en si bemol menor Op 23
Vladimir Horowitz, piano
Orquesta Sinfónica de la N.B.C
Arturo Toscanini, director.
Descarga
Restauración de un registro efectuado en 1941 por RCA y publicado originalmente con el número DM-800, posteriormente en LP con el número LCT-1012. Al trabajo normal que incluye Declick, Decrackle y DeNoise se le adicionó re-pitch a A=442 Hz, afinación utilizada por defecto por Toscanini con la NBC y estabilización del mismo, ya que entre cara y cara de los discos 78 originales existian no solo apreciables diferencias, sino tambien una considerable fluctuación del mismo, por ejemplo el segundo disco del segundo movimiento fue iniciado antes de que el plato adquiriese toda su velocidad.
Many thanks Pablo for this restored historical version of that masterpiece !
ResponderEliminarApologies for the fact that I am not articulate in the Spanish language; my post must therefore be expressed in English.
ResponderEliminarThe LIVE performance of the same concerto, by Horowitz and Toscanini, is an interesting contrast to this very popular, best-selling Victor recording (which has probably been in print since its first 78 rpm release!)
The "samizdat" collectors' tape was very widely distributed; a source of the full Tchaikovsky broadcast, eminating from an Italian club, was reprocessed by an American enthusiast and posted on the net about a decade ago. It was severely flawed, with musical discontinuities in the performance as well as some severe disk defects. I have made an attempt to correct these, for better or worse (I've appended a brief explanation of the work done to the folder containing the three 80+ MB FLAC files, which also has the date and contents of the original live performance and NBC broadcast.)
https://www109.zippyshare.com/v/9izVUgCv/file.html
Unfortunately, I'm using Zippyshare's unregistered service, so the folder will be deleted around 8/25/18.
https://www109.zippyshare.com/v/9izVUgCv/file.html
8H Haggis - an American Toscanini enthusiast & retired broadcasting engineer
Thank you Centuri for your visit and I hope you enjoy with this recording!
ResponderEliminar8 H Haggis, thank you so much for sharing this recording that I never heard before.
ResponderEliminarThanks so much, Pablo, for expressing your appreciation; since you liked this, I have decided to provide the rest of the concert: two works that preceded the Piano Concerto.
EliminarPIT: Voyevoda overture; Symphony No. 6
https://www76.zippyshare.com/v/wf42ZAjL/file.html
(133 MB FLACs, with explanatory text file; but please not: AVAILABLE ONLY for thirty days after 7/28/18.)
8H Haggis
I have no words to thank you for your generosity in sharing this important recording for its historical and musical value.
ResponderEliminarPablo, since it seems to me that many English-speaking readers consult your blog and obtain many of its valuable items, I'd like to take a moment to expression some opinions about the concert I've uploaded. For quite a few years I was a regular contributor to the newsgroup rec.music.classical.recordings, until I was -- in effect -- driven away by the constant hectoring of two "Toscanini idolators" -- perhaps one should more charitably say "enthusiasts" -- who had utterly opposing technical viewpoints on the historic documents.
ResponderEliminarOne of them (now deceased) was a maker of French horn mouthpieces; he called himself an "engineer" and promoted his extremely eccentric opinions about audio and historic restoration as (allegedly) the ONLY valid ones; he averred that all commercial releases were "juiced" (his term) and improperly equalized. HE was THE corrector of all such "offenses against nature". Ironically, there was not a SINGLE Toscanini issue (commercial, or graymarket noncommercial) or an amateur upload, that was not (in his opinion) ruined. He had the 'key' to the repair of all of the defects, which all boiled down to the use of a graphic equalizer to cut the frequencies around 1 kHz by as much as *30 dB* (by independly corroborating measurements made not only by me--a professional audio engineer--but also by other professionals in the field.) He was a "moralist" who considered any other points of view (!) to be the Devil's own work--he railed all over the Net, for years and years, against such "enemies". Unable to hold a job, he eventually went on welfare and apparently, hermitically divorced from almost any human relations, passed away after having admitted to numerous emotional issues, medical treatments, and drug problems.
The OTHER Toscanini idolator was (and is) a professional musical restoration artist and producer of historical reissues, whom I personally consider to be *the finest, most competent, and most authoritative person* worthy of the trust to produce, for the historical future, the definitive treatment of the Toscanini legacy.
