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Of course, I'm not giving up my Reiner and Gatti recordings, but a new recording by a Texas youth orchestra (the Texas Music Festival Orchestra) has just been released over at the HDTT (High-Definition Tape Transfers) site. HDTT seems to be striking more and more towards a mode of issuing new recordings of their own in recent years, in addition to their well known reissue operations.
This new album has a number of unique attractions which I find interesting and even compelling, despite a couple of blemishes too. The orchestra is associated with the University of Houston and consists of players aged 18-30, perhaps similar to MTT's New World Symphony Orchestra in Florida. Youth orchestras have gotten so good that more and more recordings these days employ them, often with major name conductors at the helm. These performances were recorded in concert, so, although there are some infelicities of playing or ensemble every now and then, these mishaps are not that much more numerous than what one might hear with a professional orchestra in a once-through shot at this repertoire in a concert situation. (And the reason I say "once-through" is because many "live" radio broadcasts of symphony orchestras these days are stitched together from a series of performances - maybe three or four. That's not the case in this recording, which derives from a single concert, June 11th of this year.)
The production and engineering for this recording were done by John Proffitt, who did such great work in Remy Ballot's performance of the Bruckner Eighth with another youth orchestra (the Oberosterreichisches Jugendsinfonieorchester - sorry for the missing umlaut!) on a Gramola SACD.
I thought John's recording was VERY impressive! In a way, this is really what I've been wanting in a modern recording of these works: the thud in the bass is particularly impressive, and it's something I've been missing on a number of recent commercial recordings. At the same time, the hall acoustic (the Moores Opera House, University of Houston) seems unpleasantly dry - it would be nice if they had a recording location in Houston with a bit more reverberation (IMHO). And while the bass strength throughout is wonderful, I thought that the organ part at the end of the first section of Feste Romane was kind of weak. (I wonder if some kind of portable organ was used?) If you listen to this recording in multi-channel, I think you'll be astonished by how the trumpets in Feste Romane virtually crawl up your back with their opening fanfares - they're placed in the rear channels in this section, and hearing them like this is really a staggering, hair-raising experience! In addition, I really like the balance among the different sections of the orchestra, and I especially appreciate the fact that the strings do not get swamped by the brass and percussion as they do on some recordings of this work. Bravo!
Getting back to the performances: although the fact that this performance is by a youth orchestra is nothing short of amazing, the interpretation of Feste Romane does seem to be a bit more straight-laced (i.e., with less flexibility in the rhythm than one might usually hear - especially in the wind solos) than most of the performances by professional orchestras on other recordings. The Pines and Fountains are better in this respect. The thing I like most of all is that, despite the incidental lapses of ensemble, there's a real eagerness, enthusiasm and sense of occasion to the performance. It's palpable, and it's a real attraction of this recording. I had no familiarity with the conductor (Franz Anton Krager) before, but he certainly seems to know his stuff - at least with this repertoire!
I got the 24/192 surround file, which, as usual with HDTT, arrives as a ZIP file and needs to be expanded to its FLAC format. I usually convert the resulting FLAC file to the AIFF format (so that my processor doesn't have to work so hard during playback - LOL!), but in the case of the Feste Romane track, I had problems. I usually use a program call "Max" to do this, but it choked during the conversion and would not produce anything at all. I then tried DBPowerAmp, which seemed to work, but when I played back the resulting AIFF file, it contained only the first two minutes. I finally ended up using VLC media player to playback the FLAC file directly - that worked. The Pines and Fountains tracks converted fine to AIFF. Just a bit of an oddity with the Feste Romane track - I've never had problems in converting any other track I've downloaded from HDTT.
I also ran spectrograph software on the Feste Romane track (BTW, one track for each piece - no subdivision into sections on this album), and the high frequencies seem to peak at just below 30kHz. The master seems to be PCM, since I didn't see any tell-tale ultra high frequency noise-dusting typical of a DSD file. One more thing: the dynamic range of this recording is WIDE (per our recent discussion of the last volume of Vanska/Minnesota Sibelius symphones on BIS), and I also think that the average dynamic level is a bit lower on this recording than on most other recordings, so be forewarned! When those Roman legions arrive at the end of Pines, you may find yourself jumping out of your seat to avoid getting crushed by their inexorable progress!
If you're interested in this repertoire (i.e., of the "orchestral spectacular" persuasion), I'm thinking you might find this album (which, BTW, is available in a variety of formats: DSD64, various flavors of PCM - both multi-channel and two-channel, and actual burned discs) very much worth your while as a listening experience, just as I did.
Follow Ups:
Try not to cry during the final "Ah" chorus.
The CGI effects should be spectacular (IMAX 3D and all that)! I don't care if some critics said they were cheesy.
