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Comment from Andrew MacGregor, BBC, Disbeliever's referral

85.225.2.181

To alleviate any suspicions to the contrary: Andrew MacGregor has expressly approved my posting his mail to me here. I wouldn't dream of publishing it otherwise. Here is his mail from a few minutes ago:

Hello, Robert! Good to hear from you…and I’m not surprised you’ve found the postings irritating, especially, as I’m afraid it seems to be an individual listening to CD Review and hearing what they *want* to hear, and not what I actually said.

He misquotes me, and takes a single misheard sentence to which he’s added the word ‘too’ (which I didn’t say!) to ‘low level’ (which I did), and completely ignored the context in which I made the comment. Over a period of over 20 minutes, and around three excerpts from Mark Wigglesworth’s latest Shostakovich, I made it perfectly clear to anyone listening without an agenda that I was blown away not just by the performance, but also by what I though was an exceptionally good recording…



‘…so this really is a major achievement, and an extraordinarily vivid BIS recording, once you’ve adjusted for the low level.’



That’s what I actually said on air, after playing part of the 1st Andante from the 3rd Symphony (hence the low level comment, and having set my listening level by it, I didn’t change it for the rest of the disc).

I’ve taken the liberty of attaching the complete section of the script below in which I discussed the recording so that you can see for yourself. I think you probably realise that I rarely have anything but admiration for the quality of BIS SACD recordings, and if this individual thinks he can enlist me to fight his corner around this particular disc, then he’s utterly misguided! I meant exactly what I said, and once the overall listening level was adjusted for the quietest passages (Andante), I didn’t touch it…the dynamic range of BIS SACDs is something I welcome, not criticise. Carry on regardless!



Very best from London.

Andrew McG.



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