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In Reply to: RE: "clueless to the magic within the Firebird" posted by Chris from Lafayette on June 11, 2016 at 19:49:10
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The stigma with audiophile recordings and classical music has been that there is an inverse ratio in quality. But I think there are many exceptions to this and Mercury catalog is certainly one of those exceptions. I think Dorati is absolutely terrific. I think a lot of his Tchaikovsky recordings are among the very best out there (for my tastes)
As a long-time classical LP collector, it's been clear to me that there is a prejudice in favor of certain so-called audiophile labels, possibly justified in terms of sound quality but not always justified in terms of performance. The biggest example in the negative direction is probably Columbia, deemed for the most part non-audiophile but with many of the best and most important American recordings.
It's not a simple question, since many of the so-called "budget" labels of the LP era featured not only bad sound quality but also bad performances.
But imo the biggest false bias by far is that in favor of rare LPs as opposed to common ones.
I can't say I have ever been aware of an anti Columbia bias when it comes to performances based on the poor SQ.
OTOH I think I have seen a few examples of the bias in favor of rare records.
What I meant by that was, many American classical LP collectors have focused on the early RCA Living Stereo "shaded dog", Mercury Living Presence and London "blue back" labels, rather than on Columbia, when Columbia was arguably the top dog among American classical labels in its day.
Look at all the audiophile reissues for RCA, Mercury and London, and the relatively few for Columbia, for example. That's especially ironic, since I'm told the Columbia master tapes have outstanding sound and would be excellent candidates for audiophile reissue even though the original LPs may not have had the best sound.
Anyway, these things tend to correct themselves over the years.
They are better sounding recordings. There has always been a focus on SQ over performance with many audiophiles. While quantities of audiophile reissues are still not up to the same levels as for RCA, Mercury, and London/Decca they are on the rise. Personally I can't say that Columbia really stands out for me compared to the other three labels you mention when it comes to performance quality. They certainly stand up with them but I can't say they stand out. I find plenty of excellent performances on all four labels.
Of course another bias I often see is old is better than new bias. While there are plenty of excellent performances on all four of those labels there are plenty of newer performances that I like better in many cases. Performances with no cache of the golden ago of audio or the golden age of classical music performances.
for me, and others, there is a extra value in hearing a conductor or soloist who personally knew and worked with Rachmaninoff, Mahler, Strauss, Bartok, Prokofiev, Debussy, Ravel, Stravinsky, etc.
I wouldn't try to argue that those recordings are "better" than newer ones, though.
Not that it makes any difference to me (LOL!), but I appreciate that some listeners are apparently sensitive to it.Anyway, I agree that at least some of those early stereo Columbia recordings (John McClure in charge?) sound excellent - the Bruno Walter recordings especially: Beethoven Sixth, Brahms Fourth (both of which I now have on SACD), Mahler Das Lied von der Erde (with the NYPO) - probably lots more. But I think that Columbia/CBS was also one of the first companies to foist their primitive ideas favoring multi-microphoned engineering on their musicians, especially (as I've mentioned before) in the absolutely wretched recordings produced by Andrew Kazdin, and especially with regard to his undermining of Szell's work in Cleveland.
Edits: 06/15/16
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Evocative of what?
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. . . since we're already pretty far into this thread, we should perhaps make a new thread for the subject someday. Of course, I do agree with you that music can be incredibly evocative, but in my mind, the greatest evocation which music produces is of emotional states which do not have a direct correlation to any non-musical objects or states. IOW, music, at its best, produces emotions which are unique to music - you can't get them any other way - and I say this in spite of the instances where music is clearly trying to depict something in the natural world (most easily discerned when there's a text along with the music). You mentioned fire - I don't hear that so much in the Firebird, but I do hear the "fire" origin of the motives in Wagner's Magic Fire Music for instance. But even here, the thing evoked by Wagner's music is so much more than just a direct depiction of fire.
Anyway, you may or may not agree, but, as I say, this could be an interesting discussion for later on.
M
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