BaL 2.11.2019/28.3.20 - Bach: Violin Concerto in E BWV 1042

[Bryn]

That's here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pnK6R5ej6Hg&vl=en

The very reverse of Mugabe.

[jayne lee wilson]

I'm not sure comparative boasting about systems is altogether helpful, but for what it's worth, mine is Linn Akurate DSM (with Katalyst); Vitus RS-101 power amp; Audiovector SR3 Avantgarde Arrete speakers. So mostly Danish. Plus power conditioning from AudioQuest. I'd describe it as extremely detailed and revealing, perhaps one notch on the cool side of neutral. I use Roon which integrates my owned collection with Qobuz, and which works perfectly with the Linn front end.

Roon actually includes reviews on many issues - including the one we're debating. Honestly, I don't place much store by them, and anyway they're often anonymous. But I can't help resisting calling up their review of this release, because it's a fair indication I haven't made the reverberant acoustic up!

"Judged by the period instrumentation, the small orchestra of strings and continuo, the historically informed interpretations of violinists Shunske Sato and Zefira Valova, and the ensemble Il Pomo d'Oro, this recording of Bach's violin concertos will likely interest connoisseur of performances in the Baroque style, as well as casual listeners. However, because the venue for this recording is extremely resonant and the audio seemingly boosted in the mix, a first impression is that the ensemble is twice as big as it really is, and that the textures are inadvertently muddled, neither of which is expected of a well-produced recording by early music standards. If listeners can get past the acoustics and actually hear the nuances in Sato's playing....."

I have no idea who wrote this (and I don't know what 'audio seemingly boosted in the mix' actually means), but I rest my case.

1) Not boasting, just defending my views/judgments and describing how I arrived at them. Discussing perceived differences in the same recording is almost pointless without system details - thanks for your own (very impressive).
2) Again, I don't know the system details of the review you reported, but evidently I have Charlotte Gardner's (don't know hers either) very positive response to the SQ ("a glow to the overall sound....gentle luminosity" etc) to support my own listening (over nearly a year of repeated, always hugely enjoyable, hearings.)
3) Probably no system is completely neutral. So if my main-rig amps/speakers emphasise body and warmth, yours coolness and space, even quite subtly, that may be a clue to our different results. So this recording may be unusually system-dependent.
To reiterate: here it sounds lively, but very immediate, close, intimate, with no sense of an unnaturally larger ensemble at all. I can hear the individuals in the ensemble clearly, and Sato in and out of them. But that clarity and presence is what ATC/Harbeth have always majored on, their monitoring principle, and why they are used in studios all over the world. Shame we can't see a photo of the Lonigo venue for this recording.

4)I'm still your friend! (even more so now I know your system....

[jayne lee wilson]

I can only make my own judgement on the splendid link given by Ferney in post # 47, i.e. https://www.bachvereniging.nl/en/bwv/bwv-1042/
If this is anything like the recording you mention, Goon, then your comment is true. There is a reverberant acoustic. However, I didn't detect anything faux about the sound, and moreover, I (and Mrs A who enjoyed watching it with me last night) could follow every line with great clarity.

God, do I have to repeat this? This isn't the same recording as on the Erato album....OK? I've compared them and they sound very different.
See #67.
Posting on tablets and smartphones.... a lot to answer for...

[Master Jacques]

1)Discussing perceived differences in the same recording is almost pointless without system details

True. It's also tricky unless one knows the state of the auditor's own aural equipment - I imagine that many forumistas suffer to some degree or other from less than perfect hearing. I know that's true for me, for certain instruments in certain ranges, and I have to use my imagination to adjust what I'm hearing accordingly. Do we pay enough attention to individual differences in sensual perception? It perhaps accounts for some of the wilder divergences between experiences, as in this Sato case.

[jayne lee wilson]

True. It's also tricky unless one knows the state of the auditor's own aural equipment - I imagine that many forumistas suffer to some degree or other from less than perfect hearing. I know that's true for me, for certain instruments in certain ranges, and I have to use my imagination to adjust what I'm hearing accordingly. Do we pay enough attention to individual differences in sensual perception? It perhaps accounts for some of the wilder divergences between experiences, as in this Sato case.

