Prom 53: Wednesday 24th August at 7.00 p.m. (Stravinsky, Ravel, Tchaikovsky)

[Nick Armstrong]

WHY? WHY? Oh, why did I not go to this concert? What more can I say about my stupidity?

I guess it won't bring any comfort to either Chris or Petrushka to say that I was at both the Davis and the Salonen, two of the 6 I think I shall attend this summer - and both were marvellous indeed. Sorry! Just glad that the Wednesday sound allowed you to enjoy them on R3. (The Bournemouth Rach 2 was another live joy which came up fresh as paint on the radio as well - the previous Wednesday... )

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I would say the Proms sound quality this year on radio has been abysmal...CRAP even.

My memory may be playing tricks, but but I recall that the BBC used to place an engineer (with headphones) in the arena who compared the live relay with the sound in the hall to ensure optimum fidelity.

[salymap]

I listened on my one DAB radio and got much better sound. Perhaps it would have been okay on FM according to what you all say. Anyway I listened to the end, enjoyed everything and hearing only troubled me in the
Ravel. My best Prom so far this year.

[David Underdown]

And what those listening on the radio may not have known, for the appearances of the pizzicato theme in the Scherzo, Sir Colin stopped beating, there was just the odd head movement to keep things going

[cavatina]

And what those listening on the radio may not have known, for the appearances of the pizzicato theme in the Scherzo, Sir Colin stopped beating, there was just the odd head movement to keep things going

From where I was standing on the extreme front left, I was lucky enough to be able to see he was conducting very expressively with his face and eyes. A slight tilt of the head, followed by a barely-perceptible nod here, a sharp glance there...I almost laughed out loud to see him playfully wiggle his eyebrows with the beat at the first violins.

What a magical performance--so full of subtlety, fine feeling, fire, and life. I'm so glad I was there.

[Ferretfancy]

cavatina
How often you hear that conductors achieve so much with their eyes. It was rather sad to see Sir Colin looking frail, but it there was no frailty in the music making. The Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester is always worth the journey. I did feel that the Stravinsky was a little less taut than in Sir Colin's days of yore, and there was a little imprecision at the beginning, but no matter, this is a great symphony. I was right in line with Susan Graham in the Ravel, and was entranced as ever by the piece. Excellent Tchaikovsky, just right in pace with all the drama. There's nothing like being in that space, is there?

[barber olly]

I know two people who dislike Tchaikovsky's music (poor things ) who cite the finale of the 4th symphony as their greatest dislike. I think it's the percussiveness of this movement that overwhelms. But look beyond this to the range of moods expressed within a short timespan.

Seriously! It's up there in my top 10 symphonies, and top 10 movements - the faster and slicker the better. Surprising that in his long and illustrious career Sir Colin has not recorded it (or the 5th or 6th for that matter). The only Tchaik I have by him are the excellent 'rare' orchestral bits from operas and the Serenade for Strings.

[3rd Viennese School]

I first heard Tchaikovsky 4 in 1982! Thats a long time ago if you think about it. Saw it in Chatham in 2000 and something. You can imagine the turmoil of Tchaikovsky during that first mvt ( he tried to drown himself but he was too depressed to even do that!) And I was thinking how ironic it was that we were all sitting in the concert hall licking ice creams!
A very powerful performance of this last night. Everythin from the noisy climax recap junction of mvt 1 to the jubilant cymbal crash ending (the if you are depressed go to a pub and see how happy others are! finale).

Wasnt moved much by Stravinsky- could be cause the signal on my radio was weak at the time? This was my first Stravinsky. In 1995. Boy did it put me off! I enjoy it now however.

3VS

[Ferretfancy]

The late Prom with Marc-Andre Hamelin playing Liszt was sensational! I don't think I've ever heard such stunning virtuosity, it hardly seemed possible that anyone could have such total mastery.
I do wish, however that we could have heard him playing rather better music. So much Liszt seems to me to have rather a small amount of melodic interest once you strip away all the amazing elaboration. I'm glad I went though, although the first two pieces did rather remind me of being caught in a thunderstorm with nowhere to hide!
Of course, there is some good Liszt, he was very prolific, and perhaps without him we would not have the techniques at the piano that we enjoy today, certainly Hamelin is possible the most stunning performer on offer in this music.

[jayne lee wilson]

When you say "on the radio" Chris, which platform are you using?

