Print

Print


From: Patent Tactics, George Brock-Nannestad


Hello,

I think we can do one better as concerns vintage equipment. Last week I was 
invited to participate in a re-enactment of a famous acoustic recording 
session series: Arthur Nikisch' recording of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony of 
November, 1913 with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra. Nikisch was Hungarian! 

The re-enactment (with reconstructions of historical acoustic recording 
equipment -- the full Monty) took place in London at the Royal College of 
Music (RCM), and it was a project organised by Aleksander Kolkowski (Sound 
Artist in Residence at the Science Museum London in 2012) with Amy 
Blier-Carruthers (Royal Academy of Music) and Robin O'Neill (Professor of 
Conducting at the RCM). The musicians were the Chamber Orchestra of the RCM.

Such a lot was learnt during the days of recording that the first that will 
be published about it will most likely be at a lecture at the RCM scheduled 
for 4 December 2014.

Kind regards,


George

------------------------------------------------------
On 18 November 2014 Tom Fine wrote:

> The small boutique labels probably work on a shoestring budget with
> second-tier non-union orchestras 
> and conductors willing to work for 1/10th of what Karajan got. It's doable,
> but certainly not easy. 
> There are a lot of well-trained musicians in eastern Europe and Asia. Notice
> that big orchestras 
> like the LSO and Chicago have gotten into releasing their own recordings
> (mostly just concert 
> recordings, but occasionally a real-deal produced classical recording
> somewhat akin to what used to 
> be done). My own taste does not favor any of this stuff to the best "golden
> age" recordings. I don't 
> need "new" when it's not "better."
> 
> Don, you are wrong about musicians playing "better" live, not if they're
> good musicians. Perhaps 
> today, orchestral players have so few opportunities to do real recording
> sessions that they don't 
> know how to do them anymore. But, back in the "golden age," both the best
> orchestras and the most 
> successfully-recorded conductors were very clear on the fact that a
> recording session is different 
> from a live performance and were very good at the kind of super-precise and
> quick-on-the-draw 
> music-making that is required for successful recordings. Live concerts can
> be more sloppy because of 
> audience enthusiasm. They tend not to hold up as well to repeated listening
> outside of the live 
> venue. A great recording is closer to perfection as far as each note being
> rendered correctly within 
> the larger context of the music. Conductors like Dorati, Reiner, Szell and
> Solti (coincidentally, 
> all Hungarians, and there were many other "golden age" conductors of other
> nationalities who made 
> long-loved recordings) really understood this and made many great
> recordings.
> 
> 
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Don Cox" <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Tuesday, November 18, 2014 10:34 AM
> Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Recording technology
> 
> 
> > On 18/11/2014, Tom Fine wrote:
> >
> >
> >>
> >> Find a top-rate orchestra in a good acoustic space, get some serious
> >> funding to restore the vintage equipment (last I checked, Schoeps
> >> wants several thousand dollars per mic to factory-restore M201's, and
> >> they can't guarantee results since they have no original parts on
> >> hand; Steve Jackson at Pulse Techniques can make near-clones of the
> >> Pultec preamps for several thousand dollars per channel), gather up a
> >> whole bunch of digital gear to test, and we're ready to roll, just for
> >> the feasibility-testing stage though! I won't hold my breath. ;)
> >> Seriously, I thought about this at one point and came up with a $25k
> >> budget just to get started, just for gear and gear restoration (figure
> >> several multiples of that to pay a producer/editor, recording engineer
> >> and mastering engineer). Maybe 10-15 albums per year, at a cost of
> >> about $15k per album factoring in travel costs, and then add more for
> >> manufacturing of the end product (which is what? single CDs? they're
> >> supposedly toxic to profits in the classical business. SACDs? can't
> >> live on sales of a few thousand units. downloads? what format? how
> >> will you market them?), marketing, etc. There is no classical
> >> recording business plan except a crazy rich patron that works for that
> >> kind of craftsmanship today.
> >>
> > I wonder how companies such as CPO or BIS manage to finance their steady
> > stream of issues of single CDs of often little-known orchestral works.
> >
> > Regards
> > -- 
> > Don Cox
> > [log in to unmask]
> >
> >