's another illustration of a possible problem that could be
responsible for such sonic changes. Robert Fine once started a
Mercury recording session in London, but ran out of 35 mm magnetic
tape right in the middle of the process. He had to produce the final
record using his backup machine, an older and less transparent 1/2"
r-r unit (documented by M. Gray in his ABSOLUTE SOUND article on
Mercury.) How many of us have had the experience back in the old days
of trying to tape something off the air, and finding that we had to
quickly switch our machines during a pause from 7.5 ips to 3-3/4 ips
in order to record the last movement of a long program? Any number of
things like this can happen that will result in audible changes in an
archival recording.
I once produced a commercial phonograph album of lute music, which was
assembled from a myriad of 7" reels of tape. We had a problem with
the mastering machine and could record only about half way thru each
reel before the machine started dragging and changing the pitch: so we
merely used the outer part of the reels and stopped before the tension
problem showed up, since "the show had to go on". It was a nightmare
to edit, but it was finally done... today, 28 years later, I doubt
that we'd want to face that pile of session masters, and would surely
want to use the production dub instead of going thru all the agony of
finding the right bits and pieces again.
8H Haggis
Simon Roberts
: On Tue, 10 Oct 2000 17:31:53 GMT, phlmaes...@my-deja.com wrote:
: >Yes......this is the recording/performance that changed the way I view
: >classical performances forever. I came across it by accident and it
: >just stunned me. It's still my favorite performance of any piece of
: >music. I can't decide which transfer I prefer between the Music & Arts
: >and the Tahra. I seem to go back and forth.
: >Barry
: I feel exactly this way regarding the Bayreuth Festival performance
: released as a commercial "approved" recording. In addition, I waver
: back and forth between the EMI References original CD issue (processed
: by Michael Dutton) and the latest "ART" transfer. But unlike Barry,
: who offers no reason for his ambiguity and no information about the
: differences or virtues of each, I will explain MY observations:
But why on earth should he explain his ambiguity? No-one asked him for a
detailed analysis of the various transfers, and the context of his
comments - enthusiasm for the performance - hardly requires it.
Simon
Frank Berger
8H Haggis wrote:
> On Tue, 10 Oct 2000 00:24:29 -0400, George Murnu <gmu...@erols.com>
> wrote:
>
> >They say it's better late than never, so here I finally am: I have at
> >last listened to this rightfully-praised legendary recording. ...
> >I have Music and Arts recent transfer by Maggi
> >Payne and I am really pleased with it. In fact the sound is great...
> >Regards,
> >George
>
> The problem that I have, as a long-time Furtwaengler collector who
> purchased his first WF recording in 1963, is that by calling the '42
> Ninth's sound "great" we skew our ENTIRE concept of the progress of
> recordings of the work way off the scale. By using George's
> unqualified "great" as a reference, I'd postulate the following list
> of Beethoven recordings:
>
> 1913 Nikisch Fifth: very good sound
> 1926 Weingartner Ninth: extremely good sound
> 1935 Weingartner Ninth: excellent sound
> ***1942 Furtwaengler Ninth: great sound***
> 1951 WF Bayreuth Ninth: spectacular, super-realistic, staggering sound
> 1956 Horenstein Vox Ninth: unimaginably superb, fabulously realistic
> sound
> 1957 Klemperer stereo Ninth: gloriously accurate, quintessentially
> honest, fabulously true sound
> 198? Muti EMI Ninth: a 'near-death experience' of awesome perfection
> 199? Blomstedt Decca Ninth: like having a thousand orgasms
>
> You see, we really should readjust the scale somewhat.
>
> 8H Haggis
Where can I get me one of them Blomstedt 9th's??????
Edward A. Cowan
> "...This non-written *molto ritardando* - which sounds nothing less
> than a resurrection -- may shock purists and throw off time beaters
> (dixit Wagner) but it has always brought enchanted music-lovers
> springing to their feet! We have no doubt that the composer himself
> would have been overjoyed."
["I can resist anything but temptation," dixit Oscar Wilde... <g>]
"...Dieses in der Partitur nicht vorkommende *molto ritardando*, was wie
nichts Anderes als eine echte Auferstehung vorkommt, mag Puristen
schokieren und Taktstockschwinger verblüffen (dixit Wagner), doch dabei
sind Musikliebhaber immer völlig entzückt zum freudenvollen
Hinaufspringen gebracht worden. Wir sind davon überzeugt, der Komponist
selbst wäre davon außer sich vor Freude gewesen."
[Translation mine, FWIW... Apologies in advance for any glitches in this
translation. I have tried to make the German seem as pompous as the
original.]
--
E.A.C.
George Murnu
>
> On Tue, 10 Oct 2000, 8H Haggis wrote:
>
> > >I have Music and Arts recent transfer by Maggi
> > >George
> >
> > The problem that I have, as a long-time Furtwaengler collector who
> > purchased his first WF recording in 1963, is that by calling the '42
> > Ninth's sound "great" we skew our ENTIRE concept of the progress of
> > recordings of the work way off the scale. By using George's
> > unqualified "great" as a reference, I'd postulate the following list
> > of Beethoven recordings:
> >
> > 1913 Nikisch Fifth: very good sound
> > 1926 Weingartner Ninth: extremely good sound
> > 1935 Weingartner Ninth: excellent sound
> > ***1942 Furtwaengler Ninth: great sound***
> > 1951 WF Bayreuth Ninth: spectacular, super-realistic, staggering sound
> > 1956 Horenstein Vox Ninth: unimaginably superb, fabulously realistic
> > sound
> > 1957 Klemperer stereo Ninth: gloriously accurate, quintessentially
> > honest, fabulously true sound
> > 198? Muti EMI Ninth: a 'near-death experience' of awesome perfection
> > 199? Blomstedt Decca Ninth: like having a thousand orgasms
>
> perhaps, than the opportunity called for? In collectors's jargon, we know
> that a 1942 "great" recording is not like a 1992 "great" recording, and I
> doubt anyone here might have been "tricked" into confusing the two.
>
> On another note, even if all of us were as experts as you are in sonic
> matters (which, for one, I know I am not), it would be a bit tiresome,
> both for the writer and the reader, to ask, in every sound-assessment,
> for such a long and pertinent analysis as the ones you are able to
> formulate.
>
> regards,
> SG
>
I couldn't have said it better; thanks Samir.
Regards,
George
samir golescu
On Tue, 10 Oct 2000, George Murnu wrote:
> I couldn't have said it better; thanks Samir.
You're welcome. Unlike myself, you are very respectful with anyone and
should be treated the same.
On the other hand, 8H Haggis's last posts clarified for the
better that he was actually not at all interested in offending anyone...
but in something significantly more substantial... and anyway, at the end
of the day, I may not be the most indicated person to t(pr)each
moderation... (-:
There is no way comparing different issues of historic recordings could
be useless, or offensive to Furtwangler's admirers, IMO. On the contrary,
given the plethoric blossoming of second- and third-rate labels, informed
warnings as 8H Haggis could provide are most welcome. I don't remember
anyone, even the toughest Furtwangler fan, being angered by someone saying
that the issue X of that Furtwangler recording sucks transfer-wise. I
usually find 8H Haggis's assessments reliable and rock-solid argued.
However, I found his description of the inherent flaws in the original of
Furtwangler's 1942 Beethoven Ninth in disagreement with my *musical*
impressions. The objective factors described by him are most probably
accurate, but I can't help feeling that his conclusions regarding the
musical effects of those technical limitations are exaggerated. To
revert his humorous scale, IF Furtwangler's 1942 Ninth IS so bad, than the
Weingartner London rec., the Fried etc. should be described as competing
with Brahms's 1889 cylinder. I shall not dispute the thesis that the sound
is a fundamental component of a recording... I will just suggest that the
weight this component has in one's musical experience might differ.
I would like to continue to read here many of 8H Haggis's useful posts...
not only the audio-related ones, but the gentleman knows an awful lot
about historic recordings in general. It seems to me that the spirits were
a bit angered over nothing.
regards,
S "The Wise" G
(tonight only)
samir golescu
On Wed, 11 Oct 2000, 8H Haggis wrote:
> Oh, lord: does NO one on the group have the perception of the
> difference in quality between your 'average' transfer of the '42 Ninth
> and the '51 Bayreuth Festival or the '54 Lucerne version?
Believe it or not, if the '54 Lucerne sounds best among Furtwangler's
Ninths, the 1942 version sounds to my ears as having a greater dynamic
range than the 1951 one. I know that confronted with scientific data, that
might be wrong, still that does not throw me automatically in superstition
or silliness. In the concrete process of listening, not only does emotion
"distort" judgment, but it is *supposed* to do so!! For one thing, the
dynamic range of a given conductor is projected not only in decibels, but
also in *color relations*. After all, you can listen to a recording at
a smaller dynamic level, and to another twice louder, and still to
perceive the fortissimo in the first more powerfully than the forte in
the second, if you know what I mean. From this point of view, the 1942
Ninth, while leaving much to be desired (the first movement has a greater
amount of distortion than most Furtwangler WWII tapes as you claim!), is
nonetheless not awful to my ears, but good enough as to convey what must
have been Furtwangler's real dynamic range.
> -- No one could -- in Samir's example -- doubt "that a 1942 'great'
> recording is not like a 1992 'great' recording, and I doubt anyone
> here might have been 'tricked' into confusing the two."
>
> Therefore, there are NO differences in ANY transfers of the '42 Ninth,
Of course they are, and of course you are welcome to point them out.
> except when we are assured by the "experts" that, say, Tahra's is
> "better", no real explanations as to why being offered.
If M&A had only one issue of this 1942 recording, I have heard it. Expert
not-expert, the Tahra sounds better (my personal favorite being though a
Societe WF issue).
> I believe that almost everyone who has replied has missed my point,
> which I apologise for not elucidating very well.
>
> The 1942 Ninth is not a very good example of a TECHNICALLY ADEQUATE
> Furtwaengler recording.
Perfectly appropriate to say that, I think.
(...)
> Is there a transfer of this 1942 Ninth that is good -- I don't even
> the heck care if it is "great". Just good. For reference, I consider
> the Furtwaengler recording of Bruckner's Eighth on Testament to be
> "good". By this benchmark, every one I have heard of the '42 Ninth is
>
>
> -- dare I say it? --
>
> AWFUL.
You can say it, of course, and you have your reasons to say it. I'd rather
say that if, on a scale that includes Brahms's WALTZ (not the
Hungarian Dance) cylinder and whatever yesteryear digital recording you
consider ideal, so if on such a scale, the Bruckner qualifies as 7, the
1942 Beethoven qualifies as 5. Not as 3 or 2.
best regards,
SG
phlmaes...@my-deja.com
particular this particular first movement climax, is largely a creation
of audio effects and poor sound a couple other times in the past. It's
not only the explosiveness that makes it so intense though. It's
Furtwangler's way of drawing out the climax when it just seems to fade
away much more quickly in the hands of other conductors that is largely
responsible for the power that I feel when I listen to it.
Now let's have your in depth analysis of my comment on the coda?
In article <39e496ca...@news2.2xtreme.net>,
phlmaes...@my-deja.com
>
> Why would it be of no consequence to know how successfully the
> commercial sellers of a Furtwaengler recording managed to package the
> product? Is there a reverse-snob effect among "pure musicians" that
> suggests that it is a better thing to IGNORE the sound quality, in
> order to get closest to the 'spirituality' of the music? Does anyone
> suggest that it betrays a lack of musical culture or comphrehension of
> Beethoven to inquire about the honesty and fidelity of a given
> recording transfer?
>
> Is Furtwaengler the Artist so above human criticism that it is in bad
> taste to even WANT to know which might be the factually, objectively
> most accurate "versions" of a given recording?
>
> I found evidence of all these attitudes in some discussions of WF here
> in RMCR, and in posts to Furt-L, though I don't mean to imply that
> these are the feelings of Barry.
>
that matter. I'm merely and apparently unsophistocated fan who is
interested in performance styles, and not in the slightest interested
in audio issues. I don't go onto a thread and start criticizing those
who post on audio related issues, and I frankly am a bit bemused by
your condescending attitude, which I think Samir summed up pretty well
in his latest post on this thread.
Feel free to post on about audio technology and defects. I won't
attempt to disuade you.
Barry
Marc Perman
>199? Blomstedt Decca Ninth: like having a thousand orgasms
I like Blomstedt, but I think you overrate him :)
Marc Perman
8H Haggis
>First of all, I'm not a "pure musician" or any sort of musician for
>that matter. I'm merely and apparently unsophistocated fan who is
Now we're getting right to the heart of things. You're not a
musician. I take it to mean that you, unlike my poor self, do not
have the score of the work and cannot therefore directly absorb
Beethoven's instructions (often quite ambiguous: does he REALLY mean
exactly "ff" for *each and every* instrument in all choirs in those
measures? These are the questions that are pondered by any
interpreter, and each honest musician comes up with a unique
answer...)
Yet you are interested in "interpretation" and in "performance
styles". What are your points of reference, if you cannot play and
don't read the scores?
I'm by now quite a poor musician, since it's decades since I studied
and played, but have a wife who is a great musician. The questions
that I cannot answer from studying the printed notes, *she* can
immediately, and I often ask her for clarification about a complex
harmony or rhythm, or an obscure marking. It's helpful to marry a
pianist: I recommend it to anyone!!
But at least the Beethoven Nine scores have been a close companion of
mine since high school, forty+ years ago. I have frequently referred
to the scores in order to see exactly HOW a phrase is actually
written, and to then see how the musicians played it. Quite a
fascinating activity, especially for the enthusiasts of Furtwaengler,
Mengelberg, and Stokowski such as myself. It's also *great* fun to
see where Toscanini The Purist departs from the notes. I point out a
place in the First where Mengelberg plays a detail as written, while
Toscanini is the "textual deviate" in my analysis of Mengelberg's
recordings with the Philharmonic-Symphony of York of Beethoven's First
and Third at
http://www.2xtreme.net/rwwood/obert-thorn/biddul05.htm#WHL020
in the Mark Obert-Thorn website. I refer to this to allay suspicions
of some that as a retired audio and broadcasting engineer, I am but a
mere audiophile (ugh!) and incapable of any real musical
understanding. Sadly, I do know some such folks who might be
characterised this way: as I put it in another article, "decibels and
train recordings" are all that really interest them.
The problem we have in truly understanding the old, deficient
recordings of the past is that there is AN INTERSECTION BETWEEN
THE ARTISTIC CHARACTER OF THE APPARENT INTERPRETATION,
AND THE RECORDING CHARACTERISTIC.
I say "apparent interpretation" because the sound quality often
drastically changes that, sometimes through the artist's adaptation,
and sometimes quite independently. One who hears ONLY the "decibels"
is not competent to really understand the music and the interpreter.
One who is just deaf to the "tone" and the pitch, dynamics, distortion
character, and realism (or lack thereof) is simply not able to
separate the 'strands' of the straggly sounds imperfectly picked up,
and the audio artifacts introduced by the primitive technology.
A perfect analogy would be getting a PhD in the literature of Flaubert
without ever having read a WORD of it in the original French. How
could one do this and consider herself a *genuine* expert in the
artistry of this great writer? It's impossible...
You can, however, be a great expert in the plots of Flaubert, and have
a general knowledge of his style by examining diverse and respected
translations of his works. But you shouldn't try to teach Flaubert or
to write learned tomes about him, not having experienced the
*original* in its native tongue.
I have no idea exactly where *I* might be on the continuum between
rank ignoramuses who know NOTHING of Furtwaengler, on the one end, and
Learned Experts such as Mark Kluge, Dr. Habra, et al. But I can read
the musical texts of the works Furtwaengler conducts (I have the
scores of the Beethovens, the Brahms symphonies, the various piano
concerti, etc.) and I can compare the vast majority of his well known
recordings with those of other artists (I believe that I have some 200
separate WF transfers at present.) I can also comment with a fair
amount of certainty on historical recording technology, and on modern
recording techniques, since the latter was the area of my professional
work for over 20 years.
There are others who comment on Furtwaengler in RMCR who are actually
performing musicians, and virtuosi to boot. There are some conductors
here on the newsgroup, some singers, some band musicians, some
students of composition. The musical talent and insights that are
contributed are often staggering! Why should it be entirely out of
place in the minds of some -- and I don't mean Barry, but others do
tend to leak a bit of their biases in this direction -- that the
"purely technical" aspects of the recordings are not a subject for
proper discourse, especially when undertaken in the discussion of such
a revered figure as Furtwaengler?
Do I seem extraordinarily harsh in demanding that a few of the
"generalists" who tantalise us with vague and ambiguous
non-referential comments, try to be a bit more helpful and expressive?
Otherwise, what is the purpose of posting a recommendation or comment
about a particular Furtwaengler transfer? Is it just "posting in the
wind..."?
> I frankly am a bit bemused by your condescending attitude...
It's not so much condescending as it's an attitude of ANNOYANCE AND
FRUSTRATION. Year after year, line after line of text, the same
voices are heard commenting about "this transfer" and "that transfer"
and nobody advances beyond caveman language to explain their
preferences.
Bill: I like Tahra better.
Sam: No, the M&A is the one to get.
Harry: Both of you guys are wrong. I had one done on the Remington
label, which I picked up at Sam Goody in 1952, and it blows them all
away.
Barry: I have M&A and Tahra and I cannot make up my mind; I keep going
back from one to the other.
This is HELPFUL? This tells the new Furtwaengler collector which one
to buy, and why?
How 'bout something like this, expressed in non-technical terms.
"On the Tahra, I hear a clearer picture of the orchestra. The sound
is smoother and more pleasing, and I get a sense that I am closer to
the orchestra. The Music and Arts copy sounds a bit unpleasant; I
don't know exactly why, but it is a sound that makes me squirm, and I
can't enjoy it as much and lose myself in the music: it doesn't really
emphasise the *musical* and spiritual qualities of the reading. I
have an old Turnabout LP that is really better than either of those,
but it has snaps and pops now. So I am happy with the Tahra."
There. I have said nothing that cannot be expressed by the most
non-technical music enthusiast, and I probably explained in indirect
terms that the M&A (a hypothetical one, of course) is not equalised as
smoothly, and is slightly harsh sounding, while the Tahra is richer
and fuller in response at both ends of the spectrum. That's how *I*
might say the same thing in terms bordering on those that would be
used by an engineer. I suspect that all readers will understand BOTH
explanations, and that the real meaning is fairly well conveyed by
both versions.
I do not condescend to the non-engineer, as I am constantly surrounded
by experts in all fields who have ten thousand times the knowledge
that I might have in their own domains of specialty. That's life.
But I do find that my expert friends appreciate it if I try at least a
LITTLE bit to understand what they do, and what they appreciate in
their lives. I don't disparage them by saying "I am not the slightest
bit interested in your chemistry - linguistics - economics - politics
- pedagogy - singing", etc.
I wonder exactly WHO is being condescending here?
8H Haggis
Simon Roberts
: Do I seem extraordinarily harsh in demanding that a few of the
: "generalists" who tantalise us with vague and ambiguous
: non-referential comments, try to be a bit more helpful and expressive?
: Otherwise, what is the purpose of posting a recommendation or comment
: about a particular Furtwaengler transfer? Is it just "posting in the
: wind..."?
There is no obligation to be helpful; expressions of enthusiasm, such as
the post of which you complain, are as welcome as twenty page technical
analyses.
Simon
8H Haggis
> It's
>Furtwangler's way of drawing out the climax when it just seems to fade
>away much more quickly in the hands of other conductors that is largely
>responsible for the power that I feel when I listen to it.
>Now let's have your in depth analysis of my comment on the coda?
I don't remember seeing your comment on the coda -- be patient; I may
find it -- but I can say that it is extremely difficult to start
getting precisely musically accurate about Furtwaengler's dynamics
from this particular recording, or almost any done on shellac or early
tape or sourced by a broadcast made from 1942 back to the earliest
days of electrical sound reproduction. The reason is that THE
DYNAMICS ARE ALMOST ALWAYS FALSE.
The Furt. '42 Ninth -- in the five or six different transfers I have
heard -- has an extraordinarily narrow dynamic range. I have heard
the work live in concert numerous times, have edited and remixed a
quadraphonic master of the SF Symphony doing the Ninth for a radio
broadcast, and assisted two friends in two separate recordings of the
Ninth, one in quad sound and one in conventional stereo. I can tell
you that except for a digital master where NO compression is done,
being free of either the tape saturation or limiting effects present
in most analogue versions, you'll rarely find even an analogue
recording up to the early '80's that has TRUE DYNAMICS.
Now, it's very crucial that we understand this in order to not be
misled about Furtwaengler's interpretations. The '42 Ninth has been
severely flattened by what I intuit is a combination of manual gain
adjustment by a technician, an automatic limiter, and overloaded tape
(surely SEVERAL dubbings, each one contributing more distortion and
reducing the dynamic contours a bit more.) Not only are the overall
gradations from pp to ff utterly altered, but also any interim
relationships of dynamics are changed. This is less true of some of
the better RRG recordings of the forties, and is not really true of
the very fine tape of the 1943 Beethoven Fifth, which has outbursts
from the orchestra that are unexpected and produce a striking
emotional reaction from the listener, especially if he or she is used
to the compressed, shallow sound of most OTHER Furtwaenglers of the
general time period.
I deal with the problem of the "altered perspective" of dynamics in my
article Pitfalls To Avoid In Comparing the Sound of CD's To LP's or
78's -
http://www.2xtreme.net/regina-r/tmov/pitfalls.htm
- in which I show the Reiner recording from 1956 of Rapsodie
Espagnole, which has been horribly compressed and has vastly
over-amplified soft passages. Some non-technical audiophiles have
heard this famous recording and have written about "the astonishing
detail and nuance of the soft parts" -- little wonder that they stand
out, for they are compressed to play back perhaps 15 to 20 dB louder
than they *should*.
You cannot possibly write a scientifically and musically accurate
analysis of Reiner's interpretation of this piece, based on a
falsified recording. And remember, we're talking about a pretty good
1956 RCA Victor "Living Stereo" album, NOT a dreadfully overloaded
1942 mono radio tape, with the daylights squashed out of the dynamics,
little energy above 7 or 8 kHz, and practically no substantial low
frequencies below 100 Hz.
When Barry writes of Furtwaengler's climax that "it just seems to fade
away much more quickly in the hands of other conductors", I wonder
about his perception of this.
Is he hearing a completely false dynamic picture, where the
engineering alters the diminuendo? In a modern recording, without a
compression of the loud parts that would narrow the "distance", the
climax would end more quickly because it would fade down to a lower
volume naturally. In a compressed recording, the amplitude
falsification constantly RAISES the sound level thru a long
diminuendo. There are four dynamic markings in the score in the
passages in the first movement from mm. 293 to 351: ff to f, then sf,
then p. In the transfers that I have heard, there is NO
discrimination between forte and fortissimo, and scarcely any level
difference between mf and f in any part of this Ninth. Even p is too
loud. So Furtwaengler's scaling of dynamics CANNOT BE JUDGED. It is
altered and nothing can be done to restore it unless a less compressed
alternative tape source emerges.
Now, Barry and anyone else may certainly "imprint" this particular
sonic effect in this particular Furtwaengler recording and conclude
that, for them, it is an exciting characteristic and one that brings
them pleasure or even a genuine musical thrill. But let there be no
mistake about it: this is NOT Furtwaengler's concept. It is an
altered falsification that is inextricably woven out of the various
processes, intentional and unintentional, that brought us this
technically-deficient old recording.
I would be very happy to read a refutation by, say, a conductor or an
expert on Beethoven Ninth interpretations: read the score while
listening to a transfer of this performance (mine happens at the
moment to be HP no. 6 in their Furtwaengler edition); tell us what is
*actually* heard regarding the amplitude of sound by the musicians and
the relationships to the printed markings of loudness, as compared to
a live performance, and whether the recording is ACCURATE. Tell us
also if you THINK that it reflects what Furtwaengler really achieved
in concert. I will be delighted to completely re-study this matter
and to take guidance by genuine experts, if I am indeed wrong in any
detail I have written above.
Sincerely,
8H Haggis
8H Haggis
wrote:
>Now let's have your in depth analysis of my comment on the coda?
I'm sorry; the first read thru, I missed it. You said:
>>
The complete stop and build up at the start of the coda is so
remarkable that it gives me the sense of listening to creation itself.
After listening to this movement, I'm often too emotionally drained to
go on to the other three, although when I do, they're also overflowing
with intensity and emotional power; not to mention the beautiful
serenity of the third movement.
<<
I know, Barry, you were being sarcastic about this and I *have* no "in
depth analysis" at hand of your comments on the coda. They are
private emotional reactions that you have to the performance that are
valid for you, and you've expressed them quite eloquently, as far as I
am concerned.
Many commentators have drawn analogies to the elusive spiritual
qualities of the first movement of the Ninth, being -- some have said
-- an evocation of Nature arising from Chaos. You may be entirely
right that Furtwaengler somehow manages to convey this inexplicable
quality of music that evokes such an idea in another person's mind.
Beethoven *may* have had something of this in mind, and he may not.
Toscanini's famous comment that Beethoven's Eroica was "not Napoleon,
not Hitler, but Allegro con brio" overlooks the fact that he, too,
sometimes became one with the music, his performers, and his audience,
communicating not merely "the notes" but also something higher and
entirely spiritual, though that did not always happen in the works
that Furtwaengler understood so profoundly.
Furtwaengler not only delves deeply into the complex structural and
harmonic relationships on the subtlest level -- bolstered by his
Schenkerian training -- but also he manages to touch something in the
hearts of other people that is not entirely evident from 'the notes
themselves'. This is his magic, and many other great musicians have
their own ways of tapping into that stream of communication.
8H Haggis
Matthew B. Tepper
<39E3D264...@dal.frb.org>:
>
>Where can I get me one of them Blomstedt 9th's??????
Perhaps that's the San Francisco performance that our friend recorded.
--
Matthew B. Tepper: WWW, science fiction, classical music, ducks!
My personal home page -- http://home.earthlink.net/~oy/index.html
My main music page --- http://home.earthlink.net/~oy/berlioz.html
To write to me, do for my address what Androcles did for the lion
"Compassionate Conservatism?" * "Tight Slacks?" * "Jumbo Shrimp?"
8H Haggis
wrote:
>samir golescu wrote:
>>
>> May I say, with respect, that your charming sarcasm had more bite,
>> perhaps, than the opportunity called for? In collectors's jargon, we know
>> that a 1942 "great" recording is not like a 1992 "great" recording, and I
>> doubt anyone here might have been "tricked" into confusing the two.
Oh, lord: does NO one on the group have the perception of the
difference in quality between your 'average' transfer of the '42 Ninth
and the '51 Bayreuth Festival or the '54 Lucerne version?
>> On another note, even if all of us were as experts as you are in sonic
>> matters (which, for one, I know I am not), it would be a bit tiresome,
>> both for the writer and the reader, to ask, in every sound-assessment,
>> for such a long and pertinent analysis as the ones you are able to
>> formulate.
>> SG
>I couldn't have said it better; thanks Samir.
>George
Well, we have come full circle. We seem to have established that:
-- The '42 Ninth "sounds great".
-- No one could -- in Samir's example -- doubt "that a 1942 'great'
recording is not like a 1992 'great' recording, and I doubt anyone
here might have been 'tricked' into confusing the two."
Therefore, there are NO differences in ANY transfers of the '42 Ninth,
except when we are assured by the "experts" that, say, Tahra's is
"better", no real explanations as to why being offered.
I believe that almost everyone who has replied has missed my point,
which I apologise for not elucidating very well.
The 1942 Ninth is not a very good example of a TECHNICALLY ADEQUATE
Furtwaengler recording. This does NOT say anything about its
so-called "spiritual power" or evocative quality as a performance.
Now, if there is indeed a BETTER recording in existence of this
particular performance that is not overloaded, distorted, muddy, and
hollow sounding, can ANYONE here on the ng. believe that they could
listen to it and compare it with, say, the M&A or the Everest LP or
the HP, and explain WHY it is better?
Have you guys ever watched a movie on TV, a film that you knew and had
seen before, and found that the station was running a lousy print that
had terrible color shift, fuzzy definition, and scratches, and said to
your spouse, "Geez, that looks just awful. I saw this ten years ago
and it was great -- deep color, sharp, and clear." THIS is what I am
trying to get you to come to grips with.
Is there a transfer of this 1942 Ninth that is good -- I don't even
the heck care if it is "great". Just good. For reference, I consider
the Furtwaengler recording of Bruckner's Eighth on Testament to be
"good". By this benchmark, every one I have heard of the '42 Ninth is
-- dare I say it? --
AWFUL.
8H Haggis
George Murnu
are two issues: the quality of the original ( negative in the case of
the films ) and the actual transfer. Fact is that the original for the
1942 performance is not in the best condition; therefore every transfer
made from this original must be judged from this starting point. If the
sound on Furtwangler's Testament Bruckner is good ( and it is ), this is
because the original is in better condition, not because the engineer
has made a better job transferring the material.
But back to the M&A transfer, keeping in mind the time of the
performance, the state of the original, and my expectations for the
sound, I have to say that overall I am pleased with what I heard on this
CD. And I hope one day I will be able to hear other transfers as well;
for now I am satisfied with this one all things considered.
Regards,
George
Tony Movshon
And I think it's on Berlin Classics, not Decca ...
--
Tony Movshon Center for Neural Science
mov...@nyu.edu New York University
Matthew B. Tepper
<Pine.GSO.4.10.100101...@ux11.cso.uiuc.edu>:
>
>I'd rather say that if, on a scale that includes Brahms's WALTZ (not the
>Hungarian Dance) cylinder and whatever yesteryear digital recording you
>consider ideal, so if on such a scale, the Bruckner qualifies as 7, the
>1942 Beethoven qualifies as 5. Not as 3 or 2.
What is this Brahms Waltz cylinder? Another one made at the same time
which no longer survives? (Or which exists only as shards?)
M.Taboada
Furtwaengler. I never have a sonic problem, no changing equipment, no
headphone listening, no A-B comparisons, no checking of different issues
on the same or different media, no Japanese Toshibas to find and shell
out for, in fact, no labels to remember, let alone matrix numbers or
slight differences in Ampex speeds -- as far as I'm concerned, all
Lizzio reissues could be the same, literally. The only thing I pay
attention to is the number before the ".99". I assert and aver that the
Gulf Wartime Lizzio Ninth is a recording for the ages. Lizzio is no mere
labelmeister: he lets the music speak for itself. Take heed.
Regards,
mrt
Brendan R. Wehrung
>
> The problem that I have, as a long-time Furtwaengler collector who
> purchased his first WF recording in 1963, is that by calling the '42
> Ninth's sound "great" we skew our ENTIRE concept of the progress of
> recordings of the work way off the scale. By using George's
> unqualified "great" as a reference, I'd postulate the following list
> of Beethoven recordings:
how about...
>
> 1913 Nikisch Fifth: very good sound [state of the art]
> 1926 Weingartner Ninth: extremely good sound [close to SOTA]
> 1935 Weingartner Ninth: excellent sound [not bad]
...and so on?
Brendan
Raymond Hall
news:39e3bf05...@news2.2xtreme.net...
> On Wed, 11 Oct 2000 00:09:15 GMT, phlmaes...@my-deja.com wrote:
> >First of all, I'm not a "pure musician" or any sort of musician for
> >that matter. I'm merely and apparently unsophistocated fan who is
> >interested in performance styles...
>
I like your example in the middle, of a non-technical person describing a
recording. Simon is truly excellent in this type of description, to our
great benefit. On the other hand, I don't object, and see no why reason why
anyone should object to a more reasoned and scientific analysis, such as you
often discuss.
Music is "sound" after all, and this *is* a recording group, so I can't see
any objections whatsoever in the more detailed analyses.
One of the reasons I am glad to see 8H Haggis back posting in force again.
If something is too technical, then one has the option of not reading it.
Regards,
# Classical Music WebSites
# Favourite Conductors
# Doris Day, Billie Holiday
# http://www.users.bigpond.com/hallraylily/index.html
Ray, Sydney
8H Haggis
<gol...@students.uiuc.edu> wrote:
>Believe it or not, if the '54 Lucerne sounds best among Furtwangler's
On Tue, 10 Oct 2000 23:03:44 -0500, samir golescu
<gol...@students.uiuc.edu> wrote:
>Believe it or not, if the '54 Lucerne sounds best among Furtwangler's
>Ninths, the 1942 version sounds to my ears as having a greater dynamic
>range than the 1951 one.
It is entirely wrong, and I can show that easily. It will require
only digitising the two recordings, and then finding the loudest and
softest passages and then obtaining the dynamic data. Since the '51
is an exceptionally realistic recording that stands out as one of the
technically finest of any of the Furtwaenglers of similar material --
though one might not agree on all systems unless some creative
equalisation tuning were made to produce "euphoneous" balances on any
given speaker -- I would expect it to have a dynamic range from
softest to loudest passages of somewhat more than 40 dB (I measured a
huge dynamic range in WF's 1950 recording of Brahms' Haydn Variations,
as reported in my extensive and completely documented article
"Toscanini vs. Furtwängler: A Comparison of Recorded Quality" -
http://www.2xtreme.net/regina-r/tmov/at_vs_wf.htm
In that article, I found by careful measurements that WF's best
*technical* recordings of the piece had a slightly greater sonic
realism and a distinctly larger dynamic variation than the best of
Toscanini's, though the differences were not huge. It depended on how
you approached the recordings: whether you play them "straight" on
your given system, and if they happened to sound well on them, or if
you wanted to *optimise* the playback quality by equalisation
adjustments made with a modern benchmark as a standard (keeping in
mind, always, the reference to a live performance, and being cognizant
of Brahms' dynamic markings.) The '50 WF performance had about a six
dB greater dynamic extreme from soft to loud than the better of the
two Toscaninis, the 1952 recording. However, in looking at the
dynamic markings in the score, one can see immediately why some
persons might question the extremely soft levels preferred by
Furtwaengler: so soft as to exceed almost any other conductor (of the
17 recordings measured.) This is not to criticise Furtwaengler's
conception, merely to describe it. That he drew such magically
riveting quiet playing, and evoked such mystery and rapt hush from his
players, is more important in the communications of Brahms' great work
than any mere pedantic observation one might make about the
proportions of his *pianissimi*.
The 1942 WF recording of the Ninth is, by an extremely cursory check
that I just did, using exactly the same analogue measuring setup that
I employed in the report in that article, tends to indicate a
variation from the loudest portions of the ecstatic coda of the last
movement representing the "reference" 0 VU setting, that the first
phrase of the bassoon, marked *piano* in the opening measures of the
Adagio, registers about -26 or -27 dB lower than the loudest reference
passage: this is judged by mono playback of my copy on HP 6. In
contrast, the 1951 performance (the ART transfer from EMI) measures
approximately -38 to -40 for the bassoon passage, in contrast to a 0
VU reference of the loudest notes heard in the finale's coda.
Therefore, the 1951 has -- with this analogue measurement methodology,
and using these passages for reference -- a dynamic range of about 12
or 13 dB greater variety than the '42. This is an extremely LARGE
difference, not an inconsequential one. I have no doubt that a more
accurate measurement, using an automatic process in one of my CD
players to seek and find the exact loudest peak and then digitising
the entire performance, using this as a reference, and locating the
least dynamic registration (of real music -- one has to be careful not
to measure silence, or noise) that the true number is even larger than
12 or 13 dB more dynamic range. I would guess, extrapolating from the
differences I measured in my article between my analogue and my
digital method of measurement, that the figure might likely be in the
region of as much as a 15 to 18 dB difference.
>I know that confronted with scientific data, that
>might be wrong,
Sadly, Samir, you are entirely wrong, and I say this with complete
respect for your sensitive musician's ear.
>still that does not throw me automatically in superstition
>or silliness. In the concrete process of listening, not only does emotion
>"distort" judgment, but it is *supposed* to do so!!
Indeed, total artistic judgment consists NOT of reciting mere numbers.
Judgment might be *influenced* by certain types of data as one of the
elements to be considered, if the data were valued as significant to
the argument. I am certain that many in this discussion will not
consider them the slightest bit significant...one does not go around
in life MEASURING things with meters. No conductor, singer, musician,
or music lover needs to do so. I offer the numbers because the
subject was brought to my attention. They do not "prove" anything at
all about the greatness of Furtwaengler's superb concept of Beethoven.
They do, however, provide us with but one small concrete and objective
fact that might be of interest to some persons who had a conception of
the psycho-neural response by the human listening mechanism to sounds
that are played over such-and-such a volume differential. In less
pretentious language, the person who understands the actual loudness
relationship of, say, 15 dB, and who can appreciate the difference in
of sound volume as being one important element in achieving the
"reality" of the recording quality, vis-a-vis real musical instruments
playing the same piece. A person who can perceive that will find the
numbers revealing. They tell us that the 1942 recording has
drastically condensed the variation in volume into a small size.
Furthermore, I was actually expecting a wider variance in the '51
version than I really measured. I think a very pure, accurate, and
realistic uncompressed modern digital recording of these passages,
played with all the intensity that an orchestra can muster, would have
a dynamic variation of at least 55 dB *or more*, perhaps even 60 dB.
So, the '51 version must be compressed -- itself -- at least 15 or
more dB. That means that the '42 recording has been compressed 27 to
30 dB, or that, in effect, it may only have about a half the dynamic
variation between loud and soft of a "real" or live acoustical
performance.
How, under such circumstances, can one POSSIBLY judge the gradation of
crescendi-diminuendi, and the body of the full ensemble of singers and
players, all "wedged" into the tight, narrowrange monophony of the
recording? How can one get more than a peculiar, vague impression of
the actual event? It reminds me of Socrates' shadows on the cave
wall...
I must stop here and talk of the significance of this recording.
It seems apparent to me that the '42 Furtwaengler Ninth is one of the
most remarkable artistic documents of Western humankind. For a large
body of enthusiasts it symbolises not only the art of a great
interpreter, but also a veritable "cry from out of the wilderness" by
human souls experiencing the most unimaginably trying conditions.
The paradoxes represented by the actuality of this performance are
almost inexpressible, and epitomise the greatest nobility of man, seen
in the relief of his greatest moments of bestiality and horror. So
many extra-musical issues are inextricably woven into this tapestry
that I personally find it a bit hard to approach the performance on
"pure musical grounds". Truly, the excesses of expression are beyond
mere critique. One imagines that if the rebellious, justice-loving
soul of Beethoven had been present himself at this event, he would
have evoked the raw cries of passion and emotion that one
hears...perhaps he would shout, as he leapt ecstatically above the
podium, or crouched low for a *pianissimo* passage, "The scratchings
on this paper be damned: THIS IS HOW I FEEL!" One cannot -- should
not -- listen to this and respond as a mere pedant, shaking the head
and making checkmarks at all the excesses and departures.
That having been said, I'd like to get back down to earth and add that
there surely might be ways to examine this artifact with some
detachment. Where a certain "professional musician and critic" badly
erred, regarding this and other great performances by Furtwaengler and
Mengelberg -- deeply offending some very sensitive and sincere music
lovers in this newsgroup -- was by demeaning it, and reducing its
masterful interpreter to the mundane role of a mere "entertainer" (his
own word.) Then he made the irrelevant comparison of this flawed but
deeply informative document with some idealised modern recordings and
found it wanting -- and dismissed it.
As Tony Movhon pointed out, when the worthy "professional critic"
seemed not to comprehend what he had done (like a naughty and guilty
little boy looking around in all mock innocence, mystified by the
broken glass around him) the mistake made was to fail to recognise
this performance as an Icon. It represents something in the minds of
its adherents -- something important. It is part of a value system
that people have. You must respect these things if you want to be a
loving human being, and one who has an open heart to share the
beauties of music, of Beethoven, of being a just human in a just
society.
That is one of the reasons that I personally would be truly interested
to know if all that remains is one sadly damaged reminiscence of this
event: an event none of us would dare to want to be present at unless
we could adjust our time machine SO carefully that we were swept in
and out of it before harm was done to us by the Nazi thugs that were
lurking all round, their stench a faint odor in the background as
Furtwaengler and his inspired musicians struggle to rise above it into
the realm of art and humanity.
Is this one distorted, muddy, and confused recording -- conveying
enough of the experience for our imaginations to take flight -- the
only trunk from which have bloomed the many issues that have appeared?
Or, is there truly a better recording somewhere? Is it buried in 1600
tapes in an archive? Is it in Moscow, or on a shelf in a library, or
in a dusty corner of a European radio station? Is it being hoarded by
an over-protective family? Or by a "society" that might be afraid of
litigation from powerful business interests that have prior claims?
One would like to know. One would also be interested in learning if
Transfer X is *really* better than Transfer Y, or if it is just the
same thing with some minor changes.
>For one thing, the dynamic range of a given conductor is projected not
>only in decibels, but also in *color relations*.
I think to allow this we must broaden the discussion from the mere
electrical dynamic range of the actual measured loudest and softest
amplitudes of sound -- which are changed by a microphone into an
ANALOGUE of the actual "musical dynamic" into a simple variation in
electrical current, into a much larger discussion -- an aesthetic and
acoustical one -- of sophisticated issues of instrumental expression,
balancing, and the shading of tone of each choir in the ensemble that
is reading of the score. This is a much more complicated discussion
than the one that I had intended to deal with, and we can do it -- but
with even less satisfactory results, I suspect, than in the mere
examination of a very simple and narrow issue of the "loudest" and
"softest" parts of the recording, and how they match up with the
expected range of volume at any given place in the musical hall.
If we cannot find too many respondents here who will be able to cope
with such very basic concepts as whether a recording is "bright" or
whether it is "dull", whether it is in fake stereo or pure mono, or
whether it has distortion, then I wonder how many of us will want to
tackle the issues of instrumental balancing that might be argued in a
string quartet, or debated between Mr. Ormandy, Mr. Toscanini, and Mr.
Furtwaengler as they gather around Charlie Rose's table for a
late-night interview.
The microphone picks up and creates its analogue -- an illusion of
"musical sound" that you might display, for example, on the screen of
an oscilloscope as wavy lines. I remember, fifty years ago, staring
at a record and simply not being able to COPE with the idea that this
wiggly line turned into MUSIC in my head. It was simply beyond my
full comprehension; it was magic. It still is, in fact, somewhat
beyond me, whenever I think of that or look at a scope. I once had a
discussion with another engineer and he reminded me that it was
certainly not magic at all (I knew that); and that the wiggly lines
were merely a momentary means of storing the changes in the current
fluctuations, and that if everything was perfectly satisfactory in the
entire machinery from one end to the other, the music would emerge
unscathed, turned back into sound pressure variations by the vibrating
speaker cone...but, you know, to me IT'S STILL MAGIC.
I know exactly how the air pressure is converted to changes of
electrical capacity in a loaded circuit, whose impedance variations
are measured in a high voltage environment and turned into the flow of
current in a transmission line...how the signal amplitudes are
controlled and blended with others...how the phase is
manipulated...how the electron flow is then converted into the varying
Gauss of the magnetic field, rotating particles of iron in a plastic
substrate...on and on. Yet the magic remains in my mind, a sort of
deep wonder at the heart of all of it, the kind of feeling that an
astronomer has after spending a night measuring position angles of
binary stars, and then steps out into the fresh, cold, dark air to
look up and SEE the wonders of the night sky...it's magic!
So I won't demean this technically-flawed Furtwaengler recording. Not
only is its mere existence the confirmation that electronic magic
exists and is REAL, but also it vouchsafes to us the magic of
Beethoven in a vivid way that few other such documents can convey.
>After all, you can listen to a recording at
>a smaller dynamic level, and to another twice louder, and still to
>perceive the fortissimo in the first more powerfully than the forte in
>the second, if you know what I mean.
That is true because we train ourselves to adjust our brain's
conception of what we hear -- which is objectively a poor simulation
of the real sound of 80 instrumentalists and a chorus of 200 -- to the
mental model of the same. We know what it *should* be, and can work
with mere *suggestions* of that in order to derive the musical
argument.
That is, SOME of us can do this. I postulate in my article The
Varying Perception of Noise" -
http://www.2xtreme.net/regina-r/tmov/noise.htm
- that this is a learned technique, not a natural skill. This might
explain why a lot of young people, brought up on modern stereo CD
recordings, find us old fogeys who like scratchy old things from the
thirties and forties to be an incomprehensibly eccentric lot, perhaps
even suffering from delusions! And that "professional music critic"
who wrote here so often seems to be among the numbers of the doubters
who would claim that old recordings cannot possibly offer much musical
enlightenment...
>From this point of view, the 1942
>Ninth, while leaving much to be desired (the first movement has a greater
>amount of distortion than most Furtwangler WWII tapes as you claim!), is
>nonetheless not awful to my ears, but good enough as to convey what must
>have been Furtwangler's real dynamic range.
The true dynamic range is partially *suggested* by the addition of
distortion components at key moments when the sound levels *should*
rise but don't. These types of distortion -- which I called "dynamic
distortions" in my article "The Varying Perception of Noise"
http://www.2xtreme.net/regina-r/tmov/noise.htm
-- create a "stressing" effect that is not entirely different from
the actual timbral change of an instrument being struck, blown, or
bowed with much greater than normal force. Thus, even though the
volume measurement does not show that the sound gets much louder, the
STRESSING and distortion effects increase and tell us that SOMETHING
has happened to increase the intensity of sound. But it does not tell
us the entire story. I could demonstrate that the artistic changes
created by such sonic artifacts in some cases would make you think
that a perfectly sane Ormandy performance was instead a fiery
Koussevitzky one.
No one would call Monteux a particularly emotional and histrionic
conductor. Yet there are some SF Sym recordings from the forties and
early fifties that have this "stress" effect -- which Robert Layton
called "bursting apart at the seams" -- so heavily applied that the
performances erupt like Vesuvius. It is almost entirely an audio
phenomenon, as I personally have demonstrated in experiments with
exactly the same model of audio limiter used by RCA Victor, using
modern recordings processed to "sound" like old ones.
>>...every one I have heard of the '42 Ninth is
>>
>> -- dare I say it? --
>>
>> AWFUL.
>
>You can say it, of course, and you have your reasons to say it. I'd rather
>say that if, on a scale that includes Brahms's WALTZ (not the
>Hungarian Dance) cylinder and whatever yesteryear digital recording you
>consider ideal, so if on such a scale, the Bruckner qualifies as 7, the
>1942 Beethoven qualifies as 5. Not as 3 or 2.
Samir, you missed the essential point, I believe, in my tabulation of
recordings, from Nikisch to Blomstedt, by sound quality. I was not
trying to ridicule George, but to show - reasonably - that we can
mis-state things in the larger context even if we are being quite
accurate in each step of the process. We can say that Weingartner's
1935 version is perfectly OK...that perhaps we might find the '42
Furtwaengler to be even better in some respects...and that the 1951
version is a further advance...on and on. Now, I tried -- in
describing the improvements at each of my "steps" -- to show the
proper relationship to the step immediately before it and immediately
ahead of it. But the problem was that by defining a very old, dim,
narrow range monaural recording, suffering from extremely limited
dynamics, large quanitities of distortion, a loss of highs and lows,
and significant backgound noise as being GREAT, I scarcely had
anywhere to go before I got into great difficulties and had to make
ridiculously exaggerated statements to express *the NEXT STEP* and the
next step...
There HAS to be a better way than this of dealing with historic
material. We have to define the issues better if we want to bring
them into a large context. Some might claim -- reasonably -- that
there is no way at all to "rank" these things (I might agree,
sometimes, with this argument) and that any kind of artistic ranking
is as odious as the nineteenth century anthropological condescension
to the "inferior races". Surely a silly system such as
ClassicsToday.com's dual numbering scheme is an utter futility. We
can't get anywhere by trying to pin one integer out of a mere 10 onto
an old 1928 Kleiber recording, while still having a useful range for
ranking a nearly perfect modern facsimile of an orchestra.
And, by just caving in to our emotional side and saying that the '42
Ninth is "great" sounding, we simply shut off the critical faculty
that might help us to get a *better* experience from the recording, if
we could appreciate the true differences between, say, a "distorted,
limited, dull" version and a "1942 master tape quality" version.
Somewhere in the world, once, there WAS such a tape. It would
probably tell us much more about the conductor's conception of dynamic
gradation, chordal balancing, instrumental shading. It would lift us
up out of our seats with more power, since the full bass would be
present as it is in the Tahra transfer of the 1943 Beethoven Fifth.
The Turkish music in the finale would ring out brilliantly, not
actually recede slightly and turn into a jangle. The outcry at the end
of the finale would have an even more shattering effect, because we
could become closer to the actual physical experience.
Is it entirely wrongheaded for one of us on the ng. to ponder these
things, and to want to find ways to be able to determine the REAL
differences between different commercial products that all *claim* to
being us "the best 1942 Furtwaengler Ninth"?
Yours,
8H Haggis
Matthew Silverstein
> I feel exactly this way regarding the Bayreuth Festival performance
> released as a commercial "approved" recording. In addition, I waver
> back and forth between the EMI References original CD issue (processed
> by Michael Dutton) and the latest "ART" transfer. But unlike Barry,
> who offers no reason for his ambiguity and no information about the
> differences or virtues of each, I will explain MY observations:
[snip]
Perhaps Barry feels the same way that I do. My preference for the 1942
performance has absolutely *nothing* to do with the recorded sound or with the
transfer. It's the *performance* that I love: the blazing intensity,
overpowering timpani, etc. The Bayreuth performance cannot hold a candle to
the 1942 performance in these respects.
If it's recorded sound you're after, I'm surprised you don't like the Lucerne
recording most of all.
Matty
Matthew Silverstein
> I don't remember seeing your comment on the coda -- be patient; I may
> find it -- but I can say that it is extremely difficult to start
> getting precisely musically accurate about Furtwaengler's dynamics
> from this particular recording, or almost any done on shellac or early
> tape or sourced by a broadcast made from 1942 back to the earliest
> days of electrical sound reproduction. The reason is that THE
> DYNAMICS ARE ALMOST ALWAYS FALSE.
But we are not all interested in the "truth" of the recording. We are
interested in evaluating the recording qua performance. Whether the intensity
is due to dynamics or to distortion is *irrelevant*: it's *still* intensity.
Matty
Matthew Silverstein
> There is no obligation to be helpful; expressions of enthusiasm, such as
> the post of which you complain, are as welcome as twenty page technical
> analyses.
If not more so . . .
Matty
Tony Movshon
> Haggis wrote:
> > The reason is that THE
> > DYNAMICS ARE ALMOST ALWAYS FALSE.
>
> interested in evaluating the recording qua performance. Whether the intensity
> is due to dynamics or to distortion is *irrelevant*: it's *still* intensity.
If it's irrelevant, why have engineers tried for 100 years to make it
better, and listeners rewarded them for 100 years by showing that they
are willing to pay money for the improved product?
Your exasperation is overcoming your good sense, Matty.
Simon Roberts
: Marc Perman wrote:
: >
: > spur...@nowhere.com (8H Haggis) wrote:
: >
: > >199? Blomstedt Decca Ninth: like having a thousand orgasms
: >
: > I like Blomstedt, but I think you overrate him :)
: And I think it's on Berlin Classics, not Decca ...
There's also a live one from Dresden on Laserlight or some such. If
that's what having a thousand orgasms is like, monks aren't missing much.
Simon
Tony Movshon
>
> Tony Movshon (mov...@nyu.edu) wrote:
> : Marc Perman wrote:
> : >
> : > spur...@nowhere.com (8H Haggis) wrote:
> : >
> : > >199? Blomstedt Decca Ninth: like having a thousand orgasms
> : >
> : > I like Blomstedt, but I think you overrate him :)
>
> : And I think it's on Berlin Classics, not Decca ...
>
> that's what having a thousand orgasms is like, monks aren't missing much.
I believe that's 8H's original point.
Matthew B. Tepper
<8s0vq4$pf5$1...@freenet9.carleton.ca>:
Probably until you get to the 1999 Blomstedt, which the green-felt-tip
crowd will describe as, "doesn't sound anything like an orchestra!"
phlmaes...@my-deja.com
> Perhaps Barry feels the same way that I do. My preference for the 1942
> performance has absolutely *nothing* to do with the recorded sound or
with the
> transfer. It's the *performance* that I love: the blazing intensity,
> overpowering timpani, etc. The Bayreuth performance cannot hold a
candle to
> the 1942 performance in these respects.
>
> If it's recorded sound you're after, I'm surprised you don't like the
Lucerne
> recording most of all.
>
> Matty
>
>
Matthew Silverstein
> But we are not all interested in the "truth" of the recording. We are
> interested in evaluating the recording qua performance. Whether the
intensity
> is due to dynamics or to distortion is *irrelevant*: it's *still* intensity.
Tony wrote:
> If it's irrelevant, why have engineers tried for 100 years to make it
> better, and listeners rewarded them for 100 years by showing that they
> are willing to pay money for the improved product?
>
> Your exasperation is overcoming your good sense, Matty.
Perhaps not. If some superstar enginners came along and somehow produced a
vastly "superior" (from Haggis' point of view) transfer of the 1942
performance, and if this transfer somehow revealed a rather unintense and
unexciting performance, then I would still prefer my "inferior" transfer.
Whichever transfer (or performance) provides the greatest listening experience
for me is the one that I am going to listen to. My only point was that this
transfer need not necessarily be the "most truthful," though it might often
be.
Matty
TD
"Matthew Silverstein" <matthew.s...@corpus-christi.oxford.ac.uk>
wrote in message news:8s25pl$pkr$1...@news.ox.ac.uk...
Have you tried listening to your current transfer with a couple of angry
people shouting in your ears? That would be even less faithful to the
original sound, but it might be rather more intense.
Bob Lombard
wrote in message news:8s25pl$pkr$1...@news.ox.ac.uk...
> Matty wrote:
>
> > But we are not all interested in the "truth" of the recording. We are
> > interested in evaluating the recording qua performance. Whether the
> intensity
> > is due to dynamics or to distortion is *irrelevant*: it's *still*
intensity.
>
> Tony wrote:
>
> > If it's irrelevant, why have engineers tried for 100 years to make it
> > better, and listeners rewarded them for 100 years by showing that they
> > are willing to pay money for the improved product?
> >
> > Your exasperation is overcoming your good sense, Matty.
>
> Perhaps not. If some superstar enginners came along and somehow produced a
> vastly "superior" (from Haggis' point of view) transfer of the 1942
> performance, and if this transfer somehow revealed a rather unintense and
> unexciting performance, then I would still prefer my "inferior" transfer.
>
> Whichever transfer (or performance) provides the greatest listening
experience
> for me is the one that I am going to listen to. My only point was that
this
> transfer need not necessarily be the "most truthful," though it might
often
> be.
>
>
I agree, which should settle it.
bl
Edward A. Cowan
> One of the reasons I am glad to see 8H Haggis back posting in force again.
>
> If something is too technical, then one has the option of not reading it.
I, too, am delighted to find 8H Haggis back among us. Like the music of
Anton Bruckner, the writings of Haggis take time and attention to
appreciate their contents. Those who cannot do this find Bruckner (and
Haggis) hard to take. That is their right and choice. The best way to
act on this choice is not to listen to Bruckner and not to read Haggis.
I find I have more time for Haggis than for Bruckner, but sometimes I
can take the time even for Bruckner, especially on cold winter evenings
with nothing else to do... <g>
--
E.A.C.
Edward A. Cowan
> I assert and aver that the
> Gulf Wartime Lizzio Ninth is a recording for the ages. Lizzio is no mere
> labelmeister: he lets the music speak for itself. Take heed.
That may be so, but does it have bloom above the stave? Is it fresh? <g>
--
E.A.C.
Edward A. Cowan
> Like in films there
> are two issues: the quality of the original ( negative in the case of
> the films ) and the actual transfer. Fact is that the original for the
> 1942 performance is not in the best condition; therefore every transfer
> made from this original must be judged from this starting point.
I understand that this 1942 Furtwaengler Ninth is the soundtrack of a
film, an excerpt from which may be seen in one of the various "Great
Conductors" videos that are around (I have forgotten just now which
one): The stage is festooned with swastikas. Occasional shots of the
audience disclose various Nazis in attendance, and at the end, WF is
seen to shake hands with Propaganda Minister Josef Goebbels. (FWIW, a
close friend, now deceased, told me he had seen the film of the entire
performance in Estonia during the German occupation.)
Now there are some for whom this visual element of the performance is
sufficiently offputting to impede enjoyment of the musical performance.
For me, it is not, and I can hear in this icon (as 8H so aptly calls it)
a cry of protest against the world in which this performance occurs. I
do cherish the hope that a sonically much improved edition of this
performance eventually emerges on CD.
--
E.A.C.
8H Haggis
wrote:
>The true dynamic range is partially *suggested* by the addition of
>distortion components at key moments when the sound levels *should*
>rise but don't. These types of distortion -- which I called "dynamic
>distortions" in my article "The Varying Perception of Noise"
>http://www.2xtreme.net/regina-r/tmov/noise.htm
>-- create a "stressing" effect that is not entirely different from
>the actual timbral change of an instrument being struck, blown, or
>bowed with much greater than normal force.
Apologies to anyone with the tenacity and attention span required to
get this far in the post I made during the wee hours of this morning,
driven by insomnia (not a good idea, considering the occasional typos
and poor proof-reading!) -- but the above link was the WRONG one and
does not have the discussion of distortion.
The RIGHT article is
"The Varying Perception of Distortion"
http://www.2xtreme.net/regina-r/tmov/distorted.htm
(subheading: 'NEW FORMS OF "DISTORTION')
8H Haggis
samir golescu
On Wed, 11 Oct 2000, 8H Haggis wrote:
> <gol...@students.uiuc.edu> wrote:
>
> >Believe it or not, if the '54 Lucerne sounds best among Furtwangler's
> >Ninths, the 1942 version sounds to my ears as having a greater dynamic
> >range than the 1951 one.
>
> It is entirely wrong, and I can show that easily. It will require
> only digitising the two recordings, and then finding the loudest and
> softest passages and then obtaining the dynamic data.
[comparison snipped]
> Sadly, Samir, you are entirely wrong, and I say this with complete
> respect for your sensitive musician's ear.
I am a bit surprised by the insistence you are trying to win a long ago
conceded argument. I already said:
<<<I know that confronted with scientific data, that
might be wrong, still that does not throw me automatically in superstition
or silliness. In the concrete process of listening, not only does emotion
"distort" judgment, but it is *supposed* to do so!! For one thing, the
dynamic range of a given conductor is projected not only in decibels, but
also in *color relations*. After all, you can listen to a recording at
a smaller dynamic level, and to another twice louder, and still to
perceive the fortissimo in the first more powerfully than the forte in
the second, if you know what I mean. From this point of view, the 1942
Ninth, while leaving much to be desired (the first movement has a greater
amount of distortion than most Furtwangler WWII tapes, as you claim!), is
nonetheless not awful to my ears, but good enough as to convey what must
have been Furtwangler's real dynamic range.>>>
I said, in full knowledge of what I said, the 1942 *version*, not the 1942
*recording*. All your subsequent explanations, while interesting and
pertinent, were somehow eluding my points, as I'd have said, confronting
your scientific arguments: "No, the 1942 Ninth has a GREATER DYNAMIC
RANGE, in "real sound"!! I never said that. I understand perfectly
that certain sonics aspect can be discussed in themselves (and not, Mr.