Whilst my critical impressions reflect those of other listeners (Salonen & Davis sound vg etc.) I've not found even the less happy balances eg for Gergiev ruinous, I still felt they reflected the different orchestral characters. I use the 320kbps AAC stream (Macbook to Cambridge DacMagic via glass optical cable) with FM (Magnum Dynalab 100) for comparison through ATC amps & Harbeth 7s, I've mostly been quite pleased with the balance from the hall, and quite a few concerts (Liszt Faust & Dante Symphonies, BBC NOW & BBCPO Beethoven, the Knussen concert, Firebird, Klagende Lied, Haitink Brahms and others) really very good indeed. So I'm puzzled by your overall dismissal of this year's sound. As I've said before, using analogue outputs from a computer won't get near optimum sound quality, it can be quite difficult to know what the internal sound-card is doing (compression, sampling-rate adjustments etc.) or switch the adjustments off.

I know we're on difficult ground with hifi comparisons, but as a rare female audiophile I've found that the system used is often the biggest variable of all. Basically - the bigger the soundstage, the more open & neutral the sound, the more enjoyable the less-than-ideal balances tend to be, despite the fact that you can hear more clearly what's wrong with them.

I am really happy to hear the sort of sound I expect from Colin Davis. Tonight's radio sound tonight is infinitely far better than most other evenings. I agree last Wednesday with the Philharmonia was excellent too. Bryn is too polite in Message 9: I would say the Proms sound quality this year on radio has been abysmal...CRAP even. I am relistening to tonight's Stravinsky on iPlayer and cannot fault the sound quality.

I got home after hearing superb concerts at the Albert Hall with Haitink, Manze, Layton and Dausgaard from last Friday to Monday and was disappointed to hear the mutilated versions on iPlayer.

[Alf-Prufrock]

I know we're on difficult ground with hifi comparisons, but as a rare female audiophile I've found that the system used is often the biggest variable of all.

I am quite sure you are right, Jayne Lee. What you said needed saying a long time ago on these boards. I have meant to point out for months that some of the posters must have been listening on poor or badly adjusted equipment.

The worst case, I remember, was on the old BBC boards when someone posted an antagonistic criticism of a concert he had listened to on a tranny that was placed in the next room. I think he thought he could detect felicities and subtleties even through atrocious sound.

Incidentally, I have found that women generally have a clear and accurate view of what is good sound, especially in the treble. How many times have a I heard a woman say of a man's cherished set-up (including mine) 'That shrieks! It's awful!' Men's ears seem to decay awfully fast, along no doubt with other parts of them!

[Petrushka]

When you say "on the radio" Chris, which platform are you using?

Whilst my critical impressions reflect those of other listeners (Salonen & Davis sound vg etc.) I've not found even the less happy balances eg for Gergiev ruinous, I still felt they reflected the different orchestral characters. I use the 320kbps AAC stream (Macbook to Cambridge DacMagic via glass optical cable) with FM (Magnum Dynalab 100) for comparison through ATC amps & Harbeth 7s, I've mostly been quite pleased with the balance from the hall, and quite a few concerts (Liszt Faust & Dante Symphonies, BBC NOW & BBCPO Beethoven, the Knussen concert, Firebird, Klagende Lied, Haitink Brahms and others) really very good indeed. So I'm puzzled by your overall dismissal of this year's sound. As I've said before, using analogue outputs from a computer won't get near optimum sound quality, it can be quite difficult to know what the internal sound-card is doing (compression, sampling-rate adjustments etc.) or switch the adjustments off.

I know we're on difficult ground with hifi comparisons, but as a rare female audiophile I've found that the system used is often the biggest variable of all. Basically - the bigger the soundstage, the more open & neutral the sound, the more enjoyable the less-than-ideal balances tend to be, despite the fact that you can hear more clearly what's wrong with them.

My set-up is modest by the standards of some on here: Panasonic digibox for Freeview through a Technics amp and Wharfedale speakers. I am very used to this system and can easily detect the difference in sound between the excellent Davis and Salonen Proms and the muddy sounding LSO/Gergiev. If you listen to sione of the results obtained by the BBC engineers in the early 1960's on stereo releases in the BBC Legends series (try Giulini Dvorak 8 from 1963) you will hear a level of detail and power that makes you wonder what, if any, progress has been made in 50 years.

[Ferretfancy]

Musicians are often quite indifferent to recording quality unless they are actually recording their own performances. I remember donkey's years ago going to a talk on Bruckner by Brian Balkwill. All the massive musical examples were played over a small tannoy high up on the wall, a speaker of the sort used foe announcements in the canteen. He seemed quite happy with the arrangement! No doubt he had it all in his mind's ear.

