SPOTLIGHT The classical music general discussion thread

[mkt]

This sampler is probably worth a listen. I think the 2L mixing style is my favorite, although not all the musical choices match my taste.

 

[ted_b]

A majority of classical multichannel releases are done as true ambient mixes, and by that I mean surround mics are placed so that the hall ambience is captured discretely. The result is a sound experience that you are sitting, say, 10th row, and listening to the orchestra in front of you and the sounds envelope you as if you were at the hall.

Some classical releases are adventure mixes and either the mic tree is inside the orhestra seating area or the multitrack recording is mixed so that you are inside the orchestra, with various instruments all around you. The quad stuff from Vocalion, the Tacet recordings, many of the 2L, etc.

In both cases the surround speakers are receiving true discrete sounds, not something reverb'd after the fact. Stay away from those.

Both surround approaches are great, and worth your time to explore.

Note: I volunteer my time at NativeDSD (doing the tagging/metadata, etc) which has thousands of classical (and other) multichannel releases online, and a few of them are free demos.

 

[mwhealton]

I'd suggest this recording: Very recent, very adventurous technically and musico-historically, and yet intentionally ambient in the best possible way.
It takes you into the virtually reconstructed acoustic of Hagia Sophia itself.
The package can be purchased with both stereo and bluray disks, with the Bluray including the surround mixes. One of those is Atmos encoded, since height is a key part of the acoustic of the building and also the compositional intent of the liturgical pieces.
There are many reviews online. Capella Romana has offered free expedited shipment for a short time now too...

https://cappellaromana.org/product/lost-voices-of-hagia-sophia-medieval-byzantine-chant/

 

[J. PUPSTER]

I'd suggest this recording: Very recent, very adventurous technically and musico-historically, and yet intentionally ambient in the best possible way.
It takes you into the virtually reconstructed acoustic of Hagia Sophia itself.
The package can be purchased with both stereo and bluray disks, with the Bluray including the surround mixes. One of those is Atmos encoded, since height is a key part of the acoustic of the building and also the compositional intent of the liturgical pieces.
There are many reviews online. Capella Romana has offered free expedited shipment for a short time now too...

https://cappellaromana.org/product/lost-voices-of-hagia-sophia-medieval-byzantine-chant/

Good call on that one; and one of the reasons I believe Atmos can be at an advantage over a 5.1 system (why I haven’t, but how I’d love to hear this title) and why I’ve been considering eventually going that route.

 

[ssully]

re: Kleiber/VPO classic recordings of the Beethoven 5/7

Yeah, I think the SACD was 5.1 too? Haven't checked, but I think a lot of DG SACDs were 5.1, which was part of why a lot of them required 2 SACDs for the same program that was on 1 CD.

The SACD is 5.0. From what I understand, although there is was a mix of the Kleiber 5th in quad done in the '70s (but never released), the subsequent SACD/DVDA/BluRay surround releases are from a 2003 remix from the original multis.

Back in 2003 I posted this below on SA-Cd.net .

FYI regarding the credits for this album: I wrote to the Emil Berliner mastering studio for clarification of the rather confusing mixing/mastering/sourcing credits; I also did some online research of DG reissue philosophies. The upshot is that DG's policy now is to archive their stuff to hi-rez PCM, rather than to DSD (they did some listening tests and measurements and decided that was the way to go). The Kleiber 5/7 were newly remixed, this year, from the original analog multitracks, to stereo and to 5.0, in hi-rez PCM; these were then converted to DSD for the SACD release. The booklet also includes a mixing credit for the previous release on CD, apparently for legal reasons; that's why there's two mixing credits.

Btw, the original recording session for the 5th was intended for 'quadraphonic' release, as indicated by the review in hifidelitynews.com and confirmed by EB studios.

I'm trying to recover the original emails from EB studios but I'm not hopeful... Nowadays I'm a bit more skeptical of the remix-from-multitracks claim, versus simply a 5.0/5.1 repurposing the old quad mix. A pity we don't have a straight release of the 70s quad mix to compare.

Over the years I've remained in love with this performance of the 5th (never loved Kleiber's 7th, prefer Walter's on Columbia) , but I've come to find the recording itself a bit thin and occasionally shrill (DG multimike recordists sure loved the horn section), in any incarnation (LP, original CD, 'original bit mapped' CD, SACD/DVDA/Bluray 5.0, and 2.0, etc...) over systems big and small. It's interesting that a very few reviews over the years do mention the same lack of first-rate sound quality, for similar reasons, amid a focus on the superb performance.

 

[ted_b]

The Vocalion SACD of Boulez is indeed quad. Don't be fooled by the Sony 2002 release, which is a botched 5.1 from poor 3 channel masters of some sort. This is also pointed out in the Poll link a couple pages back.

