Haha! I don't go back that far.
I've said myself of some equipment that it evokes the live experience, but I don't know anyone that claims identity. Perhaps you are lucky to encounter listeners with such auspicious systems!
new---Berlin Philharmonic Direct to Disc Bruckner No.7 Box Set---order while you can!
- Thread starter Mike Lavigne
- Start date
Haha! I don't go back that far.
I've said myself of some equipment that it evokes the live experience, but I don't know anyone that claims identity. Perhaps you are lucky to encounter listeners with such auspicious systems!
No, but a few will tell you that it sounds better than the real thing. But there are good reasons for it. The recording is "cooked" to surpass the absence of the visual stimulus and the venue ambience, and some people can prefer it to the real event.
and i'm fine with that cooking.
i think there is a difference between preferring a particular music reproduction experience to the real thing and saying it's the same. and the concept of 'suspension of disbelief' is yet another thing. we get moments, even sustained moments, where we 'forget' about the idea of the music being reproduced. we like to live on that edge, yet we know, and even in my case mostly prefer, that it's not the same as live. i want the pull of the musical flow that i can regulate to fit my situation. and then repeat it as much i want.
in the case of large orchestral reproduced music, it can be powerful and satisfying. where you push it, and it goes farther. then push a little more, and there is more.
i think there is a difference between preferring a particular music reproduction experience to the real thing and saying it's the same. and the concept of 'suspension of disbelief' is yet another thing. we get moments, even sustained moments, where we 'forget' about the idea of the music being reproduced. we like to live on that edge, yet we know, and even in my case mostly prefer, that it's not the same as live. i want the pull of the musical flow that i can regulate to fit my situation. and then repeat it as much i want.
in the case of large orchestral reproduced music, it can be powerful and satisfying. where you push it, and it goes farther. then push a little more, and there is more.
Kinda with Mike on that one. Well at least with some genres like rock’n’roll because live shows are loud AF.
I just opened my copy this morning after a week. This is by far the purest timbre I have heard in here, incredibly complex and beautiful string tone, fascinating flute and piccolo, you-are-there on the stage presentation, and yes, great dynamic headroom even in the first movement. Natural.
Can't tell what others are hearing, but to me, this is a milestone in the history of recorded arts. Yes, there are some small pops and ticks here and there, and very low-level rumble... Packaging and presentation, as others have said, is also the best I have ever seen.
Can't tell what others are hearing, but to me, this is a milestone in the history of recorded arts. Yes, there are some small pops and ticks here and there, and very low-level rumble... Packaging and presentation, as others have said, is also the best I have ever seen.
this morning i started out with some vinyl on CS Port with a Mozart String Quartet by Quartetto Italiano, then a Beethoven Piano/Violin Sonata by Perlman/Ashkenazy, then was looking for an Orchestral piece to finish out the morning, and stumbled........on..........a Decca Box set of the Solti/Vienna Philharmonic Bruckner 7th! i did not know i had it.
since my box sets are on a separate set of shelves i do sometimes find surprises there i forgot i had.
i'm now half way through the 2nd movement. this is really wonderful to my ears in my system. great flowing majestic performance and top level recording. certainly a different perspective and more conventional large scale mid-hall viewpoint. i think an excellent companion recording to the dtd Haitink.
https://www.discogs.com/Georg-Solti...ony-No-7-In-E-Siegfried-Idyll/release/8731536
since my box sets are on a separate set of shelves i do sometimes find surprises there i forgot i had.
i'm now half way through the 2nd movement. this is really wonderful to my ears in my system. great flowing majestic performance and top level recording. certainly a different perspective and more conventional large scale mid-hall viewpoint. i think an excellent companion recording to the dtd Haitink.
https://www.discogs.com/Georg-Solti...ony-No-7-In-E-Siegfried-Idyll/release/8731536
Last edited:
this morning i started out with some vinyl on CS Port with a Mozart String Quartet by Quartetto Italiano, then a Beethoven Piano/Violin Sonata by Perlman/Ashkenazy, then was looking for an Orchestral piece to finish out the morning, and stumbled........on..........a Decca Box set of the Solti/Vienna Philharmonic Bruckner 7th! i did not know i had it.
since my box sets are on a separate set of shelves i do sometimes find surprises there i forgot i had.
i'm now half way through the 2nd movement. this is really wonderful to my ears in my system. great flowing majestic performance and top level recording. certainly a different perspective and more conventional large scale mid-hall viewpoint. i think an excellent companion recording to the dtd Haitink.
https://www.discogs.com/Georg-Solti...ony-No-7-In-E-Siegfried-Idyll/release/8731536
View attachment 67396
Solti/VPO on Bruckner might be superb indeed.
I received my copy this past week but haven’t played it as I finally received all the goodies I need to set up my Dohmann Helix 1 Mk2 and Reed 3P/ZYX Uni Premium so I’ve been, shall we say…a bit distracted with set-up duties.
It’s interesting to see some of the reactions some have had to the 7th Symphony. We all know that it’s easy to listen to a piece of music and gain an impression of its relative musical pleasure without knowing anything more about the piece or the composer. That’s often eass to do with some types of classical music more than others. But sometimes, I find that knowing a bit about the composer and understanding the purpose of the piece can be very helpful in appreciating the work as well as the performance. I find this is particularly true with the large symphonic works of the Romantic repertoire. Here are some thoughts on Bruckner that might translate to your enjoyment as you contemplate this masterwork.
First, I’d like to refer to some comments I made last November after hearing Bruckner’s 4th at Carnegie (post 656) quoted below.
https://www.whatsbestforum.com/threads/recent-concerts-youve-enjoyed.3840/page-33#post-610517
“As far as Bruckner, it always impressed me that as a peasant from North Austria who was known for his baggy pants and shabby clothes, his devout Catholicism would translate to such majestic, noble and elegant writing which was typically about the glory of God. His 4th is no exception. It’s a big piece and full of grand and powerful expressions that remain a high water mark of the romantic repertoire. Bruckner’s themes are very long and built cumulatively from many elements. If Beethoven’s themes can be likened to pithy sentence fragments, Bruckner’s are fully developed paragraphs. Bruckner was an organist and left his playing days behind him to enter the Vienna Conservatory as a teacher of composition at the relatively late age of 44. He wrote his last 8 symphonies from that point on. His regard as a composer of great stature is why there is a “school “named after him – the Viennese School of composition (often called the Bruckner/Viennese school) which has invariably been mastered by most great conductors since then.
Bruckner certainly knew how to write for brass! (Who do you think taught Mahler, 36 years Bruckner’s junior, to write for brass?) The orchestra for this piece swelled from about 75 players to well over 100 and they certainly rocked the hall (or more appropriately, with the horns and brass, they blew the roof off). It is most fitting that Bruckner’s 4th symphony received its Carnegie Hall premier in 1910 with Gustav Mahler conducting the NY Philharmonic. Cool stuff!.
The 4th is a big and complex piece that requires focused attention to absorb its myriad of harmonic and rhythmic themes. I particularly liked the slow movement which has been likened to a veiled funeral march. But instead of the anguish we always hear in Mahler’s funeral marches, there is gentle tenderness and sorrow in Bruckner, who saw death not as an end but as the beginning of a full union with God. In my view, Mahler certainly achieves the full acceptance of God equally well, (i.e., the 2nd and the 9th) but it’s as if he always asks God along the way, “why are you crapping on my head all the time”? Bruckner was a far less contentious believer.”
Regarding the 7th which BBC Music Magazine lists as the 20th greatest symphony of all time (it lists Bruckner’s 8th as the 13th greatest), it was written in 1883. (Anybody want to name a classical work written today that will be played and revered 140 years from now?) Perhaps the best overview of Bruckner’s symphonies is a description written by Deryck Cooke (the musicologist/composer who completed Mahler’s 10th in 1960 which premiered in 1964 at the Proms by the LSO).
“Despite its general debt to Beethoven and Wagner, the “Bruckner Symphony” is a unique conception, not only because of the individuality of its spirit and its materials, but even more because of the absolute originality of its formal processes. At first, these processes seemed so strange and unprecedented that they were taken as evidence of sheer incompetence…. Now it is recognized that Bruckner’s unorthodox structural methods were inevitable…. Bruckner created a new and monumental type of symphonic organism, which abjured the tense, dynamic continuity of Beethoven, and the broad, fluid continuity of Wagner, in order to express something profoundly different from either composer, something elemental and metaphysical…his extraordinary attitude to the world, and the nature of his materials which arose from this attitude, dictated an entirely unorthodox handling of the traditional formal procedures. Sonata form is a dynamic, humanistic process, always going somewhere, constantly trying to arrive; but with Bruckner firm in his religious faith, the music has no need to go anywhere, no need to find a point of arrival, because it is already there…Experiencing Bruckner’s symphonic music is more like walking around a cathedral, and taking in each aspect of it, than like setting out on a journey to some hoped-for goal.”
I really related to the last sentence as that is the feeling I had walking around the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona. The 7th tries to capture that and more as its all about the sacred and religious faith, which are always the main themes of Bruckner’s symphonies. Sometimes knowing a bit of the composer’s back story and objectives is what can make the difference between immersion and appreciation of the piece and....falling asleep.! Enjoy.
It’s interesting to see some of the reactions some have had to the 7th Symphony. We all know that it’s easy to listen to a piece of music and gain an impression of its relative musical pleasure without knowing anything more about the piece or the composer. That’s often eass to do with some types of classical music more than others. But sometimes, I find that knowing a bit about the composer and understanding the purpose of the piece can be very helpful in appreciating the work as well as the performance. I find this is particularly true with the large symphonic works of the Romantic repertoire. Here are some thoughts on Bruckner that might translate to your enjoyment as you contemplate this masterwork.
First, I’d like to refer to some comments I made last November after hearing Bruckner’s 4th at Carnegie (post 656) quoted below.
https://www.whatsbestforum.com/threads/recent-concerts-youve-enjoyed.3840/page-33#post-610517
“As far as Bruckner, it always impressed me that as a peasant from North Austria who was known for his baggy pants and shabby clothes, his devout Catholicism would translate to such majestic, noble and elegant writing which was typically about the glory of God. His 4th is no exception. It’s a big piece and full of grand and powerful expressions that remain a high water mark of the romantic repertoire. Bruckner’s themes are very long and built cumulatively from many elements. If Beethoven’s themes can be likened to pithy sentence fragments, Bruckner’s are fully developed paragraphs. Bruckner was an organist and left his playing days behind him to enter the Vienna Conservatory as a teacher of composition at the relatively late age of 44. He wrote his last 8 symphonies from that point on. His regard as a composer of great stature is why there is a “school “named after him – the Viennese School of composition (often called the Bruckner/Viennese school) which has invariably been mastered by most great conductors since then.
Bruckner certainly knew how to write for brass! (Who do you think taught Mahler, 36 years Bruckner’s junior, to write for brass?) The orchestra for this piece swelled from about 75 players to well over 100 and they certainly rocked the hall (or more appropriately, with the horns and brass, they blew the roof off). It is most fitting that Bruckner’s 4th symphony received its Carnegie Hall premier in 1910 with Gustav Mahler conducting the NY Philharmonic. Cool stuff!.
The 4th is a big and complex piece that requires focused attention to absorb its myriad of harmonic and rhythmic themes. I particularly liked the slow movement which has been likened to a veiled funeral march. But instead of the anguish we always hear in Mahler’s funeral marches, there is gentle tenderness and sorrow in Bruckner, who saw death not as an end but as the beginning of a full union with God. In my view, Mahler certainly achieves the full acceptance of God equally well, (i.e., the 2nd and the 9th) but it’s as if he always asks God along the way, “why are you crapping on my head all the time”? Bruckner was a far less contentious believer.”
Regarding the 7th which BBC Music Magazine lists as the 20th greatest symphony of all time (it lists Bruckner’s 8th as the 13th greatest), it was written in 1883. (Anybody want to name a classical work written today that will be played and revered 140 years from now?) Perhaps the best overview of Bruckner’s symphonies is a description written by Deryck Cooke (the musicologist/composer who completed Mahler’s 10th in 1960 which premiered in 1964 at the Proms by the LSO).
“Despite its general debt to Beethoven and Wagner, the “Bruckner Symphony” is a unique conception, not only because of the individuality of its spirit and its materials, but even more because of the absolute originality of its formal processes. At first, these processes seemed so strange and unprecedented that they were taken as evidence of sheer incompetence…. Now it is recognized that Bruckner’s unorthodox structural methods were inevitable…. Bruckner created a new and monumental type of symphonic organism, which abjured the tense, dynamic continuity of Beethoven, and the broad, fluid continuity of Wagner, in order to express something profoundly different from either composer, something elemental and metaphysical…his extraordinary attitude to the world, and the nature of his materials which arose from this attitude, dictated an entirely unorthodox handling of the traditional formal procedures. Sonata form is a dynamic, humanistic process, always going somewhere, constantly trying to arrive; but with Bruckner firm in his religious faith, the music has no need to go anywhere, no need to find a point of arrival, because it is already there…Experiencing Bruckner’s symphonic music is more like walking around a cathedral, and taking in each aspect of it, than like setting out on a journey to some hