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Recording: Art and Technology
I recently acquired Guido Cantelli's recording of Franck's Symphony in D minor (RCA ARI. 1-30115: feature review, March]. I expected somewhat poor sound. but I was curious to hear how the NBC Symphony sounded in original stereo just two days after Toscanini's retirement. At the same time. I purchased a highly rated direct-to-disc record.
Surprise! The 1954 recording sounded "direct." natural, and balanced, and the modern one sounded gimmicked and artificial. During the past few weeks, I have played the older recording many times in awe and delight, while the other one is starting to gather dust on the shelf.
Raymond Falcon-Lugo, Santurce, Puerto Rico
How unexpected hen furies reference to "The late Fifties, when the recording art reached its zenith" ("Superdisc--Will It Fly?", March(! Perhaps. after two rather lonesome decades, certain views are once again beginning to be in vogue.
To exceed a small number of microphones in recording is to add sonic vantage points that we lack in reality. These vantage points interfere with the illusion of reality. because human beings can be in only one place at one time. Spotlighting of individual instruments or groups of instruments is doomed to shatter the. illusion. We will take a giant step toward realistic sound the clay we stop regularly utilizing banks of microphones and multiple tracks.
-David Minor
Glendale. Calif.
It is my opinion that the digital process of recording has a definite edge over direct-to-disc, because the performances are superior. Most of my experience with direct-cut discs has been disappointing. to say the least. Yes. they have beautiful fidelity and wide dynamic range. but the performances usually range from mediocre to poor. My first digital purchases (from Telarc and Orinda) were superb discs with very wide dynamic range and low noise. unequaled by any other recording means. \ the performances had none of the dry, analytical quality commonly heard on direct-to-disc.
The digital process would seem to provide a new definition of what "high fidelity" is (and. by extension. isn't). This is truly the software we have been waiting for.
-William Sautre Carlstadt, N.J.
Mackerras on Mozart
"On the shores of Coromandel/Dance they to the tunes of Handel." wrote Sir Osbert Sitwell. But Sir Charles Mackerras-he was knighted last New Year's Dad-seems to have emitted some questionable notes of his own in the course of his reflections ("Charles Mackerras on Handel," March(. Bernard Shaw never said, as he implies.
that "Beecham played Mozart as generalized eighteenth-century music"-that would have been a namby-pamby powder-puff slap from one who was adept at blowing his targets out of the water.
Shaw's essay "Mozart with Mozart Left Out" dates from 1917, when he was at the peak of his powers. In it he excoriates the then thirty-eight-year-old conductor for offenses against Shaw's ingrained ideas of proper Mozart style and suggests that he hand over his baton to Sir Edward Elgar: "If Sir "Thomas does not, after one hearing, blush to the roots of his hair and exclaim,
'Great Heavens! And I took this great composer for a mere confectioner!'. I will pay a penny to any war charity he likes to name." To judge by Beecham's lovely performances of Mozart during the 1930s, he either matured thereafter or was spurred by Shaw's barbs In any event, his recorded Mozart is neither generalized nor confectionary. Mackerras' ancillary contention that Bruno Walter was "not particularly a Haydn conductor" is refuted by Walter's noble and idi xnatic performances of the 136th and 92nd Symphonies, recorded when conductors engraved their specialties on records rather than turning them out like hatches of cookies (or, like Philips' current featherbrained scheme. recording Haydn's symphonies with "names"-quite enough to drive one (list ratto). On another subject. Deena Rosenberg should blush to the roots of her hair for conveying the impression (in "Mining America's Gold: Vintage Musical Theater Albums." March] that Fats Waller wrote "Your Feet's Too Big." It was written by Ada Benson and Fred Fisher. Itut no one ever rendered it like Fats.
David Wilson Carmel. Calif.
Credit where credit is due: Mr. Wilson is correct, and we bow to Henson and Fisher.
But, us he acknowledges, Fats was the instrument of their salvation from oblivion.
Speakers Optional 1Ve at RMI have just read the "Input Output" column in which Fred Miller expounds on our KC-2 Keyboard Computer (February). We thought he covered the subject admirably but were perplexed to read that "this unit has built-in speakers." The KC-2 does not include speakers or amplifiers, though they ale available as an option.
Clark A. Ferguson, RMI, Macungie. Pa.
Pan American Albums
SCHWANN now lists a label called Inter-American Musical Editions, whose albums are issued by the organization of American States. I quote from the OAS's reply to my inquiry: "The recording project is noncommercial in nature. The records cost $3.110 per unit: they are sold at cost. and monies received are used to further the work of the Pan American Development Foundation in community-level; self-help projects in Latin America." There are no postal charges, just the $3.00 per album, payable to the Pan American Development Foundation and sent to the Technical Unit on the Performing Arts, Organization of American States, 1735 I St., N.W., Room 922. Washington, D.C. 21006.
This strikes me as a worthwhile project, both socially and musically. and the price is certainly right. I thought your readers might like to know about it.
-David Pierce, Vero Beach, Fla.
Haydn's Operas Bravo for your recent series of reviews of the Haydn opera recordings on Philips.
Certainly a major article on this little known part of Haydn's output should be forthcoming-the author being Paul Henry Lang or H. C. Robbins Landon.
Stephen Colburn General Director
Milwaukee Chamber Music Society
Milwaukee, Wis.
Bouquet for "Folios" As a librarian faced with updating a terribly outmoded collection of sheet music and songbooks, I thank you heartily for BACKBEAT'S excellent section on folios.
I always have used and will continue to use your reviews as a guide for purchasing recordings. The folio section just makes HIGH FIDELITY that much more helpful.
-Julia S. White
Lansing, Mich.
Memorable Rota Score If Royal Brown thinks that film composer Nino Rota has not produced any memorable scores outside his collaboration with Federico Fullini ¡review of "War and Peace" and "Casanova," January¡. he has apparently missed hearing what I consider Rota's greatest score to date: Romeo and Juliet (soundtrack available on Capitol ST 4001. The film. directed by Franco Zeffirelli.
was released in 1968. and eleven years later the themes of the score linger.
-Jack Gauvitte Minneapolis, Minn.
Corrections
"Spring is the mischief in me." said Robert Frost, and that seems to go for someone who had a hand in April's HIGH FIDELITY as well. That issue showed evidence of gremlins at work.
In our report on the Grafyx SP-Ten speaker system, the ZIP Code for Grafyx Audio Products should have been 60174.
In our report on new products. Audio Heads into the '80s,the Eumig Metropolitan CCD cassette deck was called a two-head deck, but it actually has three heads.
And in the same article. an incorrect price is given for the Leak Model 3090 speaker. The correct price is $960.
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