ULTRA AUDIO -- Archived Article
 

May 1, 2007

A Ghost at the Keyboard?

In the early 20th century, many famous pianists made piano-roll recordings of their versions of familiar masterworks, many of which were copied to LP and, later, to CD, using modern player pianos and high-fidelity recording techniques. Two of the best of these CDs, released by Telarc a few years ago, captured Rachmaninoff playing his own music and that of others. Advanced transfer techniques permitted nuances in the playing that defied the basic logic of merely duplicating piano-roll performance on CD.

Now, on a multichannel SACD/CD, Sony Classical has teamed with Zenph Studios in a project light-years ahead of Telarc’s Rachmaninoff discs. They have somehow computerized Glenn Gould’s famous 1954 recording of Bach’s Goldberg Variations and transferred it to a special Yamaha piano, then recorded it in SACD. The disc also contains a second recording done in true binaural two-channel sound. I don’t have headphones, and so couldn’t really evaluate that recording. (By the way, you have to switch your SACD player out of multichannel mode before you can access those tracks.)

Zenph calls the results a "re-performance." It does sound like good playing, but is it Gould, at a keyboard again more than 50 years after the original recording? The rapid tempos are astonishing, à la Gould, but they come from the sound of a Yamaha piano in a contemporary studio, so the results sound a bit "fatter" to me than the original. Still, it’s very musical, and whoever is playing it, man or machine, it sounds not in the least contrived or manipulated, and recorded in very good SACD sound. Listeners will no doubt devote many hours to fighting over the right or wrong of this. I enjoyed it with strong reservations.

Here are six new, less controversial SACDs and one DVD-Audio disc.

Spain
Falla:
El Amor Brujo; The Three-Cornered Hat: Suite; La Vida Breve: Interlude and Dance
Granados:
Goyescas: Intermezzo
Albéniz:
Ibéria: Triana, El Corpus Christi en Sevilla, Navarra
Leontyne Price, soprano; Chicago Symphony; Fritz Reiner conductor.
RCA Living Stereo 88697-04607, Hybrid Multichannel SACD.

Based on Fritz Reiner’s few recordings of Spanish music, the Hungarian-born conductor had a real flair for Spanish rhythms and colors: these performances sizzle. I’ve always felt that Spain, recorded in 1958, was one of the very best-sounding of RCA’s distinguished Living Stereo sessions, and hearing it in this first-ever release of its original three-channel master confirms that impression. The orchestra is spread naturally from left to right, with good stage depth. Yet every instrument, no matter how close to or how far from a microphone, has undeniable presence. The strings sound warm (purists might say they sound "analog," with lots of air around them), and the various percussion instruments employed come through with singular clarity. Falla’s El Amor Brujo, recorded in 1963, is no less successful. Leontyne Price’s fiery singing is locked mostly in the center channel, which allows the orchestral parts more clarity than usual. This SACD proved ideal to heat up a snowy day, but it would be great to hear in any season. My only regret is that Reiner recorded just three excerpts from Ibéria and not the whole suite.

The Carl Verheyen Band: Take One Step
AIX B1007, DVD-Video/Audio. Mixes: MLP 5.1 and 2.0; Dolby Digital 5.1 audience, 5.1 stage, 2.0 stereo.

Carl Verheyen is one hell of a guitarist. He and his band play intellectually funky and jazzy rock that sounds like a joint recording session by Steely Dan and Gentle Giant. Often Verheyen’s band is just guitar, bass, and drums, but Jim Cox’s Hammond B-3 organ is occasionally tossed in, to very good effect. Verheyen wrote most of the music, and sings vocals on seven of the disc’s ten tracks. There’s a lot of energy here, and a lot of subtlety and lyricism as well. In the AIX tradition, every note has been flawlessly recorded. The use of many guitars, manufactured from 1958 to 2004 and listed in the liner notes, sets up a multitude of timbres throughout this disc, enriched by a varied drum set and focused bass. It is all clear and clean on this recording -- no guessing "what sound was that?," which can often be an unwelcome game on heavily scored discs. The set is packaged a little different than most AIX recordings. In its SACD-type jewel box, the Enhanced CD and combination DVD-V/A share the same spindle. The DVD is dual-layered and one-sided -- you don’t have to flip it. Instead of AIX’s usual filmed session of each song, there’s a 50-minute documentary on the writing of the songs and the assembly of the album. The video is awful: too red, blotchy, and lacking definition, even when upsampled by the miraculous Toshiba HD-XA1 HD DVD player. But that won’t matter much. You might watch the documentary once, but you’ll play the music in your DVD-Audio player repeatedly.

Haydn: Symphony 88, "The Letter V"; Symphony 101, "The Clock"; L’sola Disabitata Overture
Austro-Hungarian Haydn Symphony; Adám Fischer, conductor.
MDG 901 1441, Hybrid Multichannel SACD.