Movshon, I don't think wanting a better sound reproduction would be
reprobable), I did never say you were WRONG--I tried to explain how is
that other people *perceive* differently the objective sonic data you
refer to. That you are much better articulated when you discuss all this
technical aspects we only approximate does *not* imply that all have to
feel this recording would be "awful". For the record, I listened to it
again this morning, focusing more on the dynamic range in itself, and I
understood your points, and I saw you were right. However, just because we
are talking about a *real tape* (as poor as it might be), the color of
the, say, strings, at least in the non-climactic passages, is heard *very
well*, better rendered than what MOST 78s I've heard could do. It is
simply about how one string sound is connected to the next. That is nicely
heard, even on this flawed and problematic tape-recording.
[explanation regarding (again) recording parameters snipped, because
(hopefully) understood and gladly accepted]
> How, under such circumstances, can one POSSIBLY judge the gradation of
> crescendi-diminuendi, and the body of the full ensemble of singers and
> players, all "wedged" into the tight, narrowrange monophony of the
> recording? How can one get more than a peculiar, vague impression of
> the actual event?
It can--it does for me.
[very interesting long comments on the Furtwangler 1942 Ninth snipped]
> Is this one distorted, muddy, and confused recording -- conveying
> enough of the experience for our imaginations to take flight -- the
> only trunk from which have bloomed the many issues that have appeared?
> Or, is there truly a better recording somewhere? Is it buried in 1600
> tapes in an archive? Is it in Moscow, or on a shelf in a library, or
> in a dusty corner of a European radio station? Is it being hoarded by
> an over-protective family? Or by a "society" that might be afraid of
> litigation from powerful business interests that have prior claims?
>
> One would like to know. One would also be interested in learning if
> Transfer X is *really* better than Transfer Y, or if it is just the
> same thing with some minor changes.
Yes, I got the point--and it is a good one. All Furtwanglerophiles would
be perfectly happy with a new 1942 Ninth tape being discovered! Until
then, we have to listen to what we have.
[...]
> Is it entirely wrongheaded for one of us on the ng. to ponder these
> things, and to want to find ways to be able to determine the REAL
> differences between different commercial products that all *claim* to
> being us "the best 1942 Furtwaengler Ninth"?
No, not at all. I think it was more a matter of tone: "UNLIKE XX, I will
etc. etc.". I bet that none of these long discussions would have followed
have you simply exposed your opinions, even a la longue. Then, again, I
don't feel particularly qualified to preach on moderation, so let's leave
it at that. Please continue to help in the future, me and the ng, with
choosing between different issues of the same historic recordings.
regards,
SG
Bogdan Tudose
I think this raises a troubling question:
Since we cannot make the 1942 recording sound like contemporary DDD material,
maybe an audio engineer can take a modern recording of the 9th and make it
sound like the Furtwangler '42: distortion, compression, the works. If this
could actually
be done, we might get a rough idea of what can be lost in the transfer.
Any volunteers?
Bogdan
8H Haggis
wrote:
>Like in films there are two issues: the quality of the original
>( negative in the case of the films ) and the actual transfer.
>Fact is that the original for the 1942 performance is not in the best condition
How did you establish this "FACT" ?
> therefore every transfer
>made from this original must be judged from this starting point.
How did you judge the first stratum of the recording? Did you hear
the master tape? If so, when and where?
Of course you didn't, George, but you write above as if you *did* and
therefore you do have the means of making these comparisons.
What is the "starting point" of the Furtwaengler '42 Ninth?
Who can tell us, with historical - musical - scientific certainty that
they DO KNOW they have heard "the starting point" as defined by
George?
Can Henry Fogel tell us that he has heard "the starting point"? Mark
Kluge? Samir? Dr. Sabra? Fred Maroth? Tony Movshon?
George Murnu?
WHO?
Now that we probably have established that there is no bona fide
known, verified "starting point" that anyone of knows with absolute
certainty that he or she has heard, can we be CERTAIN, in George's
words, "therefore every transfer made from this original must be
judged from this starting point."
The same argument could have been made, ten years ago, that the
Beethoven Fifth performance from 1943 was, to paraphrase George,
"an original 1943 performance not in the best condition". We had the
EVIDENCE, didn't we? We had DGG 427 775-2, which I am holding in my
hands right now. It has "AM radio sound", with a couple of places
where some OTHER performance has been inserted for a few measures that
were apparently missing. The dynamics are highly restricted. There
are scarcely any treble overtones above the fundamental range of the
highest notes of the piano (i. e. above about 4500 Hz). There is no
fundamental bass. There is significant distortion. This SEEMS to us,
c.1990, to be "an original that is not in very good condition."
In fact, long time Furtw. enthusiasts may remember my exchanges with
the expert Mark Kluge here in this ng. I asked for answers to my
questions about the condition of this recording: WHY there were
inserts, WHO played the music, etc. Mark found then that the sound
was so poor on this and the older (Turnabout?) LP he was familiar with
that he really couldn't get "into" the performance and had not given
it a great deal of analysis, preferring others such as the
comparatively excellent 1947 version.
SURPRISE! Tony Movshon acquires the Tahra issue (FURT 1032-1033) and
discovers, to his absolute amazement, that the sound is "master tape
quality" scarcely worse than a recording of the late fifties and even
early sixties, in full-blooded perspective with a wide, natural
dynamic range, excellent HF response, full bass, almost NO TRACE of
distortion -- a thoroughly modern, satisfactory monaural recording.
Instead of being merely a sonically boring and inferior old recording
that even one of the world's *leading* Furtwaengler experts had
overlooked, it was really worth investigating: it could thrill,
excite, instruct, and please any lover of Beethoven.
In the light of this 1943 document, George, in respect to its FORMER
incarnations before the 1998 publication by Tahra of this amazing
"master tape", will you STILL stand by your statement that you
know that the "Fact is that the original for the 1942 performance is
not in the best condition"?
>But back to the M&A transfer, keeping in mind the time of the
>performance, the state of the original, and my expectations for the
>sound, I have to say that overall I am pleased with what I heard on this
>CD. And I hope one day I will be able to hear other transfers as well;
>for now I am satisfied with this one all things considered.
Oh, I see. Yet once again we are back to our starting point: only ONE
transfer is familiar to this contributor.
Therefore, I guess George is stating that the M&A is "the starting
point" that he has *factually* determined to be "not in the best
condition".
I say this reluctantly, not wishing to further provoke George or any
other kind reader here. But it has to be said, to remind us all --
myself included most surely -- that *critical thinking* and logical
consistency are desirous techniques to be applied by serious persons
who care deeply about such issues as "the significance of the 1942
Furtwaengler Ninth".
8H Haggis
8H Haggis
<gol...@students.uiuc.edu> wrote:
>I said, in full knowledge of what I said, the 1942 *version*, not the 1942
>*recording*.
This is a distinction that I cannot imagine anyone else in the world
being able to divine from your post. It would require a mind-reader
to have known that you had created a separate category in your head
that managed to take this ONE recording made in 1942, and had mentally
divided it into two separate entities: one being a "version" and one
being a "recording".
I simply cannot cope with your argument that, knowing your
intelligence and thougtfulness, must surely logically spring from this
distinction, and I leave it up to others to parse it.
Best,
8H Haggis
samir golescu
> >I said, in full knowledge of what I said, the 1942 *version*, not the 1942
> >*recording*.
>
> This is a distinction that I cannot imagine anyone else in the world
> being able to divine from your post. It would require a mind-reader
> to have known that you had created a separate category in your head
> that managed to take this ONE recording made in 1942, and had mentally
> divided it into two separate entities: one being a "version" and one
> being a "recording".
I refuse receiving your sarcasm as merited, as well as I refuse answering
in the same tone. I entered this thread not out of ambition, I thought I
was answering a friend, and I continue to think that is what I am doing.
In a posting preceding the one you quote, I *did* write:
<<the 1942 Ninth, while leaving much to be desired (the first movement has
a greater amount of distortion than most Furtwangler WWII tapes, as you
claim!), is nonetheless not awful to my ears, but good enough as to convey
what must have been Furtwangler's real dynamic range.>>
And yes, I claim one can infer, from the musical color, in a flawed (to a
certain extent) *recording*, the real dynamic range of the *version*. What
better example than Hofmann's recording of Chopin's Fourth Ballade? The
recording itself, close to atrocious, makes the tape of Furtwangler's 1942
Ninth seem a gorgeous Hi-Fi recording, but an educated listener can
"hear" nonetheless that the dynamic range of Hofmann's *performance* must
have been huge, overwhelming.
best regards,
SG
8H Haggis
wrote:
>I think this raises a troubling question:
>
>Since we cannot make the 1942 recording sound like contemporary DDD material,
>maybe an audio engineer can take a modern recording of the 9th and make it
>sound like the Furtwangler '42: distortion, compression, the works. If this
>could actually
>be done, we might get a rough idea of what can be lost in the transfer.
>Any volunteers?
>
>Bogdan
I have done this many, many times.
In fact, in order to illustrate the noises and distortions that early
listeners to acoustical playback machines (i. e., windup Victrolas,
c.1925) had to cope with, when playing loud early electrical records,
I took an excellent, clean, and very quiet Mark Obert-Thorn
restoration of a pre-1930 electrical jazz record conducted by Ormandy
(!) and then, unbeknownst to Mark, proceded to simulate "blasting",
worn grooves, and surface noise. He was amused as it sounds like so
many ratty old pressings that have been wrecked by careless playback.
Here this in the article I wrote entitled "The Varying Perception of
Distortion" --
http://www.2xtreme.net/regina-r/tmov/distorted.htm
-- about a third of the way down under the subheading DISTORTION
EFFECTS OF EARLY RECORDING TECHNOLOGY. There is an MP3 sound clip of
the "manufactured" simulation of the distorted playback there. Below
that there is a RealAudio clip, produced earlier for my review of the
Ormandy transfer in the album discussed at
http://www.2xtreme.net/rwwood/obert-thorn/biddul06.htm#WHL064
This kind of processing is child's play for a recording engineer. You
may have heard this sort of thing in TV commercials: for some reason
it is now de trop to create a "phony old record" of somebody singing a
recently written song to be used in an advertising "hook" to help sell
a product. And, on Turner Classic Movies, there is a regular "filler"
program of ancient newsreels and shorts: it is introduced by a
"simulated old record", which is very obviously a nice modern custom
recording tricked into having a crackly background like a very dirty
old 16mm sound film.
8H Haggis
Matthew B. Tepper
>
>"Matthew Silverstein" <matthew.s...@corpus-christi.oxford.ac.uk>
>wrote in message news:8s25pl$pkr$1...@news.ox.ac.uk...
>> Matty wrote:
>>
>> > But we are not all interested in the "truth" of the recording. We
>> > are interested in evaluating the recording qua performance. Whether
>> > the intensity is due to dynamics or to distortion is *irrelevant*:
>> > it's *still* intensity.
>>
>> Tony wrote:
>>
>> > If it's irrelevant, why have engineers tried for 100 years to make
>> > it better, and listeners rewarded them for 100 years by showing that
>> > they are willing to pay money for the improved product?
>> >
>> > Your exasperation is overcoming your good sense, Matty.
>>
>> Perhaps not. If some superstar enginners came along and somehow
>> produced a vastly "superior" (from Haggis' point of view) transfer of
>> the 1942 performance, and if this transfer somehow revealed a rather
>> unintense and unexciting performance, then I would still prefer my
>> "inferior" transfer.
>>
>> Whichever transfer (or performance) provides the greatest listening
>> experience for me is the one that I am going to listen to. My only point
>> was that this transfer need not necessarily be the "most truthful,"
>> though it might often be.
>
>people shouting in your ears? That would be even less faithful to the
>original sound, but it might be rather more intense.
Having them shout "Heil!" would be at least as intense ... and historically
accurate, too!
--
Matthew B. Tepper: WWW, science fiction, classical music, ducks!
My personal home page -- http://www.deltanet.com/~ducky/index.htm
My main music page --- http://www.deltanet.com/~ducky/berlioz.htm
8H Haggis
<gol...@students.uiuc.edu> wrote:
>I refuse receiving your sarcasm as merited, as well as I refuse answering
>in the same tone. I entered this thread not out of ambition, I thought I
>was answering a friend, and I continue to think that is what I am doing.
No sarcasm intended, and none expressed in the actual choice of words
in my reply. Please calm down a second -- if you need to have an
apology, I'll make one, but I intended no offense.
8HH
khj
Kang
8H Haggis
>>> wrote:
>>> > But we are not all interested in the "truth" of the recording.
I have no intention of embarking on a discussion of "truth" in a
recording unless it is restricted to concepts that are meaningful to
ME. As a retired audio engineer who has made thousands of recordings
that have had professional use in one way or another, I do not find
that I or my former technical colleagues have ever recognised "truth
in a recording" to be in any way a satisfactory issue to discuss,
analyse, or worry about.
Accuracy, fidelity, specific defects or virtues on a technical level:
yes.
Truth: no. This would be addressed by philosophers. Perhaps even Dr.
Sabra might want to have a go at it.
The fact that I don't want to start delving elsewhere, leaving
concrete, repeatable, objective issues and entering into vaguely or
personally defined analogies regarding a postulated "truth" as related
to the spirituality of Beethoven's music -- which many intelligent
people will reject, including many professional musicians, composers,
players, etc., to whom music is a reifiable entity separate and apart
from "moral concepts" -- may mean that a certain number of readers
will conclude that old 8HH is a lowbrow, or a person incapable of
poetical insights. But I would prefer to deal with argument in the
realm of my own expertise, which -- as I stated -- is an admittedly
*slight* but long-term technical musical knowledge, a long-time
familiarity with Furtwaengler's art and that of his "competitors", and
and a larger body of professional technical qualifications in the area
of sound recording engineering.
>>> Whichever transfer (or performance) provides the greatest listening
>>> experience for me is the one that I am going to listen to. My only point
>>> was that this transfer need not necessarily be the "most truthful,"
>>> though it might often be.
Some have made a distinction between the "truthfulness" of a recording
qua sheer sound reproduction, and the "truthfulness" relative to a
larger, vaguer holistic conception of some kinds of ill-defined
artistic verities: things that I am personally incompetent to
intelligently discuss.
f some superstar enginners came along and somehow
>> If some superstar ]engineers] produced a vastly "superior" (from
>> Haggis' point of view) transfer of the 1942 performance, and if
>> this transfer somehow revealed a rather unintense and unexciting
>> performance, then I would still prefer my "inferior" transfer.
The straw man cometh. This presumes that the Furtwaengler
performance's intense artistic expression is created solely from the
tension attributed to a limiter and an overloaded tape. It is not and
any intelligent person can recognise that. It is also true that the
distortions of the actual musical performance have considerably
affected a musician's ability to accurately measure and judge the
dynamic gradations of Furtwaengler's musical palette. Again, only a
sophist or a gadfly intent merely on provoking this writer will argue
that line of thinking. The sophist cometh too?
8H Haggis
Matthew B. Tepper
not complain.
khowsonjanATzdnetmailDOTcom (khj) wrote in
<39E4C0AD...@julian.uwo.ca>:
--
8H Haggis
recordings, especially those which are of historical significance,
that MS and I have extraordinarily different points of view.
