Sidebar: Recordings In The Round
L'ARPEGGIATA: La Tarantella
Christina Pluhars, L'Arpeggiata
Alpha SA 503 (SACD)
This collection of vocal and instrumental arrangements of Italian music from as far back as the 17th century was inspired by the behavior of victims of spider bites (tarantella comes from tarantola, which means tarantula). For all that, it comes off not as scholastic but as delightful. The range and color of plucked, strummed, and struck instruments is fascinating, the rhythms varied and exciting. The sound is outstandingly detailed and deep, although the use of the 5.…
To the great surprise of not that many people at all, at Home Entertainment 2003, as at the two immediately previous shows, the room featuring loudspeakers by Joseph Audio was voted by showgoer ballot "Best Sound of Show" (see September 2003, p.62). I'm not going to pick a fight over that. Not only was the sound very, very good; the entire vibe was confidently relaxed, while at the same time being purposeful in a manner businesslike yet friendly.
Some other manufacturers and exhibitors could learn a few things from Jeff Joseph and his co-exhibitor colleagues. Not everyone, of course, is…
Such was certainly not the case in the Joseph Audio room, where Manley Labs, Cardas, Equi=Tech, Grand Prix Audio, and Orpheus Laboratories amicably synergized to make inviting sounds, and never seemed to get in each other's way when it came time to get product information. For me, at least, the discovery was Orpheus Laboratories, a relatively new Swiss firm, the mission of which is to realize Anagram Technologies' digital circuit designs in audio products for the professional and consumer markets.
Feeling that I was adequately familiar with the other products being shown, I was…
Why had a high-end hi-fi magazine felt the need to produce a classical LP when the thrust of real record companies in 1989 is almost exclusively toward CD and cassette? Why did the magazine's editors think they had a better chance than most experienced professional engineers in making a record with audiophile sound quality? Were they guilty of hubris in thinking that the many years between them spent practicing the profession of critic would qualify them as record producers? I think the germ of the idea, to make a recording that, in sharp contrast to the vast majority of commercial…
And so, a $36 cab ride later, it turned out be. The Hancock Auditorium is an anonymous-looking building off the University of Southern California's main drag, hiding behind what appeared to be rhododendron trees. Capable of seating around 500, with seats gently sloping up to the rear, its stage featured a New York Steinway, flanked by a harpsichord and a Bösendorfer fitted with a computerized reproducing mechanism. Dominating the scene in front of the first row of seats, however, was an aluminum tower, similar to those used to support lighting rigs, wrapped in foam rubber and supporting two…
Another take revealed that the sound off tape was now, well, delicious. It had captured both the sounds of the instruments accurately but also the sense that those instruments were in that particular hall, with their spatial relationships intact. I smiled. We were in for an easy two days' recording. Kavi was not looking so happy, however. "I'll play it again. Listen for a ticking in the left channel." He did. I did. I heard a faint ticking with a period of about 0.25s, quite audible despite being some 60dB down from the peak level. One of the mics had gone bad. With that long a period, it…
Which is what happened. The rest of the second day's recording would be with the better, more natural tube mics. We started the afternoon, Gary playing the silver flute, with three Schumann Romances which would be added to the CD release. (To have included these pieces on the LP would have led to 35+ minute sides, which all of us felt to be unwise.) These are lyrical, relatively uncomplicated pieces, and went effortlessly, two Romances being good enough to be used complete, without editing, and the third only requiring a minor edit to eliminate some truck noise. A short break, then it…
In keeping with the documentary nature of the project, the running order of the LP was to be similar to that of an actual concert. The Griffes Poem, recorded with the tube figure-eight mics, would open Side One, followed by the Reinecke Sonata, which was made with the Milab cardioids. Side Two, which would be on a separate reel of tape, would feature the major work of the recital, the Prokofiev sonata, again recorded with the tube figure-eights. The procedure was the same for all movements. I showed Hugh where I felt the edit points between different takes should be; he would look at the…
The Music: Denis Stevens Charles Tomlinson Griffes: Poem (1918) When he wrote this wonderfully colorful Poem for flute and orchestra, here performed in a version with piano made by Georges Barrère, Griffes was director of music at the Hackley School in Tarrytown, New York. In a comparatively short creative span of a dozen or so years, following a period of intensive study in Berlin, he had produced many works in the German romantic style, in his own particular vein of impressionism, and in a highly personalized quasi-oriental idiom. One would hardly think of him—after hearing the Poem—as…
The Recording Engineer: John Atkinson I first met Kavichandran (the name means "Poet of the Moon") Alexander at a CES in the early '80s, when I wandered into the Beveridge room. Probably the hairiest man I had ever seen pressed a cassette of Indian classical music into my hand, insisting that I listen to it. You know how things are, it was several weeks before I got round to playing that cassette, but when I did, it turned out to be a stunningly natural recording. The next CES, therefore, I looked out for this wild-looking Tamil from Ceylon (not Sri Lanka, Kavi insists) and took the time…
