Mozart - String Quartets

[Madiel]

Mine too. But an amazon reviewer claims it has been remastered and sounds dramatically better. I would tend to discount that except I really like these recordings and find it worth investigating, even though I am likely to be disappointed.

I see.

Well, I'm encouraged that you're aware of the potential folly of believing anything said by an amazon reviewer...

[JBS]

The question is whether the most recent release is simply a duplicate of the original CD release (which dates back to 1987 or so) or whether they have gone back to the original tapes and made a new master. I had the set on LP and the original CD master did not have the same silky violin sound as the LPs did.

May I add another wrinkle to the confusion?
I have the ABQ recordings as part of this set, one of the Really Good Bargains I got last month from Arkivmusic's Warner sale.
.
It gives the recording dates as the late 1970s, the earliest being in 1977. The copyright dates match with one strange difference, and imply no mastering beyond that used for the CDs I have. But (this is the strange difference) the copyright dates start in 1976!
Leaving aside the possibility of Time Lord involvement,  the information given with my set seems to say there was only one mastering for both CD and LP, and the silkiness you
heard was a more than usually glaring example of the difference between   LP and CD?

(My set is certainly the same as Mandryka's. The Adagio timing he mentions is in my set 7'53".

[Ghost of Baron Scarpia]

May I add another wrinkle to the confusion?
I have the ABQ recordings as part of this set, one of the Really Good Bargains I got last month from Arkivmusic's Warner sale.
.
It gives the recording dates as the late 1970s, the earliest being in 1977. The copyright dates match with one strange difference, and imply no mastering beyond that used for the CDs I have. But (this is the strange difference) the copyright dates start in 1976!
Leaving aside the possibility of Time Lord involvement,  the information given with my set seems to say there was only one mastering for both CD and LP, and the silkiness you
heard was a more than usually glaring example of the difference between   LP and CD?

(My set is certainly the same as Mandryka's. The Adagio timing he mentions is in my set 7'53".

It just means they have not bothered to make any note of the date when the digital masters were made, and they are presumably the ones made for the first teldec CD release. There is no such thing as mastering for both CD and LP. One process involves a cutting lathe and the other the creation of a computer file. The LP mastering information was traditionally written directly on the plate and visible on the vinyl pressing itself.  I haven't managed to compare the binary data from the two teldec issues available to me (The so called black and brown sets). I suspect they will all turn out to be identical, including the discs in the 250 anniversary edition. Probably those are literally the same pressings with a different label.

[Ghost of Baron Scarpia]

So if one is transferred at a louder or softer volume than the other, will your method show that?

I am expecting to discover that they simply copied the old files over, with no alteration, bit for bit identical. There would be little justification for a volume change if there was no other modification. But if they a are not bit for bit identical a volume change would be easy to detect by examination of the raw audio data.

[Mandryka]

Mine too. But an amazon reviewer claims it has been remastered and sounds dramatically better. I would tend to discount that except I really like these recordings and find it worth investigating, even though I am likely to be disappointed.

Oh come on . . . get a move on . . . we're all dying to know . . . you're the only one with both recordings. Come on . . . I'm going to die of suspense and excitement . . .

[Jo498]

I think the brown set was the first complete on CD. It appeared in 1994 and it only says "digitally mastered", overall the information is minimal. The single disc with two quartets could be a few years earlier as the light and dark blue stripes were used only until about 1990 or so when they changed to the silver stripe and the triangle.

As I said in the other thread, I did make comparisons of several other recordings, but all were usually considerably older, either from the mono age or the early 1960s. Some really were better, especially when the early CD issued had been quite problematic. Two I remember are the De Sabata Tosca and Klemps German Requiem. I was far less certain with Klemps Fidelio and still have two CDs of his Lied von der Erde awaiting comparison I cannot be bothered with. A frequent feature is that more recent ones mainly appear louder. After I could not decide which one I preferred in a few other cases, I basically gave up on getting new remasterings, unless I found obvious faults with the issue I already had.

As for the ABQ the recordings whose sound was considered problematic by many were a few early digital recs on EMI, e.g. the Schubert quintet (I think this is the only candidate I have). They had harsh, glassy, "glaring" sound. (Note that some of their earliest EMI recordings are still analogue, e.g. the Schubert G major D 887)

So while I am also looking forward to what Scarpia can find out, I will stick with my brown box.

[Florestan]

I did make comparisons of several other recordings,

Which is obviously the most un-Mozartian thing one could do. Hearing a Mozart SQ (or piano sonata, or symphony, or whatever) back then was more often than not a once-in-a-life-time event. If yiou were fortunate enough, you heard it once, and that was all. 

I mean, those were the times when music meant first and foremost performance aimed at a specific audience, and deeply concerned with the audience's response. The times when music became first and foremost technical study and analysis of a given, fixed and immutable musical text, aimed at musicologists and fellow composers, and deeply concerned with their response, was still to come.

