GMG and classical music collection - the conflict

[Mandryka]

Here are some scores

[71 dB]

Seeing how this is a predominately classical music forum (And even in your original post/title it mentions classical music), yes, I am talking about classical music.

Since I use the same definition for music in case of classical music and in case of all other music, this limitation to classical music makes no diffence.

To me a score of classical music is a VERY important tool of storing the information of music in order to have music sooner or later. If scores were music, scripts would be movies. Well, they aren't and that's why music is played and movies are filmed.

And no, I never stated that I believe Jazz music does not exist.  I am, by no means, an expert in Jazz, but there are still "score-like" things like the "real book."  Obviously, they aren't going as extensive as a classical score, but (to my knowledge, not a jazz musician) they still have information like what chord and configuration is expected to sound.

Certain kind of jazz might have written scores, but so called "real jazz" (Parker, Coltrane etc.) is improvised stuff. It only uses existing compositions (melodies) as the starting point for improvisation. I am, by no means, an expert in Jazz either, but that's how I have understood it.
The point is, there is tons of music out there without scores.

[bigshot]

This? Unfortunately the programming seems uninteresting to me. Not into Offenbach nor Rossini at all.

That's your loss, I'm afraid. It's one of my all time favorite albums. Pure joy from beginning to end.

I define "good sound" as sounding like I am in the room where the music is being played. Headphones don't even get close to that. When I put on this Fiedler album, I can sit on the couch and close my eyes and "see" the placement of every instrument in the orchestra. It's as if I am in the best seat in the Boston symphony hall at a live concert. Nothing to impede the realism... a full range and balanced frequency response, no audible distortion, tight and accurate dynamics, precise placement of the musicians in space on stage in front of me, and a hall ambience around me that keeps the sound focused up front on the stage, but doesn't sound dead to the rear.

[bigshot]

Likewise, using a 5.1 speaker system for mono sound is a bad idea.

That is absolutely wrong, and I can tell you that from experience. DSPs are the best thing since sliced toast for older recordings. I have a DSP that perfectly rechannels stereo to 5.1, and several other ones that were created by measuring the acoustics of several concert halls famous for their sound. Here is a gold plated example... Toscanini is infamous for being recorded poorly. Many of his records were recorded at NBC in a studio that was much too small for the sound of a symphony orchestra to open up in. On top of that, the engineering often had harsh equalization. The most recent box set of Toscanini corrected the EQ problems perfectly and elminated any distortion at climaxes, but it didn't do anything at all for the constricted space the recording was made in. It still sounded like a constricted, acoustically dead room.

So I took the mono Toscanini recording and ran it through the DSP that is based on the Vienna Sofiensaal. It totally opened up the sound and gave it space to live in. There was no left to right spread since it was a mono recording, but the ambience around the music was in 5.1. Often in concert halls, the sound of the band merges anyway, especially if the violins are seated on both sides. This sounds exactly like a live performance with that sort of arrangement. I would never listen to a Toscanini recording without running it through a DSP again.

The difference that my stereo to 5.1 DSP makes for standard two channel recordings is just as dramatic, defining the front soundstage, doubling the size of the soundstage, and creating a live hall ambience in the rear that makes the room sound much larger. I play everything that isn't native 5.1 through that DSP. The improvement isn't at all subtle. You have to hear it to believe it.

[bigshot]

Glenn Gould once described Stokowski's genius as being due to his relationship to the score. He said that Stoki used the score the same way that a film director uses a written story. The individual performance rises or falls based on the conductor's personal commitment to the music. I read a quote by Bernstein that was similar, he said that a written score is just a plan for a performance. It isn't music until it is performed.

[Ken B]

A score is not music. It is a way of representing instructions to players. It thus describes an abstract entity really. A philosophy prof ofmine said a piece of music, Beethoven's 5th say, is a type of which performances are instatiations. This seemsclose enough for government work at least.

