In Reply to: Solti Mahler 8 has poor sound posted by pbarach on August 10, 2012 at 19:31:12:
Hmmm. I don't agree with all of this post. Yes, the miking of the soloists is strange, and jarring when they come in. However, prior to that point in the second movement, the recording is excellent, as were so many of the ones that were done by John Culshaw, who was not afraid to experiment, and definitely had some misses, too. I have a copy of the original LP, and there is no distortion on mine - it is in fact excellent sound, until the strange miking of the soloists you mention. I agree the CD version is terrible - in fact, I often use this recording as one of many in a convincing demonstration of the superiority of LP over CD sound.
Speaking now of Solti's Mahler in general, most musicians love these recordings not necessarily for Solti's interpretations, but for the excellent performances of the Chicago Symphony in these works, particularly the brass and woodwind sections. As far as interpretation goes, I really enjoy the ones Abbado did in the same era with the same orchestra in part of his Mahler cycle for DG; unfortunately, the sound on those is not nearly as good in general, so audiophiles almost never mention these excellent interpretations.
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Follow Ups
- RE: Solti Mahler 8 has poor sound - learsfool 20:27:03 08/10/12 (6)
- Solti's 5, 6, and 8 all sound very multi-miked to me - Chris from Lafayette 21:14:03 08/10/12 (5)
- RE: Solti's 5, 6, and 8 all sound very multi-miked to me - learsfool 23:34:06 08/12/12 (2)
- RE: Solti's 5, 6, and 8 all sound very multi-miked to me - Chris from Lafayette 23:54:09 08/12/12 (1)
- RE: Solti's 5, 6, and 8 and knob-twiddling - desertorganist 16:28:03 08/22/12 (0)
- RE: Solti's 5, 6, and 8 all sound very multi-miked to me - oldmkvi 07:30:25 08/12/12 (1)
- RE: Solti's 5, 6, and 8 all sound very multi-miked to me - Chris from Lafayette 00:01:05 08/13/12 (0)