[jayne lee wilson]

Well of course those Legends performances have been transferred to CD quite recently, frequently by the admirable Tony Faulkner, so you'll be hearing them at something like their commercially-possible best, and at higher CD-level resolution than any current web- or broadcast... can you fix it to listen consistently via HDs, the 320 kbps aac feed? And through a decent DAC? The mp2 192kbps freeview feed is the same as DAB (apart from when DAB is reduced to a miserable 160kbps for 5live sportsextra etc..!) and isn't enough for classical music reproduction, strings and "inner detail" especially. (I spent out innocently on the very first Arcam 10 DAB tuner in 2000, so I say this with feeling!). The BBC's own R&D documents from the 1990s said that 256kbps mp2 (as on BBC4/2 TV, oh and CBeebies - never on R3) was the correct level for high-quality stereo, with 224 kbps used when space was tight, and 192 only where the "material" was not "quality-critical"! (PS - classical music is VERY quality-critical).
They trashed all these MPEG2 standards at the behest of OFCOM (under pressure from Tory Govt. of course) in the name of "diversity" i.e. lots & lots of stations at low quality bitrates like 128kbps mp2 for R4 etc. It's a rather little-known broadcasting scandal of our times...

FM can sound excellent in timbre, presence and texture but is currently limited to 30db dynamic range or less and is split-banded, usually to boost the midrange (winds & singers often too close).

Can you treat yourself to a dac, decent optical cable (or usb if the dac does asynchronous usb operation)? There's been a huge increase in the availability of good cheap or cheap-ish dacs recently, due to the use of computers as music sources...

R3 HDs is some way ahead of other sources at the moment (better than BBC4/2 TV sound), it's a very clever codec, not far off cd-quality in its subjective consistency.

My set-up is modest by the standards of some on here: Panasonic digibox for Freeview through a Technics amp and Wharfedale speakers. I am very used to this system and can easily detect the difference in sound between the excellent Davis and Salonen Proms and the muddy sounding LSO/Gergiev. If you listen to sione of the results obtained by the BBC engineers in the early 1960's on stereo releases in the BBC Legends series (try Giulini Dvorak 8 from 1963) you will hear a level of detail and power that makes you wonder what, if any, progress has been made in 50 years.

[Ventilhorn]

Well of course those Legends performances have been transferred to CD quite recently, frequently by the admirable Tony Faulkner, so you'll be hearing them at something like their commercially-possible best, and at higher CD-level resolution than any current web- or broadcast... can you fix it to listen consistently via HDs, the 320 kbps aac feed? And through a decent DAC? The mp2 192kbps freeview feed is the same as DAB (apart from when DAB is reduced to a miserable 160kbps for 5live sportsextra etc..!) and isn't enough for classical music reproduction, strings and "inner detail" especially. (I spent out innocently on the very first Arcam 10 DAB tuner in 2000, so I say this with feeling!). The BBC's own R&D documents from the 1990s said that 256kbps mp2 (as on BBC4/2 TV, oh and CBeebies - never on R3) was the correct level for high-quality stereo, with 224 kbps used when space was tight, and 192 only where the "material" was not "quality-critical"! (PS - classical music is VERY quality-critical).
They trashed all these MPEG2 standards at the behest of OFCOM (under pressure from Tory Govt. of course) in the name of "diversity" i.e. lots & lots of stations at low quality bitrates like 128kbps mp2 for R4 etc. It's a rather little-known broadcasting scandal of our times...

FM can sound excellent in timbre, presence and texture but is currently limited to 30db dynamic range or less and is split-banded, usually to boost the midrange (winds & singers often too close).

Can you treat yourself to a dac, decent optical cable (or usb if the dac does asynchronous usb operation)? There's been a huge increase in the availability of good cheap or cheap-ish dacs recently, due to the use of computers as music sources...

R3 HDs is some way ahead of other sources at the moment (better than BBC4/2 TV sound), it's a very clever codec, not far off cd-quality in its subjective consistency.

Gosh! Fancy knowing all that, Jayne!

I really am very impressed by all these Dacs, DABs, kbps figures, asynchronus USB operation and MPEG2 standards, but I personally do tend to listen to the music, rather than critically appraise what equipment is producing it for me, and as long as the sound (and the performance ) pleases me, I am satisfied with the modest equipment which I possess.

When hi-fi, with its tweeters and woofers first became popular, friends used to invite me to hear my opinion, as a professional musician, of their latest acquisitions. I realised then that many of them were far more concerned with frequency range, dynamic response, etc., than with the actual music being produced with the aid of all that expense (and the fury of their wives for cluttering up the lounge with all those ugly boxes and trailing wires); but each to their own.



I think I'll just stick with my FM receiver and a couple of decent speakers until the BBC forces me to do otherwise.

VH

Not quite sure what all this has to do with the subject of this thread, which I seem to remember is about a performance at one of this year's Promenade concerts.