[Moonfish]

A score is not music. It is a way of representing instructions to players. It thus describes an abstract entity really. A philosophy prof ofmine said a piece of music, Beethoven's 5th say, is a type of which performances are instatiations. This seemsclose enough for government work at least.

What about a book, e.g. Dickens' "Bleak House"?  Isn't the physical book as well as the act of reading it silently or aloud both aspects of literature?

[Ken B]

What about a book, e.g. Dickens' "Bleak House"?  Isn't the physical book as well as the act of reading it silently or aloud both aspects of literature?

Of course. So if you can read a score, and thus understand the instructions, then that is an aspect of the music too.As is the composer's conception, before the score was written, in most cases at least. I don't want to debate Stockhausen or if La Mer was written by chickens scratching.

[bigshot]

Would reading the script for a play or movie silently to yourself be the same as seeing the play or movie? Nope. Same with music.

[Ken B]

Would reading the script for a play or movie silently to yourself be the same as seeing the play or movie? Nope. Same with music.

But with the movie Les Miz it would be better.

[Moonfish]

Would reading the script for a play or movie silently to yourself be the same as seeing the play or movie? Nope. Same with music.

It works for Woody Allen's movies!!   

[71 dB]

That's your loss, I'm afraid. It's one of my all time favorite albums. Pure joy from beginning to end.

You are right, it's my loss. If I get interested of Offenbach I will check it out.

However, it's kind of arrogant to give the impression that everyone has to have that particular CD. My classical music collection consists of about 1000 CDs. The collection is skewed toward newer recordings. Many of the composers I am interested of have been recorded only recently. Find me a recording from 50's or 60's containing music from Schieferdecker! If you are happy with your own collection, that's great, but let other people be happy with their collection.

I define "good sound" as sounding like I am in the room where the music is being played. Headphones don't even get close to that. When I put on this Fiedler album, I can sit on the couch and close my eyes and "see" the placement of every instrument in the orchestra. It's as if I am in the best seat in the Boston symphony hall at a live concert. Nothing to impede the realism... a full range and balanced frequency response, no audible distortion, tight and accurate dynamics, precise placement of the musicians in space on stage in front of me, and a hall ambience around me that keeps the sound focused up front on the stage, but doesn't sound dead to the rear.

Headphones don't get even close to "that" without crossfeed, spatial distortion makes sure of that. After nearly 3 years of listening to music with headphones crossfed I can assure you the result can be stunning, if proper crossfeed is used and the recording is done well. Yes, with loudspeakers you likely to get more "space"around yourself, but the acoustics of your listening room deteriotes sound quality. With headphones (crossfed) you get less space (unless the recording is binaural in wich case you get VERY convincing space), but no listening room acoustics deterioting sound quality. So, there is room for both ways to listen to music.

With headphones without crossfeed spatial distortion scrambles the sound image. With proper crossfeed spatial distortion goes away and the sound image becomes very clear.

Does the Fiedler CD contain a description of how it is recorded? If it really is that fantastic, it would be interested to know how they did it. I may not be interested of Offenbach, but I am interested of acoustic engineering. Unfortunately this album can't be found in Spotify.

[71 dB]

That is absolutely wrong, and I can tell you that from experience. DSPs are the best thing since sliced toast for older recordings. I have a DSP that perfectly rechannels stereo to 5.1,

Stereo to 5.1. It's completely different than mono to 5.1. Why? Because stereo sound contains "hidden" information coded into two channels using two "bits" in the form of in phase = "0" and out of phase = "1". You can do something with this information and that's what stereo to multichannel algorithms do. If you are lucky, the result it good. If you feed in mono sound, these algorithms are "powerless".

and several other ones that were created by measuring the acoustics of several concert halls famous for their sound. Here is a gold plated example... Toscanini is infamous for being recorded poorly. Many of his records were recorded at NBC in a studio that was much too small for the sound of a symphony orchestra to open up in. On top of that, the engineering often had harsh equalization. The most recent box set of Toscanini corrected the EQ problems perfectly and elminated any distortion at climaxes, but it didn't do anything at all for the constricted space the recording was made in. It still sounded like a constricted, acoustically dead room.