Unfortunately, he does not like me at all and was offended by some remarks of praise, directed TO ME by certain other RMCR posters--he then denounced me as a "liar and manure spreader". My attempts to contact him in writing went unanswered; and he was unresponsive to any communications I directed to him -- praising his erudition and talent, but concerned to get to the heart of his animosity toward me -- on the ng. and elsewhere, went utterly unanswered. When I decided that "enough was enough" I decamped; he then gloated about this on a Yahoo Toscanini group.
I have tried to take A MIDDLE GROUND between these two philosophical extremes: the "radical interventionist" who thinks that ALL other recording transfers are defective and need his "correction"; and the profoundly dedicated purist who, working only with authentic and/or earliest source materials, dismissed all other attempts, using available and admittedly flawed copies, as allegedly producing only a travesty of the truth.
More remarks are here:
https://filedn.com/lgyQ0Uu5laX4REarxi2Tv9B/8-h-haggis/jottings12.htm#BURNOUT
https://filedn.com/lgyQ0Uu5laX4REarxi2Tv9B/8-h-haggis/bad-restoration.htm
8H Haggis
What two characters!!!
EliminarI tried to understand Abbedd point of view, tried to guess what he listened, made test try to see if there was some beneficts in the 1 Khz notch, but everytime I tried to tell him what was wrong, I found a fundamentalist of audio and Toscanini recordings, so I gave up.
I must be complete honest, my setup is not professional, is a mix of different type of devices, a Technics SL-D202 turnatable, several cartridges and stylus but nothing specific, 0.7 conical and elliptical 1 mil conical and 2.8 conical for 78 RPMs. A Behringer PP400 phono preamp, Behringer Q502 USB mixer, UPhoria UMC204HD audio interface, all this conected to a Kenwood home system KAX-48 that have a patch for EQ on the tape monitor/source bridge. I use a use a Phonic GEQ1500 placed on that patch. What I want to say? I was the last person on Earth to blame someone for not use a flat response output. I use a "V" shape disposition on my daily listening. The test I never made was recording the whole system on flat disposition in order to analyse why I need to put the 1Khz to 4 Khz in too deep. Abbedd "restorations" enlarge the distance between the highest point of frecuency response with the deep notch at 1 Khz and made them unnaceptable.
Seth Winner is another character, lucky, AFAIK I never share a single line with him. He's a very good audio restorer, but the latest records of him that I heard, aside the Toscanini box, where the very early Pearl transfers he did and there is to much noise there for my test, I don´t know I he's working for some classical recording label. The problem with him is that, you know, you see it on youtube videos, anyone that suggest him that something else can be done on a recording he restore, inmediatly is dismissed or rejected. I learn a lot from him listen carefully those videos but his general attitude was not to my taste.
EliminarMy two favorites transfers are Mark Obert-Thorn, a very nice and kind guy, and Ward Marston. This blog was inspired on two starting points, share my humble collection with other people, and make it in the best possible way, and this was inspired on listening so many Naxos CDs produced by those master audio restorers. I know, I failed so many times on do my best, I have to repost around 40 recordings that never were online again since my Mediafire account was closed on 2011/12. When I get back to listen what I have on the backups I feel ashamed on what I do on those years. Even today I don´t feel that I always achive some degree of quality.
When you post Grieg Dances, I said "I want to know what he did to these files" and try to reconstruct what you do and was impossible to me. I've been using Cool Edit from the 96 edition and never, ever get the point on the denoiser, I fail on keep the frecuencies balanced, the only noise removal tool that I'm starting to understand is the Spectral DeNoise by iZotope RX6. Since I prefer a continuous background noise it's always difficult to my to stablish what is the best, -75 dB? -80dB -85dB for shellac records ((@-90,-95,-100dB for 33rpm)and how to achieve this. That's why I post so slowly, I have more than 100 records waiting to be posted and re-posted, but I want to get the best of each one.
EliminarFinally, if you want a place to post your treasures, you have one here, you can count on that.Maybe we have to solve how to translate your text to spanish since you notice that my english is very limited, just for asking help and food. If you want to contact me for anything you can do it here or at varelaster@gmail.com
EliminarPablo.