He is a philosopher. I am a retired sound engineer who, as a student,
was a performing musician who studied several instruments.
I don't find it at all troubling that I do not accept the purported
logic of his statements, but he has expressed -- fairly regularly in
the past -- his mystification that I don't, and his exasperation that
I have essentially broken off the argument.
Many issues may not be resolvable by mere debate. Many tasks are not
achievable by applying mere "logic" or following the advice and
recommended procedures of esteemed authority figures. That's why we
do not use Aristotelian physics to send space craft out of the earth's
orbit.
I do not really believe that a Socratic dialogue between a philosopher
and a sound engineer with amazingly opposite viewpoints and entirely
different life-experiences will arrive at any significant point of
agreement. It does not trouble me in the slightest, and I have no
need to match "argument" for "argument" beyond the statements I've
already offered.
Would a Christ Church, Oxford philosophy don be welcomed into a
Cambridge nuclear lab to direct a fissile experiment? I don't think
so... therefore, one might stick to one's specialisations. I shall
stay away from "the philosophy of truthfulness" in sound recordings.
8H Haggis
samir golescu
On Wed, 11 Oct 2000, 8H Haggis wrote:
> (...) MS and I have extraordinarily different points of view.
>
> He is a philosopher. I am a retired sound engineer who, as a student,
> was a performing musician who studied several instruments.
The second assertion is beyond the reasonable doubt. Re: the first one, I
am bond to hope MS himself will refute it, in Socratic tradition, with
dialectic pertinence.
regards,
SG
8H Haggis
Cowan) wrote:
>I understand that this 1942 Furtwaengler Ninth is the soundtrack of a
>film, an excerpt from which may be seen in one of the various "Great
>Conductors" videos that are around (I have forgotten just now which
>one): The stage is festooned with swastikas. Occasional shots of the
>audience disclose various Nazis in attendance, and at the end, WF is
>seen to shake hands with Propaganda Minister Josef Goebbels. (FWIW, a
>close friend, now deceased, told me he had seen the film of the entire
>performance in Estonia during the German occupation.)
I originally thought that, but when I tentatively suggested this on
Furt-L, I was immediately shouted down. The more polite respondents
tried to explain that the film was the performance of 19 April 1942,
not the sound recording that was compiled from radio tapes of the
concert of 22-24 March 1942.
When I look into Ardoin, I don't see a corroboration of that, for in
the section in the back -- Hunt's discography -- we read that the
German newsreel film has the sound recording of the March reading! In
fact, the edition of the book that I have states "Recent research
indicates that the sound added to this clip is from the March 1942
performance." Now, I am not a Furtwaengler scholar and haven't
researched this. I have no more up-to-date information at hand that
this. I am sure that an expert will be happy to elucidate the latest
thinking along these lines.
If Ardoin and/or Hunt are correct, then my original impression was
correct: that the musical performance in this infamous film was the
same as the complete performance in the many versions of the March,
1942 live reading. The point that I made in that post was that there
was a certain reluctance to fully give way and embrace the performance
due to the unfortunate political and propaganda circumstances attached
to it. I am not sure that I feel that way today, a couple of years
later. I do believe that through the guidance of Henry Fogel, Mark
Kluge, and Samir Golescu, I am beginning to develop a better
appreciation of Furtwaengler than I may have had even in the recent
past.
Now, as to the possibility that this March 1942 artifact is an optical
sound track: maybe. However, I have actually run very clean prints of
UFA newsreels and Riefenstahl films, back when I was taking a large
quantity of film production courses in my university days (I was a
communications major.) They sounded considerably better, in fact, than
the copy of the '42 Ninth that I have. That in itself does not say
that my CD is NOT taken from an optical track; rather that if so, it
was a substandard one.
Optical film recording of the period we are considering, the late
thirties and early forties, was based on a complicated device that had
vibrating membranes to interrupt the flow of concentrated, focused,
and fairly coherent visible light rays onto unexposed film, which is
dragged through the projector in steps by the sprocket system, but is
isolated by continuous rollers around the sound drum so that no
"jerks" mar the continuity of the audio.
Optical mastering was likely done with a push-pull sound cell that
generated two side-by-side variable width or variable density tracks
that were electrically out of phase. The playback for dubbing
purposes was a mixture of those signals, cancelling out some of the
common noise sources (such as the intrusions of a splice across the
optical sound gate, or other irregularities.) Then this signal was
re-recorded onto a single track (probably variable density, but also
almost equally likely variable width) that had the property of being
able to act as a complete "noise gating system" to totally cut off
audio generation below a sudden threshold. This is the so-called
"noiseless recording process" developed in the early thirties. When
the optical film soundtrack substrate is dark (unexposed - no sound)
the signal to the receiving photocell is cut off entirely, and no
noise or signal is generated; the only noise transmitted is the faint
hum and hiss of the amplifier system in the projector. The slightest
opening of the sound membrane of the recording system also opens up
the light path, and the very faintest audible sounds are then also
accompanied by a sudden waterfall of hissing.
The sonic signature of optical film hiss is not the same as the 1/f
continuous noise impulses of an amplifier, or the "brown noise" of a
magnetic tape. It is more varied and irregular.
I hear NONE of the noise gating properties of any old optical tracks
that I know of from other experiences in sound recording and in
working with projectors and prints, and I hear NONE of the optical
noise signature of old movie film.
For whatever this is worth...
8H Haggis
K. Howson-Jan
>
> When I see Prof. Cowan in such a positively jovial mood, I relish it, I do
> not complain.
Same here, but I trust he is not above being teased occasionally.
Kang
Matthew Silverstein
> But we are not all interested in the "truth" of the recording.
Haggis replied:
> Accuracy, fidelity, specific defects or virtues on a technical level:
> yes.
>
> Truth: no. This would be addressed by philosophers. Perhaps even Dr.
> Sabra might want to have a go at it.
Fine; substitute "accuracy" or "fidelity" wherever I wrote "truth" . . .
Matty wrote:
> Whichever transfer (or performance) provides the greatest listening
> experience for me is the one that I am going to listen to. My only point
> was that this transfer need not necessarily be the "most truthful,"
> though it might often be.
Haggis replied:
> Some have made a distinction between the "truthfulness" of a recording
> qua sheer sound reproduction, and the "truthfulness" relative to a
> larger, vaguer holistic conception of some kinds of ill-defined
> artistic verities: things that I am personally incompetent to
> intelligently discuss.
I did not intend to make any reference to this second notion of
"truthfulness." Just pretend I said "fidelity" . . .
Matty wrote:
> If some superstar ]engineers] produced a vastly "superior" (from
> Haggis' point of view) transfer of the 1942 performance, and if
> this transfer somehow revealed a rather unintense and unexciting
> performance, then I would still prefer my "inferior" transfer.
Haggis wrote:
> The straw man cometh. This presumes that the Furtwaengler
> performance's intense artistic expression is created solely from the
> tension attributed to a limiter and an overloaded tape. It is not and
> any intelligent person can recognise that.
Indeed. The above is not a straw man, but a thought experiment meant to
demonstrate what my ultimate priority in music-listening is. That is, it was
meant to show that fidelity is merely a means to an end (as far as I'm
concerned), not really an end in itself.
Fidelity may satisfy my curiosity (what did it really sound like that fateful
night?), but that's about it.
Now, I freely acknowledge that, in most cases, fidelity in the transfer will
yield a recording that I enjoy or appreciate more. If--for some reason--this
were not to be the case, I would gladly take the less faithful transfer.
> It is also true that the
> distortions of the actual musical performance have considerably
> affected a musician's ability to accurately measure and judge the
> dynamic gradations of Furtwaengler's musical palette.
But I do not listen to this recording to measure and judge the dynamic
gradations of Furtwängler's musical palette.
Matty
Matthew Silverstein
> He is a philosopher. I am a retired sound engineer who, as a student,
> was a performing musician who studied several instruments.
Samir replied:
> The second assertion is beyond the reasonable doubt. Re: the first one, I
> am bond to hope MS himself will refute it, in Socratic tradition, with
> dialectic pertinence.
I'm not sure what you mean; I am a philosopher (or at least a
philosopher-in-training).
Matty
Matthew Silverstein
> Many issues may not be resolvable by mere debate. Many tasks are not
> achievable by applying mere "logic" or following the advice and
> recommended procedures of esteemed authority figures. That's why we
> do not use Aristotelian physics to send space craft out of the earth's
> orbit.
Mr. Haggis (what is your real name, by the way?), the whole point of my post
was merely to demonstrate that you and I have very different goals and ideals
when it comes to music. I did not attempt to persuade you to adopt my goal.
Such an attempt would be quite fruitless, as this goal is an intrinsic one.
You simply do not share it, and that is that.
I was, in other words, trying to defend my preference for the (hypothetical)
less-faithful yet more moving/effective/dramatic/intense transfer. At times
you have suggested that this preference is somehow irrational, and that is why
I felt the need to defend (or at least explain) myself. If you do not think
that this preference is irrational--that is, if you recognize that we merely
have different goals--then I think there is very little for us to disagree
about.
Matty
Lawrence Chalmers
were VERY interesting - as is any comment
on any performance. I have gotten so much out of the postings on this
forum. I feel all points of view are valid. I like the suggestion
about elucidating why one thinks something is beautiful or not or too
fast or whatever. Some
are not as articulate about their musical experiences as others are and
we need to try to keep an open mind and ask others in the group
about whatever and leave it to the individual to
decide whether to post his response or send an email. I am just as
excited about newcomers to classical music - even if spelling or typing
is difficult for them - as I am about the seasoned listeners on this
site. Some of us look towards
experienced listeners for guidance in this
wonderful world of music. It is sad to me
when some allow their snobbery to surface
and appear condescending to newbies and
others who are as enthusiastic.
Suggestions about studying the newsgroups for x amount of time before
they begin to actually participate maybe are okay gudelines suggested
as to what we talk about:
classical music recordings. Other 'tips' maybe.
We all share our love of this music
and we express it in our own ways to the best of our ability. Humor is
one thing, but unkind remarks about one another is to me unacceptable.
I know this may be something of a digression for some but to me its all
a part of.
Thanks to ALL of you for helping me to expand
my interest and involvement in the exciting world of cassical music -
recorded and otherwise. I hope I made some sense here.
Edward A. Cowan
> The straw man cometh. This presumes that the Furtwaengler
> performance's intense artistic expression is created solely from the
> tension attributed to a limiter and an overloaded tape. It is not and
> any intelligent person can recognise that. It is also true that the
> distortions of the actual musical performance have considerably
> affected a musician's ability to accurately measure and judge the
> dynamic gradations of Furtwaengler's musical palette. Again, only a
> sophist or a gadfly intent merely on provoking this writer will argue
> that line of thinking. The sophist cometh too?
I should think that someone familiar with the 1951 Bayreuth recording of
the Ninth, in which WF's dynamic palette seems to be quite faithfully
presented, could intuit, while listening to the 1942 BPO recording, the
kind of dynamics of that one, too. I understand that Berliners used to
speak of WF's releasing "Jove's thunder" with his climaxes in the old
Philharmonie. Something of the sort can be heard in the recording of
Beethoven's 4th symphony made in that hall without an audience. (I have
this on a Heliodor LP.) There exists as well another recording made
within days of the foregoing but with a very noisy audience. The thunder
is still there, but so is the racket from the audience (this includes a
sudden *KLONKKK* during one of the quieter moments in the first
movement). Both recordings of of greater dynamic range and clarity than
that of the 1942 Ninth.
My CD copy of the 1951 Ninth is on an early EMI CD (from Japan?), CDC 7
47081 2. When I first heard it, I was astonished by the wide dynamic
range of the recording, which I assume is faithful to what WF achieved
the the Bayreuther Festspielhaus on 29 July 1951.
--
E.A.C.
Edward A. Cowan
> Note that many of the original versions (of Bruckner not Haggis) as
> performed by Tintner and others are even longer now, so may occupy even more
> of those long winter evenings ;-)
All the better! <g> FWIW, I do have a couple of Tintner's Bruckner
recordings on the shelf just for those long winter evenings...
--
E.A.C.
Edward A. Cowan
> The sonic signature of optical film hiss is not the same as the 1/f
> continuous noise impulses of an amplifier, or the "brown noise" of a
> magnetic tape. It is more varied and irregular.
>
> I hear NONE of the noise gating properties of any old optical tracks
> that I know of from other experiences in sound recording and in
> working with projectors and prints, and I hear NONE of the optical
> noise signature of old movie film.
Thanks, 8H, for this and the remainder of your observations on optical
sound recording, at least for old movie film such as that of the
Furtwaengler 1942 Ninth. It occurred to me that, should a clean copy of
the film turn up, one might be able to generate a sound recording of
this performance from it, likely with better dynamic range than what is
heard in current audio reissues of it.
Much later -- in the 1950s, I think -- Everest Records began issuing LPs
from recording sessions taken down on 35mm film. Was this process
similar to that of 1940s film soundtracks, or had new developments taken
place to alter the basics of this procedure?
--
E.A.C.
Raymond Hall
news:1eic4w7.1l7cz2ji9mpj4N%eac...@anet-dfw.com...
> Raymond Hall <hallr...@bigpond.com> wrote:
>
> > One of the reasons I am glad to see 8H Haggis back posting in force
again.
> >
> > If something is too technical, then one has the option of not reading
it.
>
> I, too, am delighted to find 8H Haggis back among us. Like the music of
> Anton Bruckner, the writings of Haggis take time and attention to
> appreciate their contents. Those who cannot do this find Bruckner (and
> Haggis) hard to take. That is their right and choice. The best way to
> act on this choice is not to listen to Bruckner and not to read Haggis.
> I find I have more time for Haggis than for Bruckner, but sometimes I
> can take the time even for Bruckner, especially on cold winter evenings
> with nothing else to do... <g>
>
I am sure 8H Haggis will be terribly flattered to be considered way above
Bruckner ;-)
Note that many of the original versions (of Bruckner not Haggis) as
performed by Tintner and others are even longer now, so may occupy even more
of those long winter evenings ;-)
Regards,
# Classical Music WebSites
# Favourite Conductors
# Doris Day, Billie Holiday
# http://www.users.bigpond.com/hallraylily/index.html
Ray, Sydney
John Thomas
law...@webtv.net (Lawrence Chalmers) wrote:
> We all share our love of this music
> and we express it in our own ways to the best of our ability. Humor is
> one thing, but unkind remarks about one another is to me unacceptable.
> I know this may be something of a digression for some but to me its all
> a part of.
> Thanks to ALL of you for helping me to expand
> my interest and involvement in the exciting world of cassical music -
> recorded and otherwise. I hope I made some sense here.
>
Very great sense.
--
Regards,
John Thomas
George Murnu
I am very sorry but you misunderstood what I was trying to say in the
original posting. Or pehrhaps I did not explain myself in the best
way. The intention of my original posting was not to make any critical
observations about "the significance of the 1942 Furtwaengler Ninth".
There are other people more qualified to do that, yourself included.