So they averaged severel halls into one "average hall". The DSP convolutes the impulse responses of this "average hall" with the music signal. I am sure they made the "average hall" symmetric. It means the impulse responce for channel L is identical to the impulse response of channel R. Same with the rear channels Lr and Rr. So, if you feed in mono sound, you get identical sound from L and R (same with Lr and Rr).  You get some decorrelation, but much less than with stereo sound.

So I took the mono Toscanini recording and ran it through the DSP that is based on the Vienna Sofiensaal. It totally opened up the sound and gave it space to live in. There was no left to right spread since it was a mono recording, but the ambience around the music was in 5.1. Often in concert halls, the sound of the band merges anyway, especially if the violins are seated on both sides. This sounds exactly like a live performance with that sort of arrangement. I would never listen to a Toscanini recording without running it through a DSP again.

I'm glad if you find the sound great, but what you are doing is not technically "correct". It is more of an coinsidence it sounds good. This is not impossible. I have noticed stereo to multichannel algoritms typically give good results with reverberant recordings (church music). With dry recordings (chamber music) the result is not very natural.

The difference that my stereo to 5.1 DSP makes for standard two channel recordings is just as dramatic, defining the front soundstage, doubling the size of the soundstage, and creating a live hall ambience in the rear that makes the room sound much larger. I play everything that isn't native 5.1 through that DSP. The improvement isn't at all subtle. You have to hear it to believe it.

So ambience of sound is important to you. 5.1 setups can "replace" some of the wrong ambience created by the acoustics of your listening room with an ambience closer to that of the concert hall the recording was made. It's a very harsh approximation, but cheats our ears quite a lot.

[bigshot]

Does the Fiedler CD contain a description of how it is recorded? If it really is that fantastic, it would be interested to know how they did it. I may not be interested of Offenbach, but I am interested of acoustic engineering. Unfortunately this album can't be found in Spotify.

I think it was the second commercial stereo recording made in 1954 when hifi records were still new. They recorded it live to three track with a left right and center microphone on the orchestra. Fiedler controlled the dynamics. There was little or no changing of levels after the recording started. For LP, they down mixed the center channel into the stereo mix, but the SACD maintains the three discrete channels. RCA had been recording in Symphony Hall Boston for many years and had totally figured out its acoustics. They knew exactly where to put the mikes. Mike placement is everything.

By the way, my stereo to 5.1 DSP doesn't use out of phase information. The way it works is to take the sound common to both mains (in phase) and channel that to the center, then it splits off the sub 80Hz to the sub channel. In the rear it adds a slight delay synthesizing a hall ambience. The effect is that the front soundstage is enlarged without altering the stereo information at all, and the rears keep the room live. It works well with mono too, because it makes the entire front wall one big speaker instead of having the sound come from a single speaker, or a pair 8 feet across. The center channel prevents any fall out in the center, so your spread can be double the width.

I think you are thinking of phase effects VSTs. That is a completely different kind of thing. This DSP enlarges the scale of the soundstage by rechannelling the sound to the various front speakers without monkeying with the stereo information in the soundstage. Scale is something most home systems don't even deal with. But if you sit 10 feet away from a set of stereo mains that are 8 feet apart, you are hearing a much smaller soundstage than if you add a center and double that width. The enlarged scale brings it closer to a real human scale, as if the people were on a stage in front of you. The rear ambience opens up the size of the room, so the scale of the room itself is larger too.

DSPs have gotten VERY sophisticated in the past five years or so. I used to have an old Sony amp that had really crude DSPs ambiences built into it- mushy and muddled. But when I got a new Yamaha AV receiver a couple of years ago, it was totally different- generic hall ambiences. Yamaha is different. They actually went to specific halls and measured the acoustics and recreated the effect on sound. There are dozens of them with different sizes, shapes and reflectivity. Amazing use of 5.1.

