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No joke: only instruments used at the premier are allowed. "No concessions."
I listened to the Sunrise bit and it's not bad, though it seems a bit "tempo de fantasi island" (forward chorus too) in the most sultry sections. More Monteux than Munch. Just listening to crappy sample on computer though.
Ten bucks.
Follow Ups:
The recording was made from live performances in 2016 at 7 concert halls in France, Germany, and England, from what I could tell from the booklet (freely downloadable from eClassical). I can't believe this is really the case, though, but you never know. It'll be interesting to see if there are any sonic differences across the recording. I decided to give the download a try anyway. (The price was cheap enough.)
Incidentally, the download appears to be 44.1 upsampled to 96kHz. I'll have to write to eClassical about this.
Russell
I think that they record all of their performancces. I would therefore guess that the list of locations in the booklet is of all of the halls that they performed it at. I would expect that one was chosen as the "master" perhaps with patches inserted from others.
The photo is of them at the Royal Festival Hall last year and if you look to the rear centre of the orchestra you will see a Decca tree arrangement. An odd place to put it although convenient. None of their recordings ( all live) that I have heard so far would win prizes for SQ although all are perfectly adequate.
The album is not released over here until next Friday so I won't hear it until then.
What makes you suspicious that the 96Ks/s download is upsampled? I would imagine it unlikely that they were recording in 44.1 in 2016 so is the vendor upsampling from a CD? I won't fully know what formats are being offered here until next week and it comes out.
It's pretty obvious. I wrote to eClassical about this and included the screenshot. They responded by saying that they would take the matter up with Harmonia Mundi directly. We'll see what, if anything, transpires!
The sound quality is rather good regardless, and I didn't notice any obvious shifts in quality/image over the duration of the work. Oh, and the orchestra didn't sound overtly HIP at all, save for a very odd-sounding wind machine (!). (And thanks for the photo, BTW.) Quite pleased with it overall, actually.
Russell
I don't know the software you are using but it certainly looks like a 44.1 KS/s file. Did you definitely download 96KS/s or press the wrong button in error (I've done it in the past)?
Anyway please post the result of your query as I may well buy the download.
The software is called Audacity, and it's free. (It's really good!) You can see in the fine print to the left that the file is a 96kHz file. This type of problem used to be more common in the past; it's pretty rare nowadays.
Russell
How did you set up Audacity to display this information? Here is an Audacity screenshot of a 96 Hz FLAC track from Perahia's Bach French Suites that I downloaded from prestoclassical.uk. It doesn't show what your Audacity screenshot does.
I'm not sure why your screenshot shows a gray background while mine shows a blue one. Here's another screenshot of the Perahia French Suites (track 1) with my preference settings in case there's anything different on yours. Apart from the background difference, my screenshot looks similar to yours, but at least with mine, you can tell that there's info up to 48 kHz (blue background all the way up), even if there's not much musical content above 10 kHz. Compare this to the abrupt cut-off in my previous 'Daphnis' screenshot, where the gray indicates the absence of info.
BTW, I'm running the OS X version of Audacity (v. 2.2.2) if that makes any difference.
Russell
Thanks for this... The background color might be different because I'm running Audacity on Windows 10.
. . . the placing of CD-rez recordings into higher-rez containers does happen from time to time:
Oops! A download from the German highresaudio.com site.
Zubin Mehta conducts Schoenberg's First Chamber Symphony on the Farao label
search "Ravel: Daphnis et Chloé" with a release date of Mar. 16 and...
But it plays only 45 second samples per track at mp3. :-(
They will sell you a 24/96 download for 16 Euros.
Yes, that restriction is typically Harmonia Mundi.
I am going to have to query with them their download offer. Until now their offer for hi-rez only applied to subscribers to the "Sublime" option. For this disc, however they show three prices, CD at 9.19 gbp, 24/96 at 13.90 and 24/96 also at 9.19 but for Sublime subscribers.
Thinks: I may upgrade my subscription for the purchase price advantage plus the two free months. I think I will be staying with them so I am not over concerned at the pay all at once annual fee. However I hope that their downloads are better for metadata than their free Dudamel/Beethoven recording is as I had to spend time correcting it.
Talking of staying with Qobuz I see that Spotify have announced that they are going lossless (date yet to be announced). Subscriptions will be 19.99 (whatever currency). The lossy option remains. That will be some competition.
IIRC, early QOBUZ download deals only played using the QOBUZ player (which claims to be configurable to play up to 24/196).
If that's a real 24/96 FLAC download available at what they call mp3 prices, let us know.
Thanks.
The conductor of Les Siecles is Francois Xavier-Roth. He and his "HIP" group have a number of recordings out, and there are a bunch of their performances on youtube. "HIP" aside for the moment, these are really good performances and well worth checking out.