[Ghost of Baron Scarpia]

Oh come on . . . get a move on . . . we're all dying to know . . . you're the only one with both recordings. Come on . . . I'm going to die of suspense and excitement . . .

Tonight

[Jo498]

This is a misunderstanding. I meant, I compared different CD issues or remasterings in other cases before I basically gave up on trying more recent issues for supposedly better sound. So I certainly won't do it for a CD like the "brown" box of the ABQ Mozart that sounds fine enough to me.

[Ken B]

Which is obviously the most un-Mozartian thing one could do. Hearing a Mozart SQ (or piano sonata, or symphony, or whatever) back then was more often than not a once-in-a-life-time event. If yiou were fortunate enough, you heard it once, and that was all. 

I mean, those were the times when music meant first and foremost performance aimed at a specific audience, and deeply concerned with the audience's response. The times when music became first and foremost technical study and analysis of a given, fixed and immutable musical text, aimed at musicologists and fellow composers, and deeply concerned with their response, was still to come.

Well, not entirely. Renaissance polyphonists certainly studied each other and sometimes did stunts to show off. Josquin's Deploration for example was written entirely with what in the notation of the time were called black notes. I think Bach was concerned with exemplifying a tradition fully in Art Of Fugue as well as writing a piece for performance. The Musical Offering was certainly intended as a composer's reply to another composer, not just a bunch of stuff to perform (though it was that too). So I think you overstate.

[Mandryka]

I mean, those were the times when music meant first and foremost performance aimed at a specific audience, and deeply concerned with the audience's response. The times when music became first and foremost technical study and analysis of a given, fixed and immutable musical text, aimed at musicologists and fellow composers, and deeply concerned with their response, was still to come.

This sounds plausible to me, though I'm hardly an expert in the music of Mozart's time.

Hearing a Mozart SQ (or piano sonata, or symphony, or whatever) back then was more often than not a once-in-a-life-time event. If yiou were fortunate enough, you heard it once, and that was all. 

This sounds very plausible too, with the above caveat.

HOWEVER

The logic sounds wrong. Where I'm coming from is this:

In Bach's time, hearing a concert was probably a rare event. But he still published things like Art of Fugue. And similar reasoning for Ockeghem's Missa Cuiusvis Toni, cycles of Magnificats by Sweelink's pupils etc.

So my suspicion is that the preoccupation with effect on audience was a sort of dumbing down which happened in Mozart's day, rather than a consequence of the concert culture.   

[Mandryka]

Well, not entirely. Renaissance polyphonists certainly studied each other and sometimes did stunts to show off. Josquin's Deploration for example was written entirely with what in the notation of the time were called black notes. I think Bach was concerned with exemplifying a tradition fully in Art Of Fugue as well as writing a piece for performance. The Musical Offering was certainly intended as a composer's reply to another composer, not just a bunch of stuff to perform (though it was that too). So I think you overstate.

Great minds think alike I see.

[Florestan]

Well, not entirely. Renaissance polyphonists certainly studied each other and sometimes did stunts to show off. Josquin's Deploration for example was written entirely with what in the notation of the time were called black notes. I think Bach was concerned with exemplifying a tradition fully in Art Of Fugue as well as writing a piece for performance. The Musical Offering was certainly intended as a composer's reply to another composer, not just a bunch of stuff to perform (though it was that too). So I think you overstate.

I was talking about Mozart, not about Renaissance polyphonists. Josquin or Bach. And moreover, I was talking from the point of view of the ordinary listener. Feel free to think you are not in the latter category.

[Jo498]

The quartets dedicated to Haydn were certainly written to impress Haydn. Not as their only but as an important purpose. And they achieved this purpose.

[Florestan]

The quartets dedicated to Haydn were certainly written to impress Haydn.

Then what business do we have listening to them? What if they fail to impress us? Are they any worse for that?

[Jo498]

No, obviously WE are worse for it, if they fail to impress us.

[Florestan]

No, obviously WE are worse for it, if they fail to impress us.

An argument from authority, if ever there was one. 

[Florestan]

my suspicion is that the preoccupation with effect on audience was a sort of dumbing down which happened in Mozart's day, rather than a consequence of the concert culture.   

Dumbing down? Are you implying that any music that is pleasant and touching to the audience is ipso facto not good?

[Jo498]

Of course. If I wouldn't yield to Mozart or Haydn as far as musical authority goes, I'd be a fool, wouldn't I?
This doesn't mean that I have to yield everything personal and not form an opinion of my own.
But this is not about critical thinking, finding flaws in argument or whatever but letting one's taste be shaped by great works of art. Their authority is unavoidable but it's not "accidental" authority.

[Ken B]

Of course. If I wouldn't yield to Mozart or Haydn as far as musical authority goes, I'd be a fool, wouldn't I?
This doesn't mean that I have to yield everything personal and not form an opinion of my own.
But this is not about critical thinking, finding flaws in argument or whatever but letting one's taste be shaped by great works of art. Their authority is unavoidable but it's not "accidental" authority.

Not only is this right, it exactly what Andrei argues most of the time!