Edit: Oops, I responded to wrong release; now realize you guys were talking Kleiber. My bad.

 

[humprof]

Hi everyone - I feel like this was probably asked and answered at some point, but I can't find it so please excuse me if this is redundant. I have been getting into surround sound only recently and naturally, it is changing my WORLD. This from a lifelong music geek across all genres.

Anyway - my wife said to me, "wow, this really does sound incredible... I'd love to hear some classical music this way." Now, I know that's a major rabbit hole - and when I went to Princeton Record Exchange recently and saw a whole bin of like $1-$5 surround discs... I had no idea where to start and felt like it was probably going to be a mixed bag overall. So I needed to reach out to the big guns (you) for some advice on what might be a good way to wade into the pool.

I fully realize that this is an extremely vague question... but if I were to ask you what you would say are like, the top 10 absolutely essential, showcase/demo classical releases in surround, would that be something you could even answer? Have you done that already somewhere that I can't find? Hopefully you see this as a fun challenge and not an annoyance.

I am interested chiefly in what would be mind-blowing experiences in surround, so, really great recordings and mixes...and then the content, although I realize that's where there's a wide variety. In general I certainly like the well-known stalwarts but have played in orchestras in my school days so I'm OK with some adventure too. Not picky about format other than it being digital.

What say ye? (and thanks in advance!)

Hi Rusty, and welcome to QQ. (And to the world of surround. Prepare to watch your bank balance drop.)

I would second the recommendations you've gotten so far--and I'd just add that if you have the patience to scroll through this thread, or even the last 10 or 15 pages of this thread, you're bound to get a sense of some of the standout classical surround discs (and labels) that people here really prize.

 

[harync]

I particularly like this DVD-A as it has both a stage mix with the microphones in the middle of the orchestra and a hall mix. I definitely prefer stage mixes, but it's nice to make the comparison:
https://www.aixrecords.com/product/...an-mandeal-conductor-george-enescu-phil-orch/

 

[Kal Rubinson]

I particularly like this DVD-A as it has both a stage mix with the microphones in the middle of the orchestra and a hall mix. I definitely prefer stage mixes, but it's nice to make the comparison:
https://www.aixrecords.com/product/...an-mandeal-conductor-george-enescu-phil-orch/

Eh. I have 16 versions of Firebird on my NAS but this one didn't make the cut for performance.

 

[harync]

Eh. I have 16 versions of Firebird on my NAS but this one didn't make the cut for performance.

What is your favorite Firebird in terms of surround dynamics?

Agree that I have heard better performances than the AIX. I guess I like the novelty of having two different types of recordings of the same performance. Out of the 4 performances I have, it has the most active use of the surrounds.

BTW, my breakdown is
- two 1919 versions (AIX; Mariss Jansons Royal Concertgebouw)
- one 1945 version (Yuri Simonov, Royal Philharmonic)
- one full 1910 version (Andrew Litton, Bergen Philharmonic)

I see that an SACD of a 1975 Quad performance of the full 1910 version (Pierre Boulez / New York Philharmonic) was released this summer. Do you happen to know if that is worth picking up?

 

[Kal Rubinson]

What is your favorite Firebird in terms of surround dynamics?

That is not an issue for me as I prefer an accurate ambient representation, not an "unnatural" immersive one. So I cannot really comment on that.
Among the mch ones, I have the Jansons (which I like) and the Litton, as well as the Jarvi, Craft, Fischer (also like this one) and Mackerras.

I see that an SACD of a 1975 Quad performance of the full 1910 version (Pierre Boulez / New York Philharmonic) was released this summer. Do you happen to know if that is worth picking up?

If it is on Dutton, it may likely appeal to you.

 

[harync]

That is not an issue for me as I prefer an accurate ambient representation, not an "unnatural" immersive one. So I cannot really comment on that.
Among the mch ones, I have the Jansons (which I like) and the Litton, as well as the Jarvi, Craft, Fischer (also like this one) and Mackerras.

If it is on Dutton, it may likely appeal to you.

To each their own. I don't find anything unnatural about microphones being placed at the center of the orchestra. Instead of the main listening position recreating a seat in the audience 50 feet from the orchestra, it is recreating the ears of the conductor and/or musicians. I played in orchestras throughout high school and college, so I became much more used to hearing music from the stage rather than the audience.

I will check out the Dutton release.

 

[ubertrout]

re: Kleiber/VPO classic recordings of the Beethoven 5/7



The SACD is 5.0. From what I understand, although there is was a mix of the Kleiber 5th in quad done in the '70s (but never released), the subsequent SACD/DVDA/BluRay surround releases are from a 2003 remix from the original multis.

