above: Avery Fisher Hall-acoustically improved but organically unsound.
Avery Fisher Hall
Regarding Hans Fantel's article concerning the acoustics of Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center, formerly Philharmonic Hall [October], I agree with the author's effort to present the often neglected views of Leo Beranek. However, I do not think that Mr. Fantel has dealt fairly with Heinrich Keilholz, with whom I was associated in the de sign and construction of the Juilliard building at the same time that he worked on various remodelings of Fisher Hall.
I question the statement that Keilholz "had--by his own admission--only limited experience in architectural acoustics." During the 1950s throughout Germany and Austria he was much involved in redesigning theaters, concert halls, and studios, working at times with Walter Unruh, the leading theater designer of the time. This activity brought him to the attention of George Szell, and Keilholz remodeled Severance Hall in Cleveland, vastly improving its acoustics. This was completed in 1958, tour years before Fisher Hall was opened.
Having known Szell, I can imagine that he might have been put off by one of Beranek's assistants, but I doubt if he would have allowed personal pique to overrule his judgment had he confidence in the acoustic design concepts of the Beranek firm. It is my distinct impression, from conversations with Szell concerning acoustics, that before engaging Keilholz on the Severance Hall renovation he was in contact with Bolt. Beranek, & Newman.
Keilholz came on the Lincoln Center scene after Fisher Hall was opened. Un questionably Szell's strong recommendation of him carried great weight, but Keilholz's reputation already was firmly established. When the Juilliard School was weighing the choice of an acoustic consult ant for its new building, it had many strong recommendations of Keilholz. For instance, when the Juilliard String Quartet members heard that he was under consideration, they expressed unqualified enthusiasm, having played in German halls designed by him. Obviously, the success of four halls in the Juilliard building, including the widely praised Alice Tully Hall, testifies to his expertise.
His work at Fisher Hall, extending over nearly a decade, was basically an effort to make the best of a bad situation. Beranek might have done as well, but Keilholz's work in a succession of renovations was in variably judged an improvement. He was never given the chance (nor was Beranek) to rebuild the hall as completely as Cyril Harris is doing. Nor was either Keilholz or Beranek given as free a hand with Fisher Hall as Harris reportedly has been. In this respect, Keilholz's work at Juilliard is far more representative of his achievement, for he was not subjected to vetoes from a variety of sources.
Philip Hart; Santa Fe, N.M.
The writer is a reviewer of classical music for HIGH FIDELITY.
Hans Fantel's article on Avery Fisher Hall is certainly timely, informative, and well written. But his failure to deal with the question of the hall's organ-and its ultimate demise-constitutes a grave omission.
The idea that throwing the organ out would cure many of the hall's acoustic ills has been espoused for years. And now it has been implemented. What was overlooked was that, no matter what the outcome of the rebuilding, Avery Fisher Hall will forever remain but a satellite to one of its "acoustic models," Boston's Symphony Hall.
And Symphony Hall proves that a good hall and a good organ are not incompatible.
The absence of a pipe organ in Fisher Hall will remain silent testimony to the fact that somewhere a whole flock of people simply didn't know what they were doing.
John Kellner; Walpole, Mass.
Record Quality (Again)
John M. Proffitt's letter concerning the quality of recent Deutsche Grammophon releases [September] at least gave me the dubious pleasure of learning that I am not alone in suffering what might he termed the "DG blues." After six months of trying to get a decent pressing of Daniel Barenboim's recording of the Brahms German Requiem (DG 2707 066) yielded three defective re placements, I finally gave up. To make matters worse, I have not purchased a single truly satisfactory DG album (in the pressing department, that is) in the past year, and a few have been quite atrocious.
A letter from one of Polydor's vice presidents tells me that it is impossible to listen to every disc for defects. Granted, but there must be a reason for the quality increase of domestic pressings. Furthermore, I have noted a remarkable improvement in the surface quality of a great many American budget lines, and I have been getting some splendidly pressed discs from Odyssey, Seraphim, and Nonesuch, not to mention Musical Heritage Society.
Of course, any record company that can't seem to cram more than twenty minutes of music on a disc side (or on two sides, for that matter) probably doesn't possess the technical ingenuity to produce well-pressed discs either. Perhaps all of DG's technical personnel defected to the U.S.
