Falstaff today on Pristine

[chez_toscanini]

The broadcast of the Falstaff has been issued by Andrew Rose and available on his site.

Rose reacts to the Fanfare observations - "There is a noticeable and effective “dimensional air around the performers.” But it does not reflect the acoustic the Studio 8H audience experienced on March 26 and April 2, 1949. And it is not the sound document Toscanini approved when he authorized the release of the RCA recording." 

in this way:

"Let's take those last two sentences and examine them more closely. It may be the case that "it does not reflect the acoustic the Studio 8H audience experienced" - but depending on microphone placement, I would argue that the original recordings probably don't either. Careful microphone placement may well have worked to reduce any incursion of wider studio acoustics - that's what a radio studio engineer usually tries to achieve. We just don't know - but I do take Mr. Meltzer's point, and would refine it to "it does not reflect the acoustic the Studio 8H control booth engineers experienced". In my long experience of radio studios the two - control booth vs. audience - can be very different.

Secondly, "it is not the sound document Toscanini approved when he authorized" is certainly true - though it's not as though Toscanini was given any choice in this respect. I've long wondered how much Toscanini's desire for clarity in his broadcasts was down to his desire to be clearly heard across the wayward signal of radio airwaves - not something that is a concern to the modern listener, but certainly something to think about in the era in which Toscanini worked."

In effects Rose is right from a "technical" point of view, and the result is very satisfactory, for us used to modern sound recording and reproduction. However also Fanfare is right, because probably the audience had a perception quite different. But also the original recording and the subsequent reelaborations on LP as well as on CD are not so close to the effective Studio 8-H sound, as each engineer has made its own wizards based on memory and on its taste, as well as on technologic advances. Nobody can know what is the ideal Falstaff (or anything else) for Toscanini. What we can expect by any elaboration of so old recordings is to somehow resurrect a realistic, detailed and clear sound which could be probably close to the results Toscanini expected. The same considerations can be made also for any high level restorer/remasterer (Winner, Marston, Caniell), not only Rose.

Ezio

[jfddoc]

"At the start of act I, Dr. Caius (Gabor Carelli) accuses Falstaff, “Hai battuto i miei servi!” (You have beaten my servants!). That is what Carelli sings in the 1990 (RCA) set. In the 2000 and 2012 issues (as well as the Immortal Performances release), Carelli sings some undecipherable combination of vowels and consonants, but certainly not what librettist Arrigo Boito wrote. The 1990 Gold Seal set is the only one that corrects (either via a retake or splicing of rehearsal material) a flaw in the actual performance."  -Ken Meltzer (Fanfare Mag).

And it sounds like this new version has the "undecipherable combination."  I have no idea how the 1990 RCA reissue got it right and everyone else got it wrong.  I don't have the LPs to compare.

--John

[chez_toscanini]

The recording is the live broadcast. In effects Carelli articulates something like "hai fiaccato la mia baia" instead of "hai battuto i miei servi", and probably he was immediately aware of the mistake, so to articulate it in a bad way. The correction is available also in the Urania issue (like in the 1990 RCA release)

Ezio