Dave Hurwitz raises some engaging points here. As stereo emerged, the labels did work very hard during the recording and mixing sessions. The results are still with us in wonderful re-issues: Decca, Mercury, RCA and others. With today’s large ensemble music, the temptation must be great to just mic it and then issue what you get.
I am listening to the Mahler in question. I cannot comment on the creativity of the performance, but the recording is not very dynamic.
That’s a shame. I don’t listen to classical music, but I’d say the exact opposite is happening with the stuff I listen to (more recent rock pop EDM etc)
I cannot wait for this generation of reactionary music critics to retire. Cannot hear this hymn of praise ´in the past everything was golden, now everything is commercial cr*p´, lauding the age of pre-1965 recordings, inspired engineers, wonderful concert halls and minimalistic microphone arangements. They are literally disparaging and insulting the work of generations of wonderful musicians, conductors and recording engineers, preventing lots of music lovers to ever discover these wonderful recordings, for which motives exactly?
Yes, given the state of technology, some pre-1965 recordings were indeed really good and are still enjoyable today. The majority in my personal understanding is not, and not only for technical reasons.
The case of ´lazy engineers who just hang 36 mics and fix it in the mix´, lazy musicians who are not paying attention to the conductor, thinking ´someone will edit this later anyways´, is simply untrue. The truth is: the ratio of excellent classical recordings is constantly increasing, and many many ensembles, conductors and soloists deserve to be noticed. And if one likes the precision and ´energetic flow´ of an orchestra giving the maximum every day, go for broadcast orchestras and choirs, who are used to do exactly that every single time they are on air.
Point taken.
Actually, I think there are some great recent classical recordings with wonderful dynamics, superb hires quality and great sounding instruments. Especially some of the historically informed performances are recorded in a way that those instruments really shine. The same goes for jazz, done really great music and recordings.
For jazz, I must admit: I am a big fan of the “Hyper Magnum” sound coming out from the Venus label in Japan.
I fully agree regarding historically informed ensembles, there are numerous examples of excellent recordings which are executed with a great amount of passion and obviously resources. I am personally a fan or Masaaki Suzuki and René Jacobs, who are textbook examples of passionate musicians putting a lot of effort into recordings.
Same is true to a lot of orchestras and choirs, not only those run by broadcasters, which by profession are trained to deliver the amount of perfection needed for an excellent recording. I am oftentimes astonished by the quality of lesser-known orchestras, who work closely with renowned record labels and increasingly reach the perfection of a world-class radio orchestra, such as the Bergen Philharmonic, Bamberger Sinfoniker, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie, just to name a few which I personally like.
I gave it a quick listen, and would say it is average in terms of orchestra sound and conducting. A bit on the broad side in terms of orchestra sound, at times slightly imprecise, while trying to maintain maximum clarity and detail resolution, which oftentimes reduces the impression of both ambience and dynamics, although you can feel that it is a live performance.
What is below par, in my understanding, is the soloist and choir, far away from what I would expect from a Mahler #3. If you want to have a direct comparison to a world-class recording following a similar conducting approach, I recommend the RCO under Mariss Jansons with the wonderful Bernarda Fink:
I am a long term fan of Naxos, they took the vision of classical music to a new level.
The artists and orchestras are mostly unknown (to start with didn’t Stephen Gunzenhauser claim to be the most recorded conductor after Karajan) but the recording sparkle and provided excellent sound quality.
I do however find many of the back catalogue releases a bit wanting , I listen on headphones which can bring out the failings in recordings. Initially I thought it was my hearing going (76) but when you get a “good one” it’s obviously not.
Some however are simply too far, no matter how definitive Schnabel’s Beethoven is I can’t get past one movement. The same with much lauded Gilels early Russian recordings