I've often reflected upon that (in these very forums, with me the problem is mainly with operatic/choral/vocal, especially the more florid styles, the earlier/smaller-scale the better e.g. Monteverdi, Gesualdo) but from experience of a wide range of hifi systems from budget up, I think at least 90% of this is down to the system and the (usually unmentioned) room it occupies....
(With computer systems, the confusion can get even worse, often through hidden settings, connection/cable types/problems etc)

[Goon525]

1) Not boasting, just defending my views/judgments and describing how I arrived at them. Discussing perceived differences in the same recording is almost pointless without system details - thanks for your own (very impressive).
2) Again, I don't know the system details of the review you reported, but evidently I have Charlotte Gardner's (don't know hers either) very positive response to the SQ ("a glow to the overall sound....gentle luminosity" etc) to support my own listening (over nearly a year of repeated, always hugely enjoyable, hearings.)
3) Probably no system is completely neutral. So if my main-rig amps/speakers emphasise body and warmth, yours coolness and space, even quite subtly, that may be a clue to our different results. So this recording may be unusually system-dependent.
To reiterate: here it sounds lively, but very immediate, close, intimate, with no sense of an unnaturally larger ensemble at all. I can hear the individuals in the ensemble clearly, and Sato in and out of them. But that clarity and presence is what ATC/Harbeth have always majored on, their monitoring principle, and why they are used in studios all over the world. Shame we can't see a photo of the Lonigo venue for this recording.

4)I'm still your friend! (even more so now I know your system....

1) I apologise for the word 'boasting' - I’m just aware that most readers of this forum will be unaware of all of these manufacturers apart from Linn. And even though I was listening to two or three systems costing ten times the price of mine at the recent Ascot hi-fi show, I know by most standards mine counts as pretty pricey. You and I agree that sound quality matters, and it is a matter of regret that many classical reviewers use pretty poor equipment - don’t get me started on the stuff Ted Greenfield used to use.

4) Definitely still friends - I find your contributions to this forum exceptionally valuable, and I’m content that we can agree to differ on this one recording!

[jayne lee wilson]

Shame we don't have Star Trek Transporters to beam us down into each other's, and everyone else's, rooms....

The we might begin to understand....

But the experiences I had, hearing the same recording in different systems/rooms, was often fairly shocking ( revelatory not always in a good way - what some leave out, or add - even just changing out the preamp, on one memorable occasion...)

[Beresford]

The problem with the reverberant acoustic (when we're watching the video) is the sense of mismatch with the hall in which it's taking place. Low ceilinged, diminutive, packed and intimate - a lovely venue - but the sound gives the impression we're in a rather empty Bridgewater Hall. I think it's this mismatch rather than the sound quality itself - as you say, every line is just about there - which makes the engineering seem doctored.

I think the sound on the video (and the CD in a slightly different way) is mixed (doctored) to give the soloist prominence, producing a very exciting result. It sounds like fun, but a bit old fashioned to me - soloist showing off, and why not? And we have thankfully lost the large chugging (in Bach) orchestras of the mid 20th century. But some of the trills still sound a bit odd.

This is from the Qobuz album description:
"Accompanying him, we find the wonderful Swiss ensemble il pomo d’oro (all lowercase) who embrace these musicologically indisputable teachings with a tone that sometimes even sounds romantic". Even so!

[doversoul1]

I think the sound on the video (and the CD in a slightly different way) is mixed (doctored) to give the soloist prominence, producing a very exciting result. It sounds like fun, but a bit old fashioned to me - soloist showing off, and why not? And we have thankfully lost the large chugging (in Bach) orchestras of the mid 20th century. But some of the trills still sound a bit odd.

This is from the Quboz album description:
"Accompanying him, we find the wonderful Swiss ensemble il pomo d’oro (all lowercase) who embrace these musicologically indisputable teachings with a tone that sometimes even sounds romantic". Even so!

This is new to me along with the name being in all lowercase.

[jayne lee wilson]

From another recent album ("VIRTUOSISSIMO" incl. JEAN-MARIE LECLAIR /PIETRO ANTONIO LOCATELLI /JOHANN GEORG PISENDEL /GIUSEPPE TARTINI / GEORG PHILIPP TELEMANN) of far less well-known baroque violin concertos, I liked this, about the role of the virtuoso....

Writing in Nice in May 1940 on the centenary of the death in that same city of Niccolò Paganini, whose name is a byword for violinistic virtuosity, the French poet Paul Valéry commented in his Esquisse d’un éloge de la virtuosité:

‘The interpreter of any work stands accused of making his own talents shine at the expense of its purity, of altering its proportions, distorting its effects and even its meaning so as to gravely mis-represent the author’s written intention. We attribute to the interpreter the power of perverting the taste of the audience, seducing it by overcoming difficulties, dazzling it with the technique of sheer velocity... We reproach him with flattering the most vulgar of our sensibilities, those most easily moved by an exaggerated display of tenderness... with picking away at the mind’s treacherous weaknesses... with exploiting the source of tears. [...] Nevertheless, the virtuoso is somebody who – to a perfect degree – gives life and a real presence to what was a mere manu-script at the mercy of all, subject to the ignorance, clumsiness and poor understanding of all and sundry. It is the virtuoso who puts flesh on the work.’

