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In Reply to: RE: Anthology of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra ; Vol.6 posted by steveassante@comcast.net on October 31, 2011 at 10:18:31
I think many listeners are just reluctant to shell out the cash for a set of performances of which one may like only a few. Glad to hear about the Tennstedt/RCOA Mahler 5 - better than his EMI recordings of this work?
Follow Ups:
Yes Chris ,I suppose a lot of the reluctance to invest in fairly large sets is the variety of conductors & the inevitable question "how was (condutor's name here) performance compared to his/her recording of the works with (orchestra name here) on (label name here)! My mentioning a paticular performance that stood out for was'nt intended to infer that I did'nt think that all the recordings I've listened to were'nt terrific also, only that I enjoy certain pieces of music more than others. If they had slapped a "Stereo SACD" label on this box set I think many listeners would have been hard pressed to to dispute that claim. As to the Tennstedt work on EMI I'm not familiar with his work on vinyl & I'm not sure that I've ever heard an EMI digital reissue or even new digital release that I've enjoyed due to the sound. I don't think I've ever listened to an EMI CD for longer than 45sec to a minute & a half before ejecting it from whatever player I happened to be using at the time. Through the years I've tried I don't know how many well reviewed EMI releases,only to throw my hands up & wonder if the reviewer had a different copy or they are able to accept the sound. I guess my issues w/ recording/production values interfere with my enjoyment of the performance value. Live recordings for all their little flubs & occassional "clams" are much more "holistic" sounding to me.I'm not looking for the perfect performance (there is no such thing,unless you piece together parts of different performances. Now you've interrupted the "immediacy" of the live music making.) This music to me is not about the musicians it about the music. I do realize that even with live recording, edits are made,but hopefully the producer has enough artistic sensitivty to respect the music over the pursuit of a perfect performance even if he has to ruffle the feathers of some of the participants(&reviewers).(I know that my last sentence is complete fantasy thinking, but I'm an optomist I guess)
Edits: 11/01/11
I'm not sure I've run into the same problems with EMI recordings that you have. Indeed, if you go back far enough, a large number of those EMI recordings from the 50's and 60's still sound wonderful today - my understanding is that EMI held out with their minimal microphoning longer than most other companies did before they succumbed to the multi-microphone addiction. Thus, their engineering subsequently became mediocre, like that on so many other labels. Even at that, I've never found them to be particularly worse than other labels.
You're certainly right though about recordings of in-concert performances - particularly when fewer microphones are involved. I believe one of the Tennstedt Mahler Fifths on EMI was recorded in-concert, but, even here IIRC, the resulting sound quality betrayed the likelihood that EMI was using too many microphones.
I may have to try EMI again... (After I've gone through another RCO live Anthology box set or two ,as I've said these recordings are excellent. With one of the worlds best orchestras ,with the some of best conductors recorded in one of worlds best halls, this series appears to have enough self recommendation that I'm really not that concerned whether they have critical acclaim.)
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