Back in 2003 I posted this below on SA-Cd.net .



I'm trying to recover the original emails from EB studios but I'm not hopeful... Nowadays I'm a bit more skeptical of the remix-from-multitracks claim, versus simply a 5.0/5.1 repurposing the old quad mix. A pity we don't have a straight release of the 70s quad mix to compare.

Over the years I've remained in love with this performance of the 5th (never loved Kleiber's 7th, prefer Walter's on Columbia) , but I've come to find the recording itself a bit thin and occasionally shrill (DG multimike recordists sure loved the horn section), in any incarnation (LP, original CD, 'original bit mapped' CD, SACD/DVDA/Bluray 5.0, and 2.0, etc...) over systems big and small. It's interesting that a very few reviews over the years do mention the same lack of first-rate sound quality, for similar reasons, amid a focus on the superb performance.

The Kleiber Beethoven (and I think pretty much all DG "5.1" mixes from 70s sources) are quad mixes with fake center channels. I've spent way too long looking at waveforms for these, but here's some links:
https://www.quadraphonicquad.com/fo...er-orchestral-recordings-blu-ray-audio.24899/https://www.quadraphonicquad.com/forums/threads/quad-re-quads-listings.22991/page-3In other words, the center channel is at a much lower level than the four quad channels, and doesn't seem to have any unique information.

 

[ssully]

I strongly tend to agree, except that 17 years ago a correspondent at Emil Berliner studios possibly told me different. Without the exact email exchange at hand I can't be sure I reported the situation correctly back then.

While the SACD is 5.0 , the DVDA is 5.1 , and as well as the Center (as you noted for the SACD), the LFE there seems also to be 'fake', i.e. just duplicating bass content from the main channels. I did a 3-way waveform/frequency profile comparison of the 5th around 3 years ago and the four 'quad' channels in all three formats (DVDA, SACD, BluRay) were essentially identical IIRC. This by itself would suggest that LFE is superfluous. I should probably re-do that and post an example.


(The Bluray is 5.0, I think, but I'd have to re-check...or maybe you recall offhand? I would check now but I deleted my BluRay rip from my archive, suggesting either that it was somehow inferior to the other two, or simply redundant with one of them. Your analysis linked above suggests it was redundant with the SACD)

 

[Soundfield]

I don't think a centre channel ("fake" or otherwise) let alone a LFE channel (what a ghastly concept that is) has any role whatsoever in the true HiFi reproduction of classical music (or any acoustical musical performance regardless of genre for that matter). I've never heard either of these techniques, on any system, produce anything other than an entirely artificial effect. I recognise some people might like the 'impact' that these processes bring to electronically generated pop music of course.

 

[ssully]

A center channel can be acoustically useful in any surround mix, if used correctly, but LFE is unnecessary for virtually all of them, including pop.

 

[4-earredwonder]

I don't think a centre channel ("fake" or otherwise) let alone a LFE channel has any role whatsoever in the true HiFi reproduction of classical music (or any acoustical musical performance regardless of genre for that matter). I've never heard either of these techniques, on any system, produce anything other than an entirely artificial effect. I recognise some people might like the 'impact' that these processes bring to electronically generated pop music of course.

Am in TOTAL agreement. Mucking with original QUADRAPHONIC recordings by adding an 'artificial center' and .1 LFE channel only distills the recording engineer's original intent ..... as evidenced by SONY's tampering with some of it's original QUAD classical recordings by attempting to do the same .... with
disastrous results!

HRAudio.net - Bartok: Concerto for Orchestra, The Miraculous Mandarin - Boulez [SONY's 5.1 repurposing BAD]

HRAudio.net - Bartók: Concerto for Orchestra, The Miraculous Mandarin - Boulez [D~V's QUAD remaster ..... SUPERB!]

 

[Soundfield]

A center channel can be acoustically useful

Only if
(a) the recording engineer is incompetent
and / or
(b) the playback system is flawed

 

[ssully]

The DG beethoven 5/7 appears to be the same as what was done with Jeff Beck 'Blow By Blow', Nektar 'Remember the Future', and other pop 4.0 repurposed to 5.0/5.1 -- a low-level C and LFE channel were created from the 4.0 mix by duplicating content from the other channels.

What Sony did with, e.g., the first Boulez Bartok SACD, is different, AFAIR.

 

[ssully]

Only if
(a) the recording engineer is incompetent
and / or
(b) the playback system is flawed

Hey, don't argue with me, argue with Floyd Toole, James Johnston, others who have a deep understanding of acoustics and the drawbacks having a 'phantom' center (2 channel) versus a true center with good mixing choices
e.g.
https://forums.audioholics.com/foru...n-for-small-room-acoustics.98369/post-1127137