Pablo, it's difficult to summarize in the relatively few words that Blogger will allow in a response, the way that I do NR. CoolEdit 2000 is what I primarily use (I rather hate Audacity!) and its built in denoiser is just one step above garbage, creating hollow sound and coloring the upper mids severely. Brian's denoiser is better but requires huge amounts of tweaking; I don't use that either. And I did NOT like his use of copy protection methods that create a hidden directory that the Windows File Manager does not show, to prevent putting another copy on a different machine--not that I'd do that, but I consider this a sort of "malware technique" that bothers me.
EliminarI do the NR in various iterative procedures that are so tedious to describe that I won't be able to explain them; and I've created some plugins of my own, as well as a huge number of "CoolEdit transforms". As a former professional recordist and b'cast engineer I have probably done more than 10,000+ hours of editing; once I made more than 5,000 hours of automated classical music tapes that were eventually syndicated to about 25% of the CM stations in the USA, from Hawaii and Alaska to NYC. I did recording, editing, and radio b'casting for one of "America's top 5" orchestras, and produce a very small number of classical LPs for small labels. So it all boils down to *experience with the actual media of both the music, and the type of miking, recording, and transferring*, plus having acquired YEARS of constructive feedback from professional colleagues as well as amateur auditors of my efforts (and, I also designed and built much of my own audio gear from scratch: preamps, mixers, audio processors like compressors/expanders, noise reduction devices, audio routing systems, etc. -- and I've reconditioned "classic" tape recorders like Ampex 300 and 350 mono and stereo units. I am also a perpetual student, never stopping to learn, and never satisfied. I could write a lenghty BOOK in answer to your query, but not a very useful Blogger reply in a few paragraphs!
Best,
8H Haggis
Part one of two:
EliminarPablo Wrote: >>Seth Winner [is] a very good audio restorer...but...you see it on youtube videos, anyone that suggest him that something else can be done on a recording he restore, inmediatly is dismissed or rejected. I learn a lot from him listen carefully those videos but his general attitude was not to my taste. My two favorites transfers are Mark Obert-Thorn, a very nice and kind guy, and Ward Marston.<<
My first encountered Seth the 1980s, when he was producing Toscanini programs on a NYC college radio station. One of his local Long Island friends was the old high school buddy of one of MY best friends, a fellow Toscanini enthusiast. When it became known that I had a professional tape machine that could play a 30 ips tape, a Toscanini Beethoven 8th aircheck that Seth he couldn't play was sent to me, and I transferred it for him. I was also told that Seth also heard and was appreciative of my work on a VERY flawed broadcast artifact, a 1940 Toscanini Wagner Parsifal program. With enormous respect for his SUPERB work on the RCA Gold Seal Toscanini Collection, I wrote glowing recommendations of Seth to the owner of Naxos, Klaus Heymann, in our ongoing correspondence that began in the late ninties, and I suggested that Seth would be an ideal person to help build up the new Naxos historic series. In fact, at MY suggestion, Klaus went from NZ to NYC to meet with Seth.
Then came my shock, disbelief, and huge embarrassment of finding that on rec.music.classical.recordings, Seth had 'denounced' me as, quote, "a liar and manure spreader".
I doubt that any other Toscanini enthusiast could EVER give more moral support to Mr. Winner than I endeavored to do. I even posted on rmcr that I was shocked that RCA Red Seal had gone to some European engineers to do "artificial stereo" transfers of Toscanini tapes, in 24-bit remasterings, and stated that I believed the ONLY legitimate and well-informed engineer capable of doing a proper job WOULD BE MR. WINNER. For this: I am 'a liar and manure spreader' as he himself said, in extreme anger at me. WHY???
I have a HINT as to why this might have happened.
In the mid-nineties, having obtained his email address, I sent him a very friendly, supporting email. HE NEVER REPLIED.
Then, a short time later, I found Ward Marston's email address and sent HIM a very enthusiastic supporting letter, praising his outstanding work. I RECEIVED NO REPLY.