But, no matter what, there's no Miklos Rozsa in the credits! (Who's this Marco Beltrami guy anyway?)
Yes indeed, there's a direct line of musical descent from Respighi's Roman Trilogy (and Bloch's Jewish-themed works) to Rozsa's "biblical epics" such as Ben-Hur - and Rozsa kept the standard pretty darn high IMHO! A worthy successor to such greats as Respighi and Bloch, although I'd say that that final tear-jerking "Ah" chorus probably owes more to Bloch than to Respighi. ;-)
BTW, the director (Timur Bekmambetov from Kazakhstan) claims that his new Ben-Hur is a "re-interpretation", not a "re-make". Probably so - it's only 2/3 as long! ;-)
He wrote Bari Sax Solo in the Credits to a Tommy Lee Jones Movie, The Electric Mist, or something like that.
And I got to play it...
He was interested in the difference between a low Bb Bari, and Low C, which he used.
BTW, you've got to toot your own horn more (no pun intended!) in this forum - I've heard your contributions on some recordings and I'd like to hear more!
BTW, my MOVIE review of the new Ben-Hur (as opposed to my MUSIC review on this forum) is now over on the Films forum.
And for those anti-flashers, a link
Will have to research first to make sure reinterpretation doesn't include Ben jumping into bed with his childhood friend this time around.
Edits: 08/22/16
The music was a BIG letdown (compared to Rozsa's score), and the final portion at the very end and the credits was one of those absurd vehicles for some American-Idol-type "lay the emoting on thick" female singer. ("Man, can't you hear the pain and feeling in my voice? - I'm a twenty-something who's really suffered, just like Ben-Hur and Jesus!") I'd prefer Rozsa's holy "Ah" chorus any day of the week! ;-)
But. . . overall. . . (aside from the music), I didn't think it was bad at all. I may try to post something over on the film forum here.
People can say what they want about the music but the orchestration is truly a marvel, and fun! The writing for piano, celeste and harp in the 3rd movt of Pines is exquisite: was truly a bucket list experience to be bathed in such pentatonic bliss.
But since you have actual experience in Pines and Festivals, what do you think? Did the other players in the orchestra make any comments about the relative difficulty? BTW, were these performances from around here in SF?
Since the part requires four hands! Very dramatic looking from a distance.
Actually, locking into the opening flourishes of Pines was most difficult for me; I don't have much experience playing piano in ensembles when, of course, others are keeping the time. The opening of Pines is beaten in "one." A very grand "one."
A lot of broken chord repetition in Festivals; capricious sections of third and fourth movts hardest.
The one orchestral piano part I just couldn't articulate (there's that word again) at speed was the beautiful shimmering business in Saint Saens Organ Symphony. Four hand part as well. My poor, weak 4th finger.
Also, with which orchestra did you play? Would I know the conductor?
BTW, I know what you mean about those 4-hand parts - in the 80's, I played Debussy's Printemps (another 4-hand part) with the San Jose Symphony, and having another two hands in the way was beyond annoying! ;-)
I emailed you.With regard to orchestral diffficulty, the winds, brass and percussion took both in stride. Strings did fine with Pines, had difficulties with Festivals.
You've inspired me to seek out the archivist.
Edits: 08/21/16
Glad you liked it.
The Rice U. orchestra is also outstanding and their hall is not dry.
But no organs in any concert hall in Houston that I'm aware of.
Another excellent youth orchestra is at Festival Hill in Round Top (pop. 90) which is about how many players there are in the band. Six week season June/July with students from all over the world. Beautiful hall but a little dry. Das Lied was great this year. An all Ravel program a few years back knocked my socks off.
"If people don't want to come, nothing will stop them" - Sol Hurok
No, Houston does not have a concert hall with a pipe organ, such as Dallas enjoys with Meyerson Symphony Hall and its magnificent Fisk Organ. However, when the need arises to do a symphony orchestra + organ concert right in Houston, musically speaking (that is, without an electronic abomination!), there is Grace Presbyterian Church, which has both the space and acoustic, plus a hugh symphonic Schantz organ. I've recorded a couple of biggies there for HDTT, but the one that shows off the organ best as a super foundation for the orchestra is the Bruckner Mass No. 3: 150 member Houston Symphony Chorus, 90 member Moores School Symphony Orchestra and a HUGE sound recorded in high resolution 5.0 surround. Next spring we'll have the mics in place for an organ + orchestra spectacular in St John the Divine Episcopal, which while not quite as spacious as Grace Pres does have a huge symphonic pipe organ also (Letourneau) and sufficient room up front for a large orchestra. The Jongen Symphonie concertante and Poulenc Concerto are scheduled.
John Proffitt
I appreciate all the info that you, as a local, would have. Of course, the Shepherd School of Music at Rice is very much respected all across the country - at least from what I can tell.
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