The intention of my original posting was to share with the contributors
of this newsgroup the revelation that I had when I finally listened to
this legendary performance. The fact that this thread has grown up
suggests perhaps that I have achieved my goal.
Regards,
George
Lawrence Chalmers
again...
salt...@vintagenet.com
wrote:
very large snip,
>Would a Christ Church, Oxford philosophy don be welcomed into a
>Cambridge nuclear lab to direct a fissile experiment? I don't think
>so...
Ain' the phrase, more properly, "I think not"? "I don't think so"
might be an 'Americanerism'? Or USism? ;-)
Regards,
Tom Davenport
website admin, Music & Arts Programs of America, Inc.
http://www.musicandarts.com
featuring secure online ordering and thousands of RealAudio samples
salt...@vintagenet.com
<matthew.s...@corpus-christi.oxford.ac.uk> wrote:
>Matty wrote:
>
>> But we are not all interested in the "truth" of the recording.
>
>Haggis replied:
>
>> Accuracy, fidelity, specific defects or virtues on a technical level:
>> yes.
>>
>> Truth: no. This would be addressed by philosophers. Perhaps even Dr.
>> Sabra might want to have a go at it.
>
>Fine; substitute "accuracy" or "fidelity" wherever I wrote "truth" . . .
large snip,
This is a thread with great possibility, where participants are
actually trying to communicate ( rather than flame and inflame), even
though some of the terminology is yet not crystal clear.
Bravo to all, subject to retraction if it lapses into
cyber-Hiroshima....
salt...@vintagenet.com
Cowan) wrote:
>Raymond Hall <hallr...@bigpond.com> wrote:
>
>> One of the reasons I am glad to see 8H Haggis back posting in force again.
>>
>> If something is too technical, then one has the option of not reading it.
>
>I, too, am delighted to find 8H Haggis back among us. Like the music of
>Anton Bruckner, the writings of Haggis take time and attention to
>appreciate their contents.
That is what one might call "Lawfull", as time and attention are both
qualities which 8H Haggis brings to his posts. If readers have
difficulty following them, it is because of lack of attention or
interest. It is not because the posts lack intrinsic merit though
they may not be 'easy' or anyone's particular 'cup of tea'.
With best regards to 8H Haggis and all,
salt...@vintagenet.com
wrote:
>On Wed, 11 Oct 2000 13:36:41 -0500, samir golescu
><gol...@students.uiuc.edu> wrote:
>
>>I said, in full knowledge of what I said, the 1942 *version*, not the 1942
>>*recording*.
>
>This is a distinction that I cannot imagine anyone else in the world
>being able to divine from your post. It would require a mind-reader
>to have known that you had created a separate category in your head
>that managed to take this ONE recording made in 1942, and had mentally
>divided it into two separate entities: one being a "version" and one
>being a "recording".
>
>I simply cannot cope with your argument that, knowing your
>intelligence and thougtfulness, must surely logically spring from this
>distinction, and I leave it up to others to parse it.
Reading these remarks, I am truly Lauhling (enjoyably) Out Loud, aka
LOL. This is a fine example of cyber-com or cyber-non-com, possibly a
rare item, in the appropriate spirit, IMO.
Best regards t and bravoso to Samir and 8H Haggis!
8H Haggis
>Reading these remarks, I am truly Lauhling (enjoyably) Out Loud, aka
>LOL. This is a fine example of cyber-com or cyber-non-com, possibly a
>rare item, in the appropriate spirit, IMO.
>
>Best regards t and bravoso to Samir and 8H Haggis!
And the amazing thing is, Tom and Samir, that I did not intend either
humor or insult. I just meant that the original comments of Samir,
which he later explained were to make a distinction between a
"version" and a "recording", did not really communicate that to me.
And his clarification did not help, either. Perhaps part of the
problem is my use of language, compared to Samir's chosen terminology.
I have thought about his responses, and am beginning to realize that
what me MUST be saying is that he views the artifact as both an
INTERPRETATION or REALIZATION of the symphony, and a separate
TECHNICAL RECORDING of it. Even reading his original response, which
mystified me, did not cause me to realize it.
Then, I later considered his terms VERSION and RECORDING, in light of
Samir's strong reaction, and finally got the point. The problem was
purely a semantical one, and the fault was mine, probably, and not
Samir's
Now, where Samir and I might differ on the document as an
interpretation vs. purely a recording artifact, where HE makes a very
distinct separation of the two, and I don't, it's because I find that
the artistic details of the performance are inundated by technical
alterations: gross changes of dynamics, faulty timbre, extreme
distortion that impacts one's *appreciation* of the music, requiring
enormous effort to overlook, etc. I am troubled that dynamic hairpins
are falsified, that soft passages are all out of proportion, crescendi
are so severely altered by amplitude compression and distortion (and
timbral shift) that I cannot really judge the orchestral tone and
expression with any sense of confidence. I *can* do that with other
RRG tapes of 1942, 43, and 44...
To my ear, the tape transfer of acetate disks of Toscanini's 1942
Teatro Colon performance of the Ninth (an underground item that
probably has not had commercial distribution) is less distorted and
thereby not as aurally offensive, though it has a slightly lower
cutoff of highs and also a narrow dynamic range; yet it does not, for
example, seem suddenly to RECEDE in volume in several places; nor does
the distortion build up as the music gets louder. However, the
compiled transfer of the La Scala Toscanini Ninth, with inserts from
another performance to replace missing parts, is -- to me -- even more
flawed than the 1942 Furtw. Ninth, and I want nothing to do with it:
after one hearing, I have NO desire ever to return to it again.
And I do have to return to the issue of a *version* of something,
relative to a *recording* of something. Are they really ever
extractable and separatable -- especially if there are such
infidelities in the sound quality? Let's go back to Samir's comments
on the Brahms cylinders. One might be able to get a fragmentary
conception of the exact pacing of the Hungarian dance, but nothing
reliable about the tone color, dynamics, etc. In this example, I'd
agree very much with David Hurwitz who (though referring to a
perfectly decent Kleiber electrical) said that nothing was attainable
except ideas of tempo. We have problems with most acoustical
recordings for many of the same reasons, since though they were made
without electrical limiting or gain riding, the apparatus had inertia
and could *physically* compress the sound levels and musical dynamics;
also performers learned to move back and forth from the horn to
moderate the "blasting" effects of a ringing loud note. You cannot
listen to them -- ESPECIALLY in most modern restorations, where the
producer has tried to reduce blasting by an anti-horn EQ curve -- and
truly understand the vocal timbre and projection of a singer (except
comparatively: we can easily tell the differences between tenors,
while allowing for the generally common acoustical artifacts in their
recordings, but we still can't really compare Caruso with Pavarotti
with absolutely scientifil musical precision.)
So, the worse the sound becomes, the more inextricable is the VERSION
(or interpretation) from the RECORDING. Or, so it seems as I see it.
8H Haggis
samir golescu
On Sat, 14 Oct 2000, 8H Haggis wrote:
> I have thought about his responses, and am beginning to realize that
> what me MUST be saying is that he views the artifact as both an
> INTERPRETATION or REALIZATION of the symphony, and a separate
> TECHNICAL RECORDING of it. Even reading his original response, which
> mystified me, did not cause me to realize it.
>
> Then, I later considered his terms VERSION and RECORDING, in light of
> Samir's strong reaction, and finally got the point. The problem was
> purely a semantical one, and the fault was mine, probably, and not
> Samir's
My terms's fault also, probably...
> Now, where Samir and I might differ on the document as an
> interpretation vs. purely a recording artifact, where HE makes a very
> distinct separation of the two, and I don't, it's because I find that
> the artistic details of the performance are inundated by technical
> alterations: gross changes of dynamics, faulty timbre, extreme
> distortion that impacts one's *appreciation* of the music, requiring
> enormous effort to overlook, etc. I am troubled that dynamic hairpins
> are falsified, that soft passages are all out of proportion, crescendi
> are so severely altered by amplitude compression and distortion (and
> timbral shift) that I cannot really judge the orchestral tone and
> expression with any sense of confidence. I *can* do that with other
> RRG tapes of 1942, 43, and 44...
And it's entirely your right to feel so. Just that so many other music
lovers seem to be able to grasp the orchestral tone and expression in this
case, as they do with other RRG tapes.
> And I do have to return to the issue of a *version* of something,
> relative to a *recording* of something. Are they really ever
> extractable and separatable -- especially if there are such
> infidelities in the sound quality?
Not in the "real world", no. But, to different degrees, this is what all
of us, historic recordings collectors and avid listeners, *are* doing. I
understand that you have your limits... "I can go until here"..."this is
too much", but this doesn't mean that all listeners's limits of tolerance
would or should be the same. For you Furtwangler's Bruckner Ninth
(superior to the Beethoven Ninth) seems much better. I/you know people
who would reject them both as old and unlistenable, without bothering to
compare them in detail.
> So, the worse the sound becomes, the more inextricable is the VERSION
> (or interpretation) from the RECORDING. Or, so it seems as I see it.
That (with the latter specification) seems fair to me. I guess it depends
very much on who is listening. You didn't like when a certain historic
recording was described as "practically worthless". Many contributors on
this forum agreed with you, after listening to the CD under discussion.
Didn't strike you that (perhaps) the same contributors, AFTER you gave so
patient/detailed explanations on the "objective" sonic limits of that
(now) overdiscussed 1942 recording, still have chosen the 1942 Ninth as
their favorite in the "three WF recs" thread (please note I didn't)?
Let me tell you something else. Discussing one day on the phone with a
friend (someone who reads rmcr), I heard, on the phone, in the background
of his voice, a couple of bars from Beethoven's opus 13 (somewhere in the
middle of the first mvt). I asked: isn't that Fischer's preWWII recording?
It was. This is not too ingratiate myself, but it never happened to me to
forget a great performance I've heard (i.e., I can recognize it
immediately, even played on the phone and far away), regardless the
quality of the recording, the machine it was played on, be it even a
half-dead Chinese 7$ tape-machine.
For me Furtwangler's 1942 Beethoven Ninth is in the *upper* half,
recording-wise speaking, of the recordings I cherish and like. Telling me
the recording is "awful" is as meaningless as telling me it is
"practically worthless". You can show me numbers and graphics, I will
still hear what I hear. What I hear is enough to be artistically
compelling and musically revelatory.
What you don't seem willing to understand is that there is not really a
lot to be argued about, between us I mean. Basically we believe, I dare
say, the same things about this recording, with you being more specific
and drastical in pointing out the limits of the recording per se.
One of your many formulations in this long thread struck the right tone
to my ears:
<<The 1942 Ninth is not a very good example of a TECHNICALLY ADEQUATE
Furtwaengler recording. This does NOT say ANYTHING about its
so-called "spiritual power" or evocative quality as a performance.>>
That's fine with me -- and, I dare say, had you treated them with a hint
of your usually graceful manner (your knowledge is recognized without
effortlessly, why pointing it out abruptly?) it would have been fine with
Barry, George... , probably.
Still intrigued how the "Recording" can be separated, **within *active*
human perception**, from the "Version"? In your own words:
<<It seems apparent to me that the '42 Furtwaengler Ninth is one of the
most remarkable artistic documents of Western humankind.>>
<<The recording is awful.>>
Again, this gives me perfect satisfaction (even if I would substitute
"awful" with "deficient", as it were). This is why I used the "defamation
joke" precisely as a joke, not as an accusation.
regards,
SG
samir golescu
<<without effortlessly>>
Sometimes I amaze myself with my revolutionizing the English language!
samir golescu
On Sun, 15 Oct 2000, 8H Haggis wrote:
> >For me Furtwangler's 1942 Beethoven Ninth is in the *upper* half,
> >recording-wise speaking, of the recordings I cherish and like. Telling me
> >the recording is "awful" is as meaningless as telling me it is
> >"practically worthless".
>
> I don't believe that if you look at what I said, that I "told you it's
> awful". There is a certain "professional music critic and musician"
> who probably would be GLAD to "tell you that it's awful."
Mr. Haggis, we keep, as Romanians say, "turning around our tail". Of
course you told "us/me", you didn't speak in dessert. Of course you spoke
of how "you" feel--isn't that what we all do?
> I merely here, in the discussion of Furtw's 9th of '42, offer a
> criticism of something YOU LIKE that I don't like as much; indeed,
> like very little *in some respects.*
Your criticism was noted and its acuity appreciated.
> >You can show me numbers and graphics, I will
> >still hear what I hear. What I hear is enough to be artistically
> >compelling and musically revelatory.
>
> That's laudatory and I am delighted that this artifact is so
> meaningful and satisfactory for you. I wish that it were for me, too.
> Some of it impresses me that way, and some of it doesn't do so.
Me too. The distortion points, for obvious reasons connected to
Beethoven's musical architecture, are more in evidence in the recap of i,
in the timpani-saturated passages in ii, in the E Flat Major fanfare from
iii (where this "fanatic" has enough ears to hear a horn playing his
pitches--"F G Ab" sooner than he should!), beginning and ending of iv
etc.
> Finally, I won't go through your list of extracts from my long
> descriptions, analyses, and explanations, in which you show -- out of
> context -- what you perceive to be contradictions or extremes.
I didn't try to speculatively point out contradictions in your discourse
as to suggest you contradict yourself or you forget what you say from one
paragraph to another, not at all. My suggestion was that the matter itself
is paradoxical and admits contradictory, partial truths.
> You see, folks, what we have here is the response of an enthusiast...
> ANY negative associations are painful to a great enthusiast who burns
> with admiration for something deeply cherished.
No. Where did I say (imply) that "ANY negative associations are painful"
etc.? If, for instance, one said "There are today thirty Ninth symphonies
better recorded than the 1942 version", who would disagree with that? Not
me.
> That "fan" response gets DH's goat, Mortimer Frank's goat, and also
> annoys lots of people who want to try to put historical documents into
> some kind of perspective.
I am not sure I understand what you meant with that "goat" expressions
unknown to me, however, I regret any annoyance I might have created.
regards,
SG
Bob Lombard
> > annoys lots of people who want to try to put historical documents into
> > some kind of perspective.
>
> I am not sure I understand what you meant with that "goat" expressions
> unknown to me, however, I regret any annoyance I might have created.
>
> regards,
> SG
>
bl
samir golescu
Mr. "Haggis",
Could you write me in private, please--pardon me if I am wrong, but I have
a vague feeling that NOWHERE@###, as trustworthy a server-name as it
looks on a superficial view, *might* not function, on Sundays, with the
expected efficiency.
regards,
SG
8H Haggis
<gol...@students.uiuc.edu> wrote:
>You didn't like when a certain historic
>recording was described as "practically worthless". Many contributors on
>this forum agreed with you, after listening to the CD under discussion.
>Didn't strike you that (perhaps) the same contributors, AFTER you gave so
>patient/detailed explanations on the "objective" sonic limits of that
>(now) overdiscussed 1942 recording, still have chosen the 1942 Ninth as
>their favorite in the "three WF recs" thread (please note I didn't)?
Well, I'd have to do some research about that. Before I do, I'd like
to add that -- to quote your phrase above -- that it *won't* happen
that "I wouldn't like it" when someone chooses the Furtw. '42 Ninth as
her favorite recording (and I do know one lady, a cellist and
musicologist, who considers it hers!)