Finally, I read posts on rmcr by Mark Obert-Thorn, and sent HIM a friendly, supporting, appreciative email (since I owned many of his transfers on Pearl and Biddulph, which I loved.) HE REPLIED IMMEDIATELY...and was exceptionally generous, charming, and enthusiastic. We began a regular correspondence, and eventually I became the webmaster of the "TransferGuy" website, with a bio of Mark, his discography, and articles and reviews about his productions.
I do believe that this was my, um, "sin" for which I was labelled "a liar and a manure spreader"; but this is a speculation. I had a cyber-acquaintance with one of Seth's colleagues in upstate NY, who -- as a matter of fact -- had helped me put together an article on the film "Hymn of the Nations" and identify some of the NBC Symphony players shown in the movie. He was very nice and we corresponded regularly. But, after the attack on me I sent a private, quite nice letter to Seth, asking if we could somehow resolve this 'problem' he expressed about me--and GOT NO ANSWER. I asked his friend WHY this might have occurred--and then HE TOO 'cut me off' and ceased any correspondence with me. I *even* offered, through a friend of Seth, to send him my own private copy of a interview I conducted with Ben Grauer, the NBC Symphony announcer, with interesting and unique anecdotes--and received NO reply whatsoever to my offer to give it to the NY Public Library Toscanini collection.
[end of my part one reply; further remarks below in part two]
8H Haggis
Part Two of my reply re: Seth Winner
EliminarThe facts (of my helping Seth get a transfer of a tape he couldn't play; my several collegial attempts to contact him my email and snail mail to express my own personal support; AND my recommendation of his to Naxos) certainly prove I was not not even a CRITIC of Mr. Winner, but actually an avid *SUPPORTER* and enthusiast of his splendid talents and attainments! None of this was ever posted by me on rmcr, at the time; I wanted this to die out and go away. I have no expectations that even NOW I should give my point of view--it won't be not appreciated. But now I'm quite elderly (some months back had a health emergency and was close to death for a short time!) and hope that AT LAST we can put this behind us and start to understand what kinds of emotional furies drive some of the most active and dedicated Toscanini "extremists" and "purists", and to TRY to comprehend why some of them are so competitive and perhaps even PARANOID.
8H Haggis
My apologies for the mistyping and errors in the above comments; since Blogger's reply interface allows ONLY 4096 ASCII characters, my remarks were always TOO LONG and it took me nearly one hour to get them 'accepted' after having to cut them up, and paste them into two parts. In the process I missed removing a couple of words so we had the 'illiterate double negative' above (humiliating to an old college English major like me!)
Eliminar8H Haggis
Mr.Haggis
ResponderEliminarCan You post , with the Pablo's approval, other uploads of not commercial Toscanini's restaured recordings ?
Alternatively you may post such recordings on Google group " symphonyshare", where there are many Toscanini's admirers (not idolators).
AP
Everyone is invited to contribute here, my friends Antonio, Damian, Jota enriched this blog in a fantastic way by providing recordings that I never dream to have.
EliminarMany of the people on Symphony Share are the same ones that harrangued and never ceased efforts to embarrass and insult people on rec.music.classical.recordings--including both me, and many other blameless individuals who simply had different opinions. For instance, once I VERY slightly disagreed with the oft-repeated statements by many persons that the definitive recording of a certain Schumann piece was by Richter. I explained that while I could not play it myself, I asked my wife--a trained concert pianist with a degree in performing, who has been teaching for a half-century, to play it while I read along with her: and I was really quite shocked at the incredible number of deviations by Richter in this work--simply NOT in the score, and (in my way of thinking) so arbitrary that after seeing the actual music, I started to cringe at the liberties. Well, one of these tyrants -- who is a US FEDERAL ATTORNEY -- actually stated that I HAD NO RIGHT to say that, as it was so offensive! He furthermore added that it was INAPPROPRIATE to explain what a PROFESSIONAL PIANIST felt about the interpretation of the great Richter. I did not dispute that publicly, but wrote to him privately, explaining my wife's background/qualifications, and adding that I really did feel that -- as a nonmusician -- he was somewhat out of his depth on this point, and that a competent pianist and interpreter had a right to a DIFFERENT manner of rendering the printed notes than Richter, and a right (through me) to express that. Well: what did this "officer of the court" then do? Without asking my permission, he EDITED my letter, leaving out any niceties and pleasantries, and even CHANGED some of the way I expressed things, and posted "it" as, allegedly, my horrible private ATTACK ON HIM.
