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So by moving the mikes up in an arc over the musicians so that they're looking down on the stage, you're reducing the relative differences in distance between the microphones and the musicians. As a result, you tend to get a more even balance. The instruments at the back, such as the bassoons in the Dvorák Serenade on this recording, don't sound too much farther away than the oboes and the clarinets, which are at the front of the stage. So you get a musical balance that better reflects reality, even though you're having to distort that reality a little bit by moving your microphones up, into…
Atkinson: Well, in a sense, making a one-off recording of classical music, or of jazz, or of any acoustic live music, is easy. [laughs] All you do is pick the right hall, the right microphones, the right place to put those microphones, and the right way to use them, and record them on the best recorder you have access to, and you will have a magical-sounding recording. However, when you're spending somebody else's money, making recordings that you're going to sell to people, you're forced to be anal-retentive and document everything you do in minute detail. You really need to be completely…
The Music: Notes by Eric Bromberger (footnote 2)
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)
Flute Quartet in D Major, K.285 (1777)
Mozart completed the last of a set of six string quartets (the one in d, K.173) in 1773 and was not to write another for 10 years. The decade, though, wasn't exactly wasted: The developing genius produced operas, liturgical works, symphonies, and the bulk of his piano-violin repertory. He also tried his hand at variants of the string quartet form---the oboe quartet, for example, and the four works in which a flute supplants the first violin.
The three…
Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)
Trio in E-Flat Major for Piano, Violin, and Horn, Op.40 (1865)
Brahms spent the summer of 1865 in the little town of Lichtenthal in the Black Forest near Baden-Baden. Lichtenthal was home to a flourishing artists' colony, and Brahms, surrounded by congenial friends, could indulge his passion for long walks through the woods. He had a special reason to seek the solitude of the forests: His mother had died on January 31 of that year, and he was still coming to terms with the loss. The Horn Trio, composed that summer, was intended at least in part as a…
Trio in E-Flat Major for Piano, Violin, and Horn, Op.40 (1865)
Brahms spent the summer of 1865 in the little town of Lichtenthal in the Black Forest near Baden-Baden. Lichtenthal was home to a flourishing artists' colony, and Brahms, surrounded by congenial friends, could indulge his passion for long walks through the woods. He had a special reason to seek the solitude of the forests: His mother had died on January 31 of that year, and he was still coming to terms with the loss. The Horn Trio, composed that summer, was intended at least in part as a…
Antonin Dvorák (1841-1904)
Serenade for Winds and Strings in D-minor, Op.44 (1878)
Few composers have emerged from humbler circumstances than Dvorák---the son of an innkeeper who kept a butcher shop, and at one point apprenticed his son. Fortunately the young Antonin's musical talent not only had been apparent from a young age, but his simple parents saw the wisdom in nurturing its development. Fortunate for posterity as well, the maturing composer recognized a deep artistic wisdom: Shaking off the infectious Wagner bug sweeping musical Europe, Dvorák trusted his instincts to mine…
Serenade for Winds and Strings in D-minor, Op.44 (1878)
Few composers have emerged from humbler circumstances than Dvorák---the son of an innkeeper who kept a butcher shop, and at one point apprenticed his son. Fortunately the young Antonin's musical talent not only had been apparent from a young age, but his simple parents saw the wisdom in nurturing its development. Fortunate for posterity as well, the maturing composer recognized a deep artistic wisdom: Shaking off the infectious Wagner bug sweeping musical Europe, Dvorák trusted his instincts to mine…
The Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival
Celebrating its 25th anniversary in 1997, the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival brings more than 50 internationally renowned musicians to Santa Fe for six weeks every July and August. Each summer the Festival presents more than 100 concerts, education and outreach programs, open rehearsals, and lectures in the beautiful Pueblo-styled St. Francis Auditorium of New Mexico's Museum of Fine Arts. Music lovers from all over the country come to enjoy the cool summer evenings at the foot of the Sangre de Cristo mountains and lose themselves in the world's most…
Celebrating its 25th anniversary in 1997, the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival brings more than 50 internationally renowned musicians to Santa Fe for six weeks every July and August. Each summer the Festival presents more than 100 concerts, education and outreach programs, open rehearsals, and lectures in the beautiful Pueblo-styled St. Francis Auditorium of New Mexico's Museum of Fine Arts. Music lovers from all over the country come to enjoy the cool summer evenings at the foot of the Sangre de Cristo mountains and lose themselves in the world's most…
Sidebar 1: Serenade, The Best of the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival STPH009-2
The Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, Heiichiro Ohyama, Artistic Director, recorded live in concert
W.A. Mozart: Flute Quartet in D, K.285 14:10
Carol Wincenc, flute; Yasushi Toyoshima, violin; Michelle Kim, viola; Peter Wyrick, cello
[1] Allegro 6:57
[2] Adagio 2:54
[3] Rondeau 4:19
Johannes Brahms: Horn Trio in E-Flat, Op.40 29:21
Julie Landsman, horn; Sheryl Staples, violin; Max Levinson, piano
[4] Andante 8:08
[5] Scherzo 7:16
[6] Adagio mesto 7:33
[7] Finale:…
Sidebar 2: Who Was Who, What Was When, What Was What
Producer/Musical Director: Heiichiro Ohyama
Production/Engineering/Editing: John Atkinson
Executive Director, Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival: Erich A. Vollmer
Executive Producer: Gretchen Grogan
Assistant Engineer: Wes Phillips
Road Manager: David Hendrick
Piano Technician: Michael Blackwell
Booklet notes: Eric Bromberger, John Atkinson, Wes Phillips
Booklet illustrations: Janice St. Marie
Booklet Design: Suey Surprise
Recorded at St. Francis Auditorium, Museum of Fine Arts, Santa Fe, New Mexico,…
Sidebar 3: Cover Image
The untitled oil painting by Nils Hogner is one of three paintings in display in the Music Building at Eastern New Mexico University, Portales, New Mexico. Courtesy of Treasures on New Mexico Trails, compiled and edited by Kathryn A. Flynn and published by Sunstone Press and New Mexico State Historic Preservation Division, Office of Cultural Affairs. This painting is also available as a poster, the second in a Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival series celebrating New Deal and Works Progress Administration (WPA) art created in New Mexico in the 1930s and 1940s.
Sidebar 2: Associated Equipment
Tonearms: Graham 2.0, Immedia RPM2, Simon Yorke.
Turntables: VPI TNT Mk.IV, Simon Yorke.
Preamplification: Ayre K-1, Ayre K-3 preamplifiers; Stax SRM-T1W passive line section; Lehmann Black Cube, Audio Research PH-3SE, Pass Aleph Ono phono sections.
Power amplifiers: Conrad-Johnson Premier Twelve and VTL MB 450 vacuum-tube amplifiers.
Loudspeakers: Sonus Faber Concerto Grand Piano, Audio Physic Virgo, Audio Physic Rhea subwoofer.
Cables: Cardas Neutral Reference, Precision Interface Technology, XLO Type 3.1 Signature phono cables; Yamamura…