Oh, yeah - I didn't know about that performance. If it has too much star,
I'd blame the producer or artist manager rather than Mr. Taylor. I admire
his work. Was he a contemporary of Frank Abbey? He - they - others? - were
early on really into purist stereo, using various coincident and M/S pickups
on Stokowski projects and the Cello Galaxy album.

I read years ago that an engineer discovered the trick for Medinah Temple of
micing way up in the ceiling to pick up a meaty reverberance. That must have
helped to blend together the many spot mics that are evident on most all
projects made there. IIRC, it was credited to a Decca guy working on the
first Solti records around 1969, and everybody else copied it. But, the
first crews in there were RCA, I think, and they also made it work (ie.
Nielsen 2&4, Ives 1, etc). The EMIs I've heard achieve a more homogeneous,
more distant sound, better to my taste than the others.

The Taylor/CSO session I'd most like to hear remastered is the Lutoslawski
Concerto for Orchestra. That is mind-blowing. The Angel LP (S-36045 c/w
Janacek Sinfonietta and a nice piece by R.C. Marsh about the sessions) gives
a hint, but a HMV Concert Classics DMM pressing gets us closer. Worth
seeking out ED 29 0134 1 if that music hasn't already been put out on silver
drink coasters. Gathering from that evidence, the first EMI dates were in
1969. What's the date on the Dvorak?

-----Original Message-----
From: Association for Recorded Sound Discussion List
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Tom Fine
Sent: Sunday, November 04, 2012 7:02 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] CDJAPAN has remastered Barbirolli

I got the DuPre Dvorak recording from HDTracks:
https://www.hdtracks.com/index.php?file=catalogdetail&valbum_code=HD50999705
58852
(I bought it during one of their frequent 15% off sales)

It sounds marginally more clear and "weighty" vs. the CD reissue from the
90's. This recording was 
done by Carson Taylor, who did many of the U.S. classical recordings for
EMI/Angel/Capitol in those 
days. Taylor put a coicident stereo mic down at cello level and out in front
of it, so the cello is 
very forward and on its own, to my ears. I think a cellist would love this
approach, but a listener 
wanting to hear the whole musical product may prefer the cello better
blended with the orchestra. 
This way, you hear the vibrating strings and wood very clearly, plus the bow
strokes. But that then 
diverts your attention somewhat from what the orchestra is doing. In this
recording, it also sounds 
like the cello is in a different sound-field from the rest of the orchestra,
because the Medinah 
Temple is reverberant and Taylor put most of his orchestra mics at more
distance than the cello 
mics. I know this because I have photos taken during the recording session.

-- Tom Fine