ResponderEliminarAfter that, I had no wish to post to RMCR and no wish to "help" in any way such people. I posted ONE Toscanini restoration of mine, here, out of curiosity: would it draw the same denunciations I'd experienced on RMCR? Not so far...but I have no doubt that IT WILL SOON START if I do more.
8H Haggis
Second reply: pt. one of two parts:
ResponderEliminarPablo, by no means is the 1941 Toscanini concert I posted here the "best" of my work; I offered it because it was somewhat related to the commercial 78s by Horowitz and AT of the PIT PC 1, and also because the ONLY widely-distributed collectors' tape had horrendous defects (disk skips, missing notes, and terrible noises) that were a trial to the patience of any modern listener: I wanted to offer merely ONE engineer/musician's attempts at a practical solution. Although some have suggested that I post other such work I've done, I shall not do so, fearing the endless recriminations I'll no doubt receive from True Believers ('how DARE he try to piece together four seconds of missing notes in the concerto?!! Philistine, mountebank, evil faker! -- that sort of thing. There are MANY precedents for this kind of reaction that I've been subjected to, privately.)
I am not quite a full human generation older than Mssrs. Winner, Marston, and Obert-Thorn. In fact, my own first recollection of experiments in cutting acetate disks and in tranferring old records to tape were conducted *in 1956*, the year (in fact) that Mr. Mark O-T was born. I was trained in the design of audio and RF devices *with tubes* in the early sixties, and in fact built (or modified) many such gadgets, including NR units, before these modern digital editing geniuses were out of middle school! I consider myself, at heart, "an analogue guy" though I have been doing digital master recording and editing since c.1986 or so. My preference is not to try to move the character of an old disk record TO A DIGITAL CLEANLINESS AND CLARITY, but rather to emulate the quality of AN OPTIMAL ANALOGUE RECORD done at the same time--if disk, without the worst surface defects; if tape, without dropouts, overmodulation, and hiss. But, of course, HISS IS NECESSARY in some cases--it "fills in" when there are no actual high frequency partials, and fools the ear into thinking that there is still some intrinsic transparency in the original recording; so ruthlessly slashing it out starting at about 1k (which some devices/software programs DO!) is anathema--if one KNOWS fine analogue recordings. I have collected nearly 14,000 LPs and perhaps somewhere between 1-2 thousand 78s (all gone now!), and began the collecting mania in 1950. I actually remember hearing a couple of the last Toscanini live concerts from 1953 and 54--something that none of the modern Toscanini restorers can say for themselves. I was the engineer for radio networks across the United States, setting up the circuits with the telephone installers: and know EXACTLY what those long-line circuits did to the clear sound entering them in New York or Los Angeles--compared to what drizzled out weakly after 3,500 miles of wire, equalizers, and repeaters. And, I helped the designer of the WORLD-STANDARD audio processor for radio, television, and shortwave transmission, to conceptualize, design, and market his revolutionary product (assisting him by means of my understanding of the defective tube and transistor processors of the 1940s, 50s, and 60s.) What those things did to ruin and wreck the realism of classical music would make the angels weep--and I measured those devices and created reams of data, taken by expensive instruments that were not even in existence when they were first designed, to try to understand WHY they sounded so bad, and infer ANY techniques that could be tried, with modern circuitry or software, to reverse-engineer SOME of the damage. No other 'record restorer' in the business, to my personal knowledge, has this background. I did this type of work for SOME of my classical radio shows in the late sixties through the eighties, but since then have been only a hobbyist and theoretician, not a professional sound restorer for any LP or CD label. (Some of my ideas HAVE indeed been passed on to pros, including producers and designers.)
8H Haggis
Second reply: part two of two parts:
ResponderEliminarI have told one friend -- a prominent classical musician on the east coast -- that he has permission to publish what he thinks are the most useful of my Toscanini restorations *only after I am dead*. Whether or not he'll do that is up in the air and won't be known for a decade or two (I hope!) assuming I last a few more years.
