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I haven't heard the other volumes in the series, as they received mostly lukewarm reviews.
Sound samples of the Sunrise Scene are promising, though the "birds" (warbling woodwinds) are a bit upfront; I don't want visions of Tippi Hedren running through a schoolyard here. : ) But maybe it's just the crappy file.
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I just listened. Very s-l-o-w and c-a-r-e-f-u-l. For a ballet work there is little real sense of drama or of the theatre. I cannot imagine anyone being actually able to dance to these tempi. Decent SQ though. Some thinning at climaxes here and there but that is common to most of Naxos' Lyon recordings so it may be the orchestra itself. It doesn't strike me as possessing the most sumptuous strings. Very good chorus although sounding a bit too large for my tastes in pt.1.
This also gives me a chance to ask you something. I seem to recall that before Christmas you downloaded some HDTT transfers including the Walton Symphony 1, Previn. If it wasn't you then forgive me for asking : how did you find it? As a peformance it has long been the standard to reach but this transfer came without any embedded cover art ( so it shows up in my JRiver player as " unattributed" and the sound is not what I expect from HDTT. Strangely lobed to the right channel for the first couple of minutes with excess bass. The excitement of the performance is very muted. Throughout it is a bit opaque with a somewhat rolled off treble. A rip of the CD betters it by far as does my Gold Seal LP. I would be most grateful for your comments.
Sometimes that can be a good thing.
I have many enjoyable recordings of music originally composed for ballet that no one would ever attempt to dance to.
Agree with you on the merits of the HDTT transfer.
Russell
Thank you very much for your kind offer. However I have several images of the artwork: the HDTT offering, the original USA cover snd the UK cover. However I do not know how to embed or otherwise relate them to a .dsf file so that they automatically load into JRiver at the metadata level both for album/genre etc. selection and at track level. For FLACs this is simple using the ID tag but there doesn't seem to be something like this for .dsf. Are they, in effect, WAVs? Normally HDTT dowmloads have the image already incorporated so I need not worry over this aspect.
If you have any advice I would be thankful.
Thank you also for your remarks on the HDTT transfer of the Walton. My guess is that the original tape worked from was not in great shape.
I'm on a Mac and I use a third-party application called "Yate" to embed album artwork into my .dsf files (as well as to change/add other metadata). Very simple. I'm sure there are equivalent apps for PCs, but I don't know about them. Good luck!
Russell
Not all HDTT's are equal. Top of the heap for me was the Ansermet Petrushka, Stravinsky's Columbia Firebird, the Bernstein Columbia Gershwin.
Monteux's RCA Tchaikovsky 4th wasn't one of RCA's top class 50's recordings, but that's not HDTT's fault.
The famous Richter/Liszt piano concertos seemed a little muted on top, but I can't remember how the record sounded.
I have LP, CD and Tidal stream of Richter/Liszt piano concertos. All are somewhat bright and very vivid. Great recordings done by Bob Fine of the Mercury team and released on Phillips. Great examples of Richters art
Alan
Regarding sound though, I liked, and felt it through a little bit deeper of a soundstage than the Lp. Definitely not an upfront recording though.
nt
.
(I'm going by the first two volumes in the series.)
beginning to the first climax, gets me every time. (Even though it gets a little redundant after that.)
I'm still waiting for a version that surpasses the Munch/BSO/NEC Chorus version(s). I'm not usually a completist, but I have the 1955 version mono and stereo LPs (original shaded dogs, just in case that makes any difference), the stereo JVC XRCD, and the 1961 version stereo LP. (IMO, the main difference between the 1955 and 1961 versions are in how they were recorded. The earlier one sounds like the natural ambience / minimal microphones technique the earliest RCA Living Stereos are famous for, while the later one sounds like some balance problems were corrected, either with more or differently placed microphones. I prefer the later one.)
. . . for the 1961 album - which still sounds pretty darn natural to my ears. I love the Skrowaczewski version of the two suites too, especially since it became available in its original quad configuration in its MoFi SACD incarnation. (I also have the DVD-Audio of the Martinon EMI recording in quad, but that performance doesn't have the spark that Skrowaczewski and Munch have - at least for me.) Speaking of recordings from around that time, I also like the Cluytens version, with its unique brass and woodwind tonal colorings. Among recent recordings, I was pleasantly surprised by the Gergiev/LSO version of the Second Suite. (Barbican be damned!) I haven't heard the Levine and Haitink complete versions on SACD.
More in the tradition of Boulez than of Munch, but I respect the skillful execution.
On Vox or MFSL. The Vox is of demonstration quality and has Mother Goose as a bonus.
and ripped 24/96 iteration. Love it.
But the best version I've heard dates back to 1981 while attending the summer Aspen Music Festival. Our motel was about six blocks from the Music Tent, and as I headed out on an early-morning jog I heard the sounds of an energetic dance emanating from there. What else to do but continue going in that direction?
I got to the tent, went inside (no one was at the entrance), and had my choice of seats, so I sat down about mid-tent. Jorge Mester was rehearsing the Aspen Festival Orchestra in "Daphnis". I stayed through the rehearsal and enjoyed every minute of it. It beat jogging by a country mile.
Jim
http://jimtranr.com
I especially like the chorus in that one, and sound quality is very good as you say, much better than either of the earlier Munch versions. However, I prefer the complete ballet to the two suites. And Munch has great theatrical instincts that serve him well in what is Ravel's most theatrical piece, imo.
On
. . . in terms of having any life to them. Just IMHO.
Funny, I was just in Bodega Bay a couple of weeks ago and I ran down the same street that Tippi Hedren did, thereby fulfilling a childhood dream! ;-)
BTW, the school is still there, but the town itself is extremely built-up compared to how it looked in the movie. My brother and his wife were renting a house with a wonderful panoramic view of the ocean. We had lunch outdoors at a local restaurant, and I can tell you that the local birds were indeed pretty brazen (when they wanted your food!).
Unlike some here.But I did PAY for them so my standards may be lower for that reason.
I streamed them from ClassicsOnlineHD when I was a subscriber.
QOBUZ would not play them (only 30 sec. samples at MP-3). Now for some reason QOBUZ is back in bed with NAXOS and so I can.
I'll will try the latest one later today.
Edits: 01/13/17
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