Now, as to the issue of who chooses the Furtw. Beethoven Ninth of '42
as their own personal favorite, and who liked the Kleiber recording
that DH described as "practically worthless" (see my article at
http://www.2xtreme.net/rwwood/obert-thorn/naxos06.htm#8110907
for all the gory details), the persons who enthusiastically supported
the Kleiber issue and others of their type included (from my
compilation of their RMCR remarks) William Reilly, Ramon Khalona,
Raymond Hall, David Gable, someone signing himself merely as "Jeff",
and these are not identical with the group that selects the '42 Ninth
as their favorite. I would have to go back to the RMCR deja-news
thread to do more data collecting, but I am not really motivated and
would rather agree you're right than take the time. But I have an
inkling that there is a smaller core group of Beethoven Ninth '42
enthusiasts than that there is a general larger body of historical
performance supporters. In the thread that started with George's
post, and has expanded to several other headings, we see that there
are a number of people who *know* the Furtw. '42 Ninth, and even some
of the VERY obscure RRG tapes (such as the Heinz Schubert vocal work,
the Pepping, etc.) and don't care at ALL for the Ninth (Matthew is
one, for example, who has a harsh word for it. Two others emailed me
privately in the last 24 hours, and don't like it -- but they won't
immediately rush to face the enthusiasts here on the ng., apparently.
I can understand that, based on what happened to me once on Furt-L.
>Let me tell you something else. Discussing one day on the phone with a
>friend (someone who reads rmcr), I heard, on the phone, in the background
>of his voice, a couple of bars from Beethoven's opus 13 (somewhere in the
>middle of the first mvt). I asked: isn't that Fischer's preWWII recording?
>It was. This is not too ingratiate myself, but it never happened to me to
>forget a great performance I've heard (i.e., I can recognize it
>immediately, even played on the phone and far away), regardless the
>quality of the recording, the machine it was played on, be it even a
>half-dead Chinese 7$ tape-machine.
That sort of thing has happened to me, both serendipitously and in
trials that friends of mine have done to test each other. I suspect
that this is NOT a parlor trick; nor does it require a veritable
musical genius to do it. I walked into a store in Palo Alto and in 3
seconds identified an old Victor record of the SF Sym/Monteux
performance of the Franck d-minor: Walter Martin, the owner of
Chimera, it turned out, had taken in Dick T's copy in trade, and was
listening to it on his turntable. I said, "Why, it's the old Monteux
d-minor!" and he was absolutely staggered by my "feat". It isn't such
a fantastic skill, and probably any really dedicated record collector
could match these two stories with even better ones (especially opera
and violin fanciers!)
>For me Furtwangler's 1942 Beethoven Ninth is in the *upper* half,
>recording-wise speaking, of the recordings I cherish and like. Telling me
>the recording is "awful" is as meaningless as telling me it is
>"practically worthless".
I don't believe that if you look at what I said, that I "told you it's
awful". There is a certain "professional music critic and musician"
who probably would be GLAD to "tell you that it's awful."
There is a great distinction between stating categorically -- and
insisting objectively -- that *for all persons* or for *any other
persons* other than the speaker himself that a recording is "awful",
which is a rather inexact criticism anyway; and saying that for the
speaker *himself*, the recording is "awful."
Let me re-post the part of the message you are referring to, which you
read one way and I intended a different way. I prefaced this by
trying, objectively insofar as I was able, to desribe specific
technical defects in the recording which I, as an engineer, could
quantify. Then, I added my perplexity that so many diverse
descriptions are given to this recording, from "great" to "beguiling",
that don't jibe with the objective facts of the sonic data that an
engineer can gather. Finally, I said:
>>
Is there a transfer of this 1942 Ninth that is good -- I don't even
the heck care if it is "great". Just good. For reference, I consider
the Furtwaengler recording of Bruckner's Eighth on Testament to be
"good". By this benchmark, every one I have heard of the '42 Ninth is
-- dare I say it? --
AWFUL.
<<
So, I elucidated some facts as I was able to gather and define them.
I then tried to put another well-known Furtw. recording into the
equation and to place it in perspective as what *I* would describe as
a good one. Not great, just good (we all really know what this means;
it isn't necessary to get carried away and turn this into a Sophistic
debate to "win points" about fine distinctions.) Furthermore, I have
also explained that other contemporary RRG's dating from '42 thru
'44 are sometimes quite excellent (the Tahra '43 Fifth.) By these
benchmarks, I find the recording -- to my taste -- to be not merely
poor, but actually worse than that: it tends to give me displeasure
and discomfort occasionally as I hear some of the technical defects,
and is for me, in sum, awful. And as I prefaced this, you may tak
this to mean "the existing commonplace transfers of it sound awful,
measured against the recordings in the group to which I compare it."
Since I related it to my "benchmark" it is surely evident that I am
using *my own judgment and personal reference* to explain my
preferences and feelings, and that I am not using YOURS or some
elusive UNIVERSAL standard. I am not claiming that there IS even a
"universal standard".
If it pleases you, just change the above paragraph to this:
>>
Is there a transfer of this 1942 Ninth that is good -- I don't even
the heck care if it is "great". Just good. For reference, I consider
the Furtwaengler recording of Bruckner's Eighth on Testament to be
"good". By this benchmark, every one I have heard of the '42 Ninth is
-- dare I say it? -- for me,
AWFUL.
<<
I did not start up a commercial record review website to 'guide'
everybody into MY direction, as "a professional musician and critic"
and then to give any and all records that came my way a numerical
rating, and denounce many as having any no positive qualities
whatsoever, adding pejorative and sometimes downright slanderous
remarks about the artists who made them. My own website analyses a
select and narrow group of recordings, often by diametrically opposite
interpreters (such as Toscaini and Mengelberg) and then explains the
natures of their *virtues.*
I merely here, in the discussion of Furtw's 9th of '42, offer a
criticism of something YOU LIKE that I don't like as much; indeed,
like very little *in some respects.*
>You can show me numbers and graphics, I will
>still hear what I hear. What I hear is enough to be artistically
>compelling and musically revelatory.
That's laudatory and I am delighted that this artifact is so
meaningful and satisfactory for you. I wish that it were for me, too.
Some of it impresses me that way, and some of it doesn't do so.
>What you don't seem willing to understand is that there is not really a
>lot to be argued about, between us I mean.
I offer no argument here about this recording. I have given my
opinion, based on my life's experiences. I would ONLY wish that some
people who make unsupportable, unrepeatable claims that don't seem
universally held by all others, would try to be a little bit objective
about it. If they don't try, that's perfectly fine.
They might also try to look at it from another person's perspective,
such as -- if I were so bold to suggest it -- mine, or perhaps
Matthew's. I don't give it a vulgar term, as he does, so maybe my
point of view, which is that it is an admirable, fascinating
performance, a remarkable historical document, and a deeply flawed and
untrustworthy artistic representation that probably deviates greatly
from what was heard in the hall, and possibly what was intended by
Furtw. in terms of dynamics, shading, and even -- to a certain extent
- intensity of expression. That's not an argument in the "debating"
sense, it's merely an analysis leading to a point of view.
Finally, I won't go through your list of extracts from my long
descriptions, analyses, and explanations, in which you show -- out of
context -- what you perceive to be contradictions or extremes. I
*also* think that, for example, "The Great Train Robbery" looks AWFUL
as a film, but it is also a remarkable and precious historical
document that is part of Western popular culture, and an example of
the seed from which a huge art form, the narrative film, emerged. I
don't see any contradictions between describing the content and effect
of that film, and the ACTUAL objective quality of it in technical
photographic terms.
You see, folks, what we have here is the response of an enthusiast...
ANY negative associations are painful to a great enthusiast who burns
with admiration for something deeply cherished. That "fan" response
gets DH's goat, Mortimer Frank's goat, and also annoys lots of people
who want to try to put historical documents into some kind of
perspective.
Yours,
8H Haggis
Andrys Basten
Bob Lombard <blom...@vermontel.net> wrote:
>> > That "fan" response gets DH's goat, Mortimer Frank's goat, and also
>> > annoys lots of people who want to try to put historical documents into
>> > some kind of perspective.
>>
>> unknown to me, however, I regret any annoyance I might have created.
>>
>> regards,
>> SG
>>
>I know what the expression signifies, but I don't know *why* it does so.
>
>bl
I was curious about the etymology also, so here's a couple of things:
[1] From the wordwithyou.com forum.
"According to Tad Tuleja, the expression comes from an old Lapp
word Gottegiten, meaning; to steal, the word itself means literally
the taking of a goat. Eventually, the term broadened in meaning
to include the theft of one's composure."
[2] That site's archives say it was once believed that a placid
goat's presence could soothe a high-strung thoroughbred prior
to a race.
"Suddenly removing the creature from the stall was sure to
make the horse as angry and annoyed as you get when someone
gets your goat."
I found probably the source of that definition, at
http://www.takeourword.com/Issue087.html
- A
--
Andrys Basten, http://andrys.com/books.html - Sheet Music-CDs-Videos
http://andrys.com/music-eur.html - European stores for hard-to-find CDs
http://andrys.com/ven-amer.html - Classical-Music Vendor-Pricing FAQs
http://andrys.com/coupons.html - Current coupons, sales
http://andrys.com/freddyk.html - Freddy Kempf on CD
http://andrys.com/argerich.html - Available Argerich recordings
samir golescu
On 15 Oct 2000, Andrys Basten wrote:
> >> I am not sure I understand what you meant with that "goat" expression
>
> I was curious about the etymology also, so here's a couple of things:
>
> [1] From the wordwithyou.com forum.
> "According to Tad Tuleja, the expression comes from an old Lapp
> word Gottegiten, meaning; to steal, the word itself means literally
> the taking of a goat. Eventually, the term broadened in meaning
> to include the theft of one's composure."
>
> [2] That site's archives say it was once believed that a placid
> goat's presence could soothe a high-strung thoroughbred prior
> to a race.
> "Suddenly removing the creature from the stall was sure to
> make the horse as angry and annoyed as you get when someone
> gets your goat."
Thanks,
SG
8H Haggis
I hereby announce that I will no longer attempt to rebut the
persuasive, cohesive, and logically coherent observations of Samir
regarding this topic: he expresses himself well, provides excellent
examples to back up his convictions, and has the musical perspicacity
to give his remarks enormous weight of authority.
Furthermore, it's really not fair to Samir's flow of ideas to
interrupt them, clip little bits out and post an immediate and
interjected "reply", and to confuse readers.
Finally, I rather suspect that far more readers of these opinions will
agree with Samir than will agree with me.
I have no desire to persuade anyone to change her or his mind.
But, having read the opposite and frequently-encountered point of view
here on RMCR, one that I took strong exceptions to, I hoped to be
permitted to make a stab at expressing MINE.
I did an imperfect job, as it is not possible to use actual sound
examples. While the sheer raw data of unweighted noise and frequency
response can be discerned from various transfers, there is no reliable
mechanism for reporting on distortion.
To measure the distortion and accurately quantify it, we'd need to
have a tape that contained full-amplitude alignment tones (such MAY
exist on the headers of the RRG masters or dubs, but they would not be
included in a commercial release of the musical performances.) The
discrete tones could, however, only indicate static harmonic
distortion products and would tell us NOTHING about the musical peaks
on the tapes; nor would they inform us of the intermodulation
products, noise modulations, prevalence of limiting artifacts, etc.
To get a reliable IM distortion measurement, we'd have to acquire a
tape that had a known test-tone mixture that could be sorted out and
analysed by the SMPTE or twin-tone method, for example. And we'd ALSO
have to know the exact harmonic components produced by the original
tone generator (it was possible to construct an audio oscillator in
1942 that had 1% distortion, or less. But that theoretical
possibility might not be reflected in the hypothetical tones on
hypothetical tapes...)
So the only objective values we can derive -- AND FROM COMMERCIAL
TRANSFERS, NOT THE ACTUAL TAPES -- are inferences of the spectrum and
noise platform. This tells us little, but it does give us repeatable
information that others can replicate using the same general
processes. That is essential to the scientific method.
To determine if the volume levels on the recorded performance
correlate with the score's dynamics requires an artistic evaluation by
a musician who has played instruments, or who conducts (I am in the
former, rather than the latter, category, and I've played Beethoven
but only in student orchestras, years ago.)
To determine the nature of the muddiness or clarity also requires a
technical/artistic interpretation, based on experience with live
musical performances of the same piece (the more the better) and also
in-depth experience with recording technology (helpful if it was
acquired while recording or editing this work, the Ninth -- in my
case, it was.)
To relate the artistic character of the interpretation requires a deep
comprehension of the performance style, the musical score, the
artists' techniques, other recordings, and a variety of alternative
examples. I do have the score and can read it, and other records,
have heard numerous live performances, and have some acquaintance with
the Furtw. interpretation of '42 (since it's been in my library for
perhaps 25-28 years or longer, and I heard it first earlier than that)
as well as his artistically fascinating Ninths of '51 and '54.
Others on this ng. will have better skills and qualifications for
preparing a scholarly treatment of the interpretation, and my
suggestion to them is this: rather than to try to take apart my
comments, line by line and paragraph by paragraph, *please prepare
your own comparably parallel ARTISTIC analysis*, delving into the
segments of the music, the exceptional spots where you perceive a
highly creative force at work, or moments that are remarkable and
magical. Spike Hughes has done this with many of the Toscanini
recordings in the book THE TOSCANINI LEGACY. Haggin and Marsh did
their own lesser work in this area. I have made my own distinctly
weaker attempt, too.
Some days ago, my first posts were made on this subject, and their
gist has been almost entirely submerged. I complained that all the
transfers I have heard of the '42 Ninth, from the early LPs to the
several CD copies I've audited, to the one I currently own, tend to
have the same "basis" -- a muddy, distorted recording with erratic and
untrustworthy dynamics. I gave examples of other Furtw. performances
of the era that I *did* find trustworthy and convincing. I asked if
someone could, with clarity and repeatable accuracy, compare the
transfers extant in order to determine if there was indeed one that
was *truly superior* to any of the others, one that would have been
made from an earlier-generation or cleaner tape.
So far I haven't read anything that would seem to fulfill my request.
But I have read marvellously convincing advocacy for the performance,
one which I too admire, that has advanced the our general knowledge;
and for that I'm very grateful.
Yours,
8H Haggis
Bob Lombard
pretty much convinced now that oranges are more apt to be orange than apples
are, that it's easier to extract the juice from an orange, and that an apple
is apt to have firmer flesh.
bl
David Hillman
I have a question about a particular RRG tape question, I hope you can answer
me. I have heard 3 copies of wartime Hansen/Furtwaemgler Beethoven piano
concerto no. 4. One is from Japan DG box (also a copy licensed to Korea
which I own the box) One from Tahra and finally a recent HS2088 transfer
by Japanese EMI.
I feel Japan EMI one and Tahra one has more high frequency than the DG one.
But I have no idea which one is more closed to original?
Thanks,