Personally, I would much rather have Mr. Winner in charge of such an undertaking; he has access to masters or 1st-gen copies; has the finest modern gear; has impeccable taste--and has been mentored by knowlegable old-timers like Fierro, who imparted their wisdom and experience. I'd rather hope that not ONE of my other tapes will be distributed, but BETTER and more authentic work can be released. But, when working in NYC for major record labels, one must be cognizant of media rights, musicians' union regulations, and prior contractual obligations. A mere amateur dabbler FAR from the center of media can "fool around" and slip out a few things that are many generations out, from lousy sources, and not stir up the hornets' nest. I don't really even want to risk THAT.
8H Haggis
Reply No. 3: part one of two parts.
ResponderEliminarPablo, I have decided to make *one more exception* and to provide *one more Toscanini item*. In the 1980s, I was provided by a friend of Seth Winner an open reel tape taken down at 30 ips that, at the time, he could not play; and I transferred that for him to a modern reel of low-noise Scotch tape. In fact, the 10" reel of acetate tape started to "cup" as soon as it started passing through my machine's transport, and immediately became so wrinkled as I played it--since it had apparently NEVER been run through a machine in decades, and had thus been under tension all that time--that it had to be cut into two pieces, and wound back onto TWO 10" reels. I was, in fact, lucky to be able to get ONE clean copy.
The original tape was, I believed, an aircheck from WNBC-FM, New York, of the first selection from Toscanini's NBC Symphony b'cast of November 8, 1952: Beethoven's Sym. No. 8. In the last movement, there was a VERY irritating and obvious "clam": a 'split' note in the prominent solo trumpet (by Harry Glantz?) in an exposed passage in the last movement coda. I returned an unmodified version of this, for historical purposes, but later (for my private benefit) I edited that one note, fixing it with a repeat of it in the previous measures of the same section. This might have been the very sort of thing that Victor engineer Richard Gardner would have done, working with Toscanini, to try to restore his earlier broadcast tapes into a "releasable" form; many edits were made, for example, in the final commercial release of his 1953 "Don Quixote", using (I assume) the dress rehearsal recording. As I recall, I gave a copy of MY subsequent edited dub to at least one other close friend who was also a member of the very loose association we jokingly called "The Toscanini Underground".
At the end of the nineties, I closed my recording studio and disposed of my audio gear and large library. I had not heard this performance in the last 15 to 20 years; I did not make another copy for myself that has ever turned up, as far as I know.
(to be continued)
8H Haggis
Part two of third reply:
ResponderEliminarLys once issued this performance on CD: I bought it years ago and found that it was very deficient in sound, with terribly muddy, depressed highs (surely nothing much above 5 kHz) and a tubby, weak bass. It was so unpleasant that I think I heard it only once or twice before giving it away.
Last year I was perusing a Russian site (which shall be nameless) and found some mp3's for download of an unamed Beethoven 8th performance by Toscanini; but IT TURNED OUT TO BE *THIS* rarely heard broadcast. Upon listening to it, I suspected at once that IT WAS VERY LIKELY *MY* old tape transfer from the 30 ips aircheck. It had the "edit". The highs were not perfect but when I did some adjustment with CoolEdit, I recovered overtones up to at least 10 kHz (NOT at all present on the Lys CD, which had a dead cutoff in the top register, typical of long distance radio network lines.) The rich and full ambience of Carnegie Hall was undiminished and the crisp audience applause was heard at the ending. This surely IS the broadcast, which IMO is much better than the commercial RCA Victor performance Toscanini recorded in Carnegie Hall on Nov. 10, 1952 (and issued on WDM 1757, LM 6900, LM 6901, VIC 8000, plus on Gold Seal and Red Seal CDs.) Here, in the live rendering, Toscanini's tempi are somewhat relaxed and the conducting is freer and less tense than in the "canned" version. If this IS indeed a copy-of-a-copy-of-a-copy of my transfer of the old 30 ips aircheck, it shows the quality of the NBC transmission: the only defect I perceive is the somewhat "tight" peak limiting from time to time, affecting just the top very few dB of the musical dynamics. I do believe that my original first-gen copy of that tape was a bit more transparent and vivid; but this will do...if my suspicions and speculations are correct as to its provenance.