John M. Dobson; Lexington, Ky.
I was particularly interested in the two items about off -center pressings in "Too Hot to Handle" [September] since I have complained of this problem both to HIGH FIDELITY and directly to record manufacturers. I'm not sure your solution-to return all "cock-eyed" records to the dealer--is realistic. In my ample experience, the proportion of records showing absolutely no visible deviation on either side is low, perhaps as little as a third. Since there is an amazing variety of other defects that threaten listening enjoyment, and since most record buyers do not have the time and patience for endless exchanges, it is often necessary to settle for less than perfection.
Pressings that are markedly off-center certainly should be returned whenever possible. But collectors like me inevitably get stuck with some erratic discs that cannot be exchanged because they are out of print or otherwise difficult to obtain. I have a simple procedure for playing these records with out incurring inner-groove wow: remove the turntable spindle and adjust the position of the record until the grooves are properly centered. This technique can, of course, be done only on multi-play turn tables, which have removable spindles.
Daniel Morrison; Albany, N.Y.
Your complimentary review of Bach's Partita for Solo Violin No. 2 and Sonata for Solo Violin No. 3 by Kyung-Wha Chung, London CS6940 [October], should have mentioned the high incidence of buzzing on Side 1. I believe this is caused by cramming more than twenty-eight minutes of wide dynamic range material on one side of the record, causing the heavily modulated grooves to be so closely spaced that they interfere with each other. When will record manufacturing companies learn that nothing (except distortion) is gained by this practice?
George Shinopoulos; Boston, Mass.
Our reviewer reports that her disc had no buzzing on Side 1.
Faithful
My sincere thanks and appreciation go to Gene Lees for his tribute to Percy Faith [August]. While it is quite true that Faith never received his due as a composer because of the scarcity of his film work, I'm not con tent with the recognition he received as an arranger either-despite the fact that his arrangements numbered ill the thousands, nearly 1,200 of them recorded with his orchestra. Through the years critics have hurled contempt and scorn whenever an al bum of popular music given full orchestral treatment was reviewed, and Percy Faith's recordings were often victims along with the rest. It seems that Columbia never saw fit to advertise his LPs either, at least not with the fury with which rock albums are promoted today.
I am very pleased that HIGH FIDELITY cares enough about all kinds of music to publish Gene Lees and other writers who are willing to discuss the so-called middle ground of music.
Sine Quad Non
Bill Halvorsen; Gaithersburg, Md.
I must say I was disappointed when I saw how few releases listed in "Preview of Forthcoming Recordings" [September] are to be made available in quad. I was really shocked to see that Columbia, the company that made the biggest push in the past, plans only two SQ issues in whatever time period this list is supposed to cover. RCA, the first advocate of CD-4 in this country, listed no quad recordings, and even Van guard had none. Only Angel and Turnabout had new quad releases in any great quantity, and that's far from satisfactory.
And you listed only classical recordings.
Quad popular releases are, unfortunately, also becoming scarce. I fail to see any real reason fur such a decline . I'm encouraged, however, to find that there are still some hardware manufacturers who won't give up without a fight.
I realize there are many who would like to see quadriphonics buried for good. I'm under the impression that they meant this to happen from the start. But I invested good money in an excellent, do-everything quad system, and I'll be damned if I'm going to sit on my woofers and let a few skeptical so-and-sos brainwash the public into avoiding this advanced form of sound reproduction. Some people say the reason for the decline of interest stems from the re cent recession, but that's over now. If the record companies would get together and decide on an industry-wide standard for quad records (I vote fur CD-4), we can make quad the medium for recorded sound.
Joy L. Hudko; FPO. N.Y.
There is u slackening in releases of quad recordings, but the situation may not be quite us grim as it looks. Keep in mind that the recordings we listed us quad releases are those that were definitely so planned at the time the information for the article with gathered. It is likely that more of them will be issued us four-channel discs than we indicated.
Live vs. Recorded Music
I know I am supposed to enjoy concerts better than records because of the excitement and uncertainty that are integral to the live event. I have read the arguments of Glenn Gould, but these have always been presented from the performer's standpoint.
As a resident of Los Angeles, I have varied musical experiences at my fingertips.
For the last twenty years I have attended concerts and have enjoyed many of them, for we do have a fine orchestra and conductor and many of the world's greatest artists have been guest performers. But it is the rare exception in a live concert when things really come together. There are times when either the distractions from the audience or the performer make it a sideshow. To me, the music is the main event. And I find that the music I am into usually is not what is avail able at concerts.
Over the years, my greatest rewards have come from private listenings. The music industry has gone through a revolution with LPs, stereo, quad, tapes, etc. But music listening is going through an evolution-not necessarily away from the concert hall, but toward private listening via recordings as a valid form of musical experience.
Michael Tov; Los Angeles, Calif.
Repository of Rights A survey of opinion from Felix Weingartner Society members on Leonard Marcus' proposal for a "Repository of Rights" [October] reveals a generally favorable reaction. It is distressing to think that three years' effort by the Society has produced only one substantial re-release of Weingartner material-and only in England, since EMI of Great Britain retains the rights to this material-and that its poor sales there betoken that this issue may be it for Correction In my October editorial, "A Repository of Rights," I had a lapse of memory. I "remembered" the late Walter Toscanini com mending to me activities of the Arturo Toscanini Society in keeping his father's name before the public. What he actually praised were the activities of New York station WRVR, which in the early Sixties was broadcasting some of the NBC Symphony programs. My thanks to Arthur Fierro, at the lime Walter's assistant, who remembered the conversations better than I did.
The ATS itself seems to be alive, if not well, at P.O. Box 7312, Burbank, Calif. 91505. Prohibited from making Toscanini recordings available, the Society is planning to issue Cantelli recordings. Mean while, the Toscanini Collection, including the unavailable recordings, remains buried under the New York Public Library, inaccessible to all, awaiting a suitable Institution Charming.
LEONARD MARCUS
Weingartner, now and forevermore. Since it is too optimistic to believe that the record industry would agree to let money -losing historic items go into the public domain or that it would even encourage a record rights law to pass Congress, Marcus' proposal seems the only sensible solution to the impasse.
Any move to enlist foundation support for such a repository should be based on three preliminary steps. First, obtain a re port on the law of property governing ac cess to recordings and to the material recorded, obviously a job for a qualified lawyer. Second, determine which foundations might be a likely source of support; advice could be sought from The Foundation Center ( 1001 Connecticut Ave., Washington, D.C. 20038), an informational and consulting service for persons or institutions seeking foundation grants. And third, prepare a project proposal to be presented to the selected foundation.
Since most companies do not take care of their own recordings, the bulk of the rare material would have to come from collectors, who are often members of such groups as the Toscanini, Beecham, and Weingartner Societies. Recordings in these private collections, usually in near -mint condition, are the best potential source.
Prof. Jack Calderon; Felix Weingartner Society Monterey Park, Calif.
Penguin Record Guide I would like to comment on two points in John Culshaw's column "A Paradise for Record -Collecting Browsers" [September].
Although Mr. Culshaw is technically correct when he writes that The Penguin Stereo Record Guide is not available in the U.S., it is readily available for roughly $12 from the Long-Playing Record Library in England. The organization advertises monthly in Gramophone, so the address can be had for the price of the magazine., As for asking the publishers to reset the book for the U.S., that is not necessary or even desirable if a few simple facts are kept in mind. Argo, Philips, Deutsche Grammophon, Telefunken, and Turnabout use the same numbering system in both countries.
RCA and CBS ( Columbia) are easily converted with the use of a Schwann catalog. And if you remember that Decca is London and HMV is Angel, Schwann will again solve your number problems. The above -listed labels constitute about 90% of the entries in the Penguin Guide. The remaining 10% can be ordered directly from England.
Harold C. Verdun Syracuse, N.Y.
Russian Exchange
I am interested in contemporary 12-inch stereo recordings of blues-rock, jazz-rock, country-rock, super-group-rock, musical shows, pop, and beat music. For these I would like to exchange with your readers Russian classical and pop records, including rock of all types. Those interested can write to me at:
CCCP/U.S.S.R./Russia, 190000 Leningrad, General Post Office, Poste Restante, Kazarinov Sergei Sergee v ich.
Sergei S. Kazarinov; Leningrad, Russia
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(High Fidelity, Jan. 1977)
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