Also Xavier-Roth was recently appointed principal guest conductor of the LSO.
In theory if it added color or verve to the score. I am afraid that valve-less horns and appropriate reeds does not mean that the vernacular sound of the turn of the century musician can be summoned.
It's my HIP opinion in general though. That why I still love the Ristenpart Brandenbergs, because they swing.
Any one up on pony skin and HIP tympani, I heard a demonstration and in jazz drumming it makes a huge difference.
Gregg
" Any one up on pony skin and HIP tympani, "
At a recent eries of Neilsen symphonies I attended each was accompanied by one of the Haydn "London" symphonies. For the Haydns the modern tymps were abandoned and a set of 18th century types with real skin brought in. Of course much smaller than the modern equivalents as well. I have to say I was thankful as they sounded wonderful. This was with the Philharmonia- not an HIP band.
I often do not like the sound of modern tymps - one could almost believe that the players were hitting big sheets of plastic...:-)
I don't think I know of a single serious orchestral tympanist that DOESN'T use calf heads. They're also common on bass drums. This has nothing at all to do with HIP or tradition. The larger the drum, the more "plastic" a plastic head sounds. On "regular" drums, the difference is much less noticeable and the rewards of the relatively painful maintenance, higher cost and constant-tuning nature of calf palls far more quickly. You mention jazz drumming. To me, the main difference of calf there is on a snare drum, particularly when playing with brushes. I entertained going that route at times, but synthetic brush surfaces have got pretty good in the last 25 years or so.
dh
I have several versions W/O them.
OOOOOOOH.
AHHHHHHH.
Fuggedaboudit.
So much more. . . sensual. . . with the chorus! ;-)
.
"If people don't want to come, nothing will stop them" - Sol Hurok
You wish.
"If people don't want to come, nothing will stop them" - Sol Hurok
. . . that left little to the imagination. The long-defunct British magazine "Dance and Dancers" carried a sample photo of the two principals "in action" as it were, and the caption was, "What are [names of the two dancers] doing here? Strange as it may seem, they're appearing in a new production of Ravel's "Daphnis et Chloe" with the Hungarian National Ballet". (Low-key British humor!)
There have been some Samson et Dalilah prods at the Met that would draw some attention.I remember a Poppea at Houston Grand Opera in the 70's that was quite, uh, revealing.
"If people don't want to come, nothing will stop them" - Sol Hurok
Edits: 03/10/17
Don't forget the ecstatic grunting near the end.
"If people don't want to come, nothing will stop them" - Sol Hurok
Thanks be ....
I heard them perform this in a live broadcast from Maltings, Snape in the early autumn last year.I don't know about the instruments being only as used at the work's premier though, the BBC announcer just said they were of a type typically used in Paris around the turn of the last century.
The first half of that concert was (I think) Rameau and thus involved a totally different set of instruments. Les Siecles also specialise in current French music ( therefore using modern instruments), so it would be possible to hear them using three distinct sets in a single concert.
Anyway I was intrigued enough to get to see them live at The Royal Festival Hall later in the season. They played a Ravel/Debussy programme including the Ravel piano concerto for left hand ( Jean-Efflam Bavouzet on an early 20th century Erard), Ma Mere L'Oye and Debussy La Mer. The Mother Goose was accompanied by a French animator illustrating it live on stage via an i-pad and projector. Distracting but nevertheless fascinating and so, so French.
I was a little disappointed with the La Mer as it needed more "drive" IMHO. But I loved the fruity old style woodwind. Oh BTW, for Chris, vibrato was used as appropriate.
Anyhow a good concert and enjoyable evening with much Anglo-French entente cordiale.
Edits: 03/10/17
.
Ravel began to work on Daphnis in 1909 and it premiered in 1912. I have a flute made in Paris circa 1908 and there are differences from the current models. For one thing, it is tuned to a scale based on a = 435, which had been the standard in France for most purposes since 1859. The universal adoption of a = 440 tuning is generally attributed to an international conference held in London in 1939.
Of course, modern orchestras routinely tune much sharper than a = 440.
I wouldn't want to record Daphnes on a 100 year old Clarinet or Bass Clarinet.
SF Sym tunes to A 441, SF Opera/Ballet, it's 440 or Fight.
German/Austrian Orchs are said to tune much higher, there was a problem with Berlin or Vienna playing in Davies Hall, and the Piano wasn't nearly sharp enough for them.
Cleveland prides them selves for maintaining 440, even while playing and gradually going sharper.
Yes, exactly. A while back John Marks mentioned Szell made Cleveland tune to an a=440 tone. So I listened to some of his records. They start right at 440 and gradually drift sharper.
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