I love this album and recommend it very much! And it's the pomos again.....
https://www.qobuz.com/gb-en/album/virtuosissimo-dmitry-sinkovsky-il-pomo-doro/dzosjy6ikwsga

Sinkovsky showing off, y'know, just a bit? Oh, perish the thought.....
It's the name of the game....

[Beresford]

Sinkovsky showing off, y'know, just a bit? Oh, perish the thought
It's the name of the game....

Ah! 1940 - The era of soloist as musical hero - Toscanini, Rubenstein, Gigli, etc - OK if you do not look too close.
That age is gone. Lasted for 200 years, until about 1960.

[jayne lee wilson]

Ah! 1940 - The era of soloist as musical hero - Toscanini, Rubenstein, Gigli, etc - OK if you do not look too close.
That age is gone. Lasted for 200 years, until about 1960.

I really hope it isn't over...just remade, remodelled...isn't Svia Richter a different kind of hero? But traditional too? Etc....
Its definitely worth listening very closely to Dmitry Sinkovsky! Wow! My latest hero!

***
Coupla quick thoughts about system response.

I usually play recordings here, such as the much-discussed Sato/pomo Bach, with the Dac filter set to a "pure impulse response". This has a steep "roll-off" i.e. it emphasises body immediacy dynamics and rhythmic coherence with slight loss of high frequency and sometimes spaciousness.
This morning I switched to a flatter, more neutral filter - result, I could hear more of the now infamous resonance, and the performers sounded set back in a bigger space. But it was still pleasingly natural and clarity was, if anything, enhanced. I would add though, that the sonic difference between the two settings was more obvious than usual - so as I said, this Erato album does seem a particularly system-dependent recording.

OK.
Looking at Goon525's Audiovector speakers, they are pretty sophisticated designs, with quite narrow 19cm baffles, but with two bass/mid/bass only drivers & a downwards firing port.
Reading about the design/reviews, they should be very clear, precise, with deep, clean bass, but perhaps a slightly reduced image scale (size of performers within the soundstage). Not a universal, but I've often heard designs like this throw a smaller scale of image compared to speakers with broader front baffles and bigger mid-bass drivers.

So my Harbeths have a 27cm baffles with a single larger bass/mid unit. This gives a "big sound" - large scale of image/soundstage, and a full, warm, textured mid/upper bass - though they may not go as deep, as cleanly, as the Audiovectors.
I would speculate that this is another reason why the resonance doesn't impinge here so much - the performers are filling out the space and the resonance around it with their midrange body and presence. So, together with those Dac filter settings....

This won't be a universal principle, and the room is adding its own characteristics too, but we can at least go some way towards understanding differing system responses if we reflect a little.

[mikealdren]

1) And even though I was listening to two or three systems costing ten times the price of mine at the recent Ascot hi-fi show, I know by most standards mine counts as pretty pricey.

The stuff at Ascot was very pricey and actually most of the Demos were very poor indeed and almost all 'pop' oriented. I asked one supplier of very expensive headphones for a demo and the best source he could find was an old Karajan recording. I pointed out that as he has been dead for 30 years it could hardly be classed as a good modern recording and gave up with them.

[doversoul1]

The stuff at Ascot was very pricey and actually most of the Demos were very poor indeed and almost all 'pop' oriented. I asked one supplier of very expensive headphones for a demo and the best source he could find was an old Karajan recording. I pointed out that as he has been dead for 30 years it could hardly be classed as a good modern recording and gave up with them.

Completely off topic but this reminds me of the time when I was changing my PC. The products (monitor, keyboard, mouse) recommended by the local computer man were all for ‘gaming’ and ‘gamers’ for which speed was apparently paramount. I don’t think he was quite convinced that someone wanted to a PC and not playing games. The time we live in.

[Beresford]

How are you listening? .......
Shame the notes weren't more specific about the venue "Lonigo, Italy".... anyone know where they might have recorded it there?

Sinkovsky's recording of some Vivaldi double concertos, also with Il Pomo d’Oro, was made in Villa San Fermo, Lonigo, Italy, so probably the same venue as Shunske Sato. As far as I can tell from the Presto samples, the resonant acoustic (or mix) is similar.

The large rooms in the villa don't look particularly resonant, so I suspect the sound is more engineered. (edit: You can see the recording setup with Emelyanychev conducting in the Presto videos of Cencic recording Neopolitan Arias. They certainly go for a turbo-charged sound, in this and the other Emelyanychev recordings, often with flamboyant countertenors. On RR this morning Andrew McGregor described them as "dramatically colourful, richly resonant, with the baroque oboe sometimes overpowering the singer")

Contrast with the more "recessed" sound in the Rachel Podger recording, in a church, which on the video has several mics in very high stands in the centre of the group, presumably for better integration and spatial qualities in surround sound on the SACD. The Podger / Brecon Baroque sound is growing on me, if I turn up the volume, but I need to listen more carefully to work out what is going on.