DSPs are where audio technology is advancing the most right now. The trick is the positioning of the multiple speakers and designing DSPs that use that to create sound fields. I have a few multichannel SACDs that are uncanny in their ability to precisely place sound. There is an Elton John album where you can hear the guitarist walk to the center of the room as he is playing his solo. The sound starts at the front wall and moves slowly to a point directly in front of your listening position. An amazing thing. It would be very easy to rechannel a lot of stereo recordings to place the vocals in the room like that since vocals are usually mixed as true mono in the exact center of a stereo mix.  With the introduction of Dolby Atmos, we won't be constrained by a flat plane of sound in front of us any more. Atmos will add the up/down to the left/right and front/back to create a fully dimensional sound field.

It's a whole new world beyond just two channels. Multichannel is as huge a leap over stereo as stereo was over mono. And it will even make old stereo and mono recordings sound a lot better. The old concept of "purity" of the original way the recording was made will probably be maintained as a supplemental track, but like it already is for movies, the rechannelled/remixed surround track will be the primary thing people listen to. Getting people to dedicate the space in their home to a 5.1 system is a bit of a leap, and there will need to be a shift away from ping pong surround as it is in movies, but once a critical mass of homes gets a good surround system, I think we are going to see a shift in the music business to multichannel mixes.

[71 dB]

By the way, my stereo to 5.1 DSP doesn't use out of phase information. The way it works is to take the sound common to both mains (in phase) and channel that to the center, then it splits off the sub 80Hz to the sub channel. In the rear it adds a slight delay synthesizing a hall ambience. The effect is that the front soundstage is enlarged without altering the stereo information at all, and the rears keep the room live. It works well with mono too, because it makes the entire front wall one big speaker instead of having the sound come from a single speaker, or a pair 8 feet across. The center channel prevents any fall out in the center, so your spread can be double the width.

If you do that the sound get too forwarded and narrow, of course. So, they increase the channel separation of Left and Right channel. Out of phase information is used for rear channel...

[71 dB]

Hah, almost buying but not quite! Holst I mean. Boccherini fever seems to go away. Trying to buy as little as possible.

Just watched Spielberg's Lincoln on Blu-ray. Mozart's KV 174 plays a bit in the movie.
I listened to it form the Brilliant 170 CD box. It's issued from BIS and sounds very good.
The point? I'm going to listen to that box more.

Euro currency has gotten weak. Buying from UK sellers is more expensive. One more reason not to buy so much.

[jochanaan]

...As for 'collecting', I'd suspect that most people on GMG think it is silly for me to collect scores when we have IMSLP (and other, more questionably legal sources for post-1923 works), but I could make the same argument about YouTube/Spotify versus owning physical CDs.

Scores rule!  I love reading scores.  I remember reading about a particular Haitink performance (with the Chicago Symphony, as I recall) in which, in addition to his usual bows and gestures to the orchestra and other performers, the Maestro held up the score to acknowledge its primacy.

[Karl Henning]

Boccherini fever seems to go away. Trying to buy as little as possible.

That's my policy on Boccherini, and I enjoy a 100% success rate 

[71 dB]

That's my policy on Boccherini, and I enjoy a 100% success rate 

Really Karl? You have never bought anything by Boccherini?

I find it hard to come up with policies that are meaningful. Only afterwards, years later do I know what was meaningful and what wasn't.

When I told my father a week or so ago I'm considering the 39 CD Boccherini box, he commented saying "Boxerini". 

[starrynight]

.


But things are more complex than I understand at the moment. When you listen to a recording it's not just the lifeless determined finite photograph (CD)  of an event (performance)  that's in the mix - you, the listener, are in the mix too. And this is what makes the recording endlessly revealing I suppose - it's what the listener brings to the event. It's like the hermeneutic ciricle.

And maybe when we feel we know and feel everything we can about something it might lose interest.  So it's a matter of knowing and feeling enough about something that it can be enjoyed but not so much that it's used up.