The upload will be shut down by Zippyshare after around 9/12/2018, by their rules for supplying a file as an unregistered user.
https://www60.zippyshare.com/v/IUfs7hFE/file.html
56 MB file, mono, FLAC encoded, with embedded nice Toscanini photo
8H Haggis
Thank you so much for this beautifull treasure.
EliminarI love the Symphony No 8, it was the second in became my favorite, because I have(still have)the 50s RCA album and both 5th and 8th were the first Bethoven symphonies I listen. Late I bought another LP, the 7th by Bruno Walter in stereo. Listen carefully your recording, at the end of the exposition I heard like part of the violins section return to the begining and play C-A while the rest of orchestra continues with the development. First I thought it was a edition mistake but since there is no change in the background noise or in the general ambience I suppose it was really a misunderstod between Toscanini and part of his forces.
Taking about Winner and Toscanini, there is too much "to do" with the Toscanini Collection, for 1992 I accept that many things that today we can easily fix with Cedar, NoNoise or even with iZotope RX6 were imposible to correct, but reissue the same box 20 years later with only a few corrections (Beethoven Symphonies sound much betteer now)is unacceptable. Just to put and easy example: Tchaikovsky 6th recorded in 1947, the beginning is full of sound unbalance, is not only that 100% of the clicks are still present, the general gain level change every moment, it was like they took 4 or 5 different sources and try to combine them. But in RCA boxes it happend all the time, Horowitz, Rubinstein, Heifetz, all are full of distortions that today or at the moment of been reissued were possible to remove and no effort was doing in provide a really clean transfer. I'm always infuriated every time I buy a reissue made by a major record label or a renowed transfer, load the file on iZotope and see the infamous Hum lines at 60 and 120 Hz. I have tools to remove them and know how to do it, but why they don't do it, I paid for a good job!! British Decca was another that made all kind of disasters on their reissues, starting by the cues between sides, I understand that they must do it with tape early in the 50s but there is no reason to not redo all the job 2010s when we have computers that allow to edit without problem. The latest reissue of Kleiber "Pastoral" is a text book all of you can do wrong. Klemperer conducting Mahler 2nd with Concertgebow was another, all the clicks are there, and then there is a group of people that blame Andrew Rose for took the oportunities leaved by the majors, of course he is gonna stole there poor cd reissues, there is a long list of thing that can be fixed there!!! In contrast, EMI when put Beethoven symphonies by Furtwangler on SACD for the japanease market, they return not to the master tape, they found and use the session tapes and re-glued in the regions in which there was a risk of cut, removed every unwanted noise searching bar by bar every disturbances, something I do when I post a record.
EliminarPablo, you are entirely correct in your observations about the orchestral mistakes in the first movement. That audible blunder, and the terribly off-key 'splat' in the finale by the trumpet (excised by me), would have prevented any commercial RCA Victor issue of this performance; so Toscanini and the NBC Sym. recorded it about two days later. No critic or listener, to my knowledge, has ever complained about that record; but despite the blunder you noticed, I think the live concert is a more musical and idiomatic reading. I suspect that I could *probably* do an edit that would fix this remaining problem; but of course the purists say "You have falsified history! This is not fair--and Toscanini did not approve the changes!!" -- and they are correct. With respect to "history" then what about commercial records that are done from a compilation of live performances? Are they "false"? In an orchestra of 60-100 players, if ONE instrumentalist has a momentary lapse of control, this does not represent "the conception" or "the interpretation"; even the conductor would want this 'fixed'. (I know from experience, even once having to edit a George Cleve concert in conformance to his insistence that a botched passage by the San Jose Symphony would embarass him and the orchestra if played on the PBS radio station; so I found a tape of a different performance he gave during the same week of concerts, in which the mistake did not occur. He was delighted; but IT FAKED AND FALSIFIED ACTUAL HUMAN HISTORY. However, it was *musically true* to the work of Brahms to substitute a cleanly-executed section in place of a messy discordance.)
EliminarSometimes I worry that such purists have a sort of artistic blind spot. "Music" becomes a disembodied, arbitrary sound-phenomenon rather than a beautiful intellectual construct of art.
8H Haggis
Thank you - to both Pablo and "8H Haggis" for providing these valuable recordings!
ResponderEliminar