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Hi-Rez Highway: Re: Waterlily recordings by Chris from Lafayette

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Re: Waterlily recordings

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Robert,

Thanks for posting – it’s always interesting to read the views of an insider on a controversial topic such as the quality of the latest series of Water Lily recordings. These spirited discussions certainly add spice to life!

I think some of your comments however may have been based on a hasty reading of my original post concerning the Max Wilcox / Teldec production of the Mehta / NY Philharmonic recording of Mahler’s Fifth Symphony. In addition, I have some other questions and comments, and I guess the most logical way to post them is to place them in the context of your original comments. So here goes:

“There are two different ways to judge a recording. One is to go in with a preconceived idea of what music sounds like or ought to sound like.

“The other, to my mind right way is to look for recordings that are reflecting reality correctly.”

Whoah! I think you’ve just loaded the dice. You mean to say that you do NOT have a preconceived notion of what the music ought to sound like? I’d guess that your idea of what the music ought to sound like would be based on YOUR perception (based in turn on your listening position in the hall) of the actual performances, but I’m certainly willing to be disabused of this notion.

“The truth is that the Waterlily Svetlanov/Skryabin recording and the other two recent Waterlily (SA)CDs are recordings of reality.

“Perhaps any one person may not like the reality that was there, but it is still the reality.”

I hope you’ll bear with me, but let’s do a little thought experiment here. Can you imagine several realities, one from where the conductor stands, another from a position a few feet away from the orchestra, another from a position midway back in the hall, and a fourth from way in the back of the hall. Which reality are you talking about? Can you imagine the reality of a position in the hall where the balance among the orchestra sections is wildly askew (vs. the reality at another position)? How bad would the reality have to be until it was not worth attempting to replicate on a recording?

[snip]. . . “the microphone position where this reality was happening was carefully chosen.”

I’d suggest that on your next recording project, you folks choose your microphone position a lot more carefully than you did on this one.

“A recording made with 8(or more) spaced-out microphones a la Wilcox may sound nice to some people, but it cannot sound real.”

Here’s where I think your reading of my original post was hasty. I don’t think anyone implied that the Wilcox recording sounded “nice”. (“Not entirely successful” was my actual phrase.) The point of my posting Wilcox’s comments (“early sound reflections from the rear of the stage favor the projection of the brass and percussion thus causing problems with the strings and winds”) was that this was exactly the type of sound I hear on the Water Lily Mahler Fifth. After all, if the reality was that there were indeed early reflections favoring the brass and percussion, I guess you can be proud that you’ve captured it, but you shouldn’t be surprised when some listeners aren’t impressed.

“There is no process in practice or in theory that can put the outputs of a lot spaced microphones together into a coherent reality.”

I’m confused here by your use of “a lot”. How many is “a lot”? Can it be as many as six? I believe that was the number used in the 1962 Reiner/Chicago Also sprach Zarathustra. To me, and, I daresay, to the majority of the readers of this board, that recording evokes a pretty darned coherent reality.

“A lot of record companies are in the business of making such mosaic recordings, in an effort to follow some notion or another of what a recording ought to sound like. These recordings NEVER sound like real music--they can't and they don't.”

As I stated above, I’d love to know what your threshold for “a lot” of microphones is. Six microphones is certainly OK with me, whether or nor someone else describes that as a “mosaic”. The Reiner recording I referenced above sure does sound like “real music” to me!

“Waterlily has a different idea: recording reality.

“I personally think that the recorded reality is the only way to go.
It is the only thing that sounds like real music , and the higher the resolution of your audio system the more you will like it and the less you will like recordings made out of gluing together bits and pieces a la the Wilcox remarks.”

Wilcox did not make any remarks about “gluing together bits and pieces”. However, another point of my quoting him was that he was probably using FEWER microphones than on most orchestral recordings made these days, even though his recording, as I mentioned, was “not entirely successful”.

“Those recordings sound not much more like a real thing than say the Beach Boys left/center/right mutiltrackers. The ear/brain is not easily led astray. It is not only not nice to fool Mother Nature, it is usually impossible.”

I think that while Wilcox’s use of eight microphones may not have been optimal, it’s absurd to equate his techniques with those used for the Beach Boys. You undermine your own credibility here.

[snip]. . . “If you are interested in these recordings, please buy them. I think you will be happy you did.”

I did you one better: I bought TWO copies of the Water Lily Mahler Fifth, one CD-only and one SACD. While the SACD has (as expected) better definition at the mid and low frequencies than the CD, it has the same general flaws as the CD. Sure, it’s got coherence and consistency, but those are not the only elements of musical reality. In my eleven years of music reviewing for the Palo Alto Times, San Francisco Chronicle, and Oakland Tribune, I did occasionally encounter performances whose reality included mal-adjusted balances among different sections of the orchestra. These are not the realities I would wish to have preserved on recordings.


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