Adám Fischer has recorded this music before, with the same orchestra, in his complete set of all of Haydn’s symphonies for Nimbus. He’s also recorded Haydn’s symphonies 92 and 94 for MD&G. This second MD&G disc of Haydn symphonies raises the hope of another complete cycle, for now Fischer’s readings are even livelier. The first and second movements of symphonies 88 and 101 are considerably faster than in the earlier recordings, while the third and fourth movements are about the same. These are elegant, refined, and attentive readings; not a single detail is overlooked, and the overall mood is one of joy. Haydn loved to play musical tricks by using phase modulations or abrupt changes in dynamics, or by playing ideas against each other, such as writing birdcalls for the woodwinds in the middle of an elegant slow movement. Fischer doesn’t miss a trick, and his players respond, to the man and woman. Though the recording locations were the same, this MD&G release has more sparkle, focus, and presence than the Nimbus version. All of the instrumental doublings are remarkably clear, and the balance of the brass and timpani with the rest of the orchestra is exemplary. The rear channels add just the right amount of hall ambience. This disc is a winner in every respect.

Ravel: Daphnis et Chloé Suites 1 & 2; Ma mère l’oye; Bolero
Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Amsterdam; Bernard Haitink, conductor.
PentaTone 5186 167, Hybrid Multichannel SACD.

In the 1970s, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra was among the top ten orchestras of the world. Bernard Haitink had been music director long enough that the musicians knew exactly what he wanted, and could deliver it with passion and elegance. This disc gives us performances of Ravel’s music that shimmer -- not icily or distantly, but in a warm and immediate way. Tempos are well chosen -- Bolero is on the faster side for that piece -- and the recording is luminous. The bass is solid yet not overdone, the woodwinds sparkle without becoming brittle, the strings have that sweet "anamorphic" sound that vinyl lovers defend, the brass section is dark and solid, and the percussion instruments have great presence while still sounding in proper balance. The near-perfect acoustics of the Concertgebouw are made solid by the discreet use of the surrounds in this 4.0-channel recording. The Philips engineers of the 1970s were visionaries, setting today’s standard more than 30 years ago.

Michel Camilo: Spirit of the Moment
Telarc 63653, Hybrid Multichannel SACD.

Michel Camilo’s new disc is strongly Latin-flavored, and his new trio includes an old friend, bassist Charles Flores, and a new drummer, Dafnis Prieto. Flores often bows his bass, and Prieto has a large collection of cymbals and sticks. The result is music that is laid-back but urgent. The complex "My Secret Place" and "Spirit of the Moment" let us know that each of these three men was classically trained. Like most of the tunes here, these are Camilo originals, but Camilo and his two fellow players also pay homage to their elders, in performances of John Coltrane’s "Giant Steps," Wayne Shorter’s "Nefertiti," and Miles Davis’s "Solar." The sound is as good as any that Telarc has ever produced, which is saying something. Each instrument has presence and individual space, but the players never sound separated. The intricate interplay among the three is caught perfectly in a recording that is clear and never sounds manipulated; wisely, the Telarc engineers have left that up to the players. This will be a great album to listen to while sitting on the deck sipping iced herbal tea: mellow, but with just the right amount of bite.

Grieg: Olav Trygvason; Foran Sydens Kloster (At the Cloister’s Gate); Six Songs with Orchestra; Ved Rondane
Marita Solberg, Solveig Kringelborn, sopranos; Ingebjørg Kosmo, mezzo-soprano; Bergen Philharmonic Choir, Bergen Philharmonic; Ole Kristian Ruud, conductor.
BIS 1531, Hybrid Multichannel SACD.

Edvard Grieg was one of the supreme melodists in music history, yet his vocal and choral works are seldom performed. Having recorded Grieg’s most significant orchestral music, conductor Ole Kristian Ruud continues his definitive SACD series of Grieg’s music by turning his attention to this neglected music. In the early 1870s, Grieg and Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson decided to write an opera together. Grieg did not want to as much to collaborate as to write music to the texts sent to him. But after delivering the first three scenes, Bjørnson stopped writing, and Grieg stopped as well. The two wanted to avoid references to Wagner, but much of the music is reminiscent of that composer. The beginning of the third scene, however, contains music that sounds more than a little bit like "In the Hall of the Mountain King," from Grieg’s masterpiece, Peer Gynt. The Six Songs with Orchestra include two from that work, "Solveig’s Song" and "Cradle Song," sung with warmth and feeling by mezzo-soprano Ingebjørg Kosmo. As usual with BIS, Grieg, and Ruud, the recording is sumptuous, warm, and detailed, with just the right amount of rear-channel information. The balance of voices and orchestra is exemplary.

 ...Rad Bennett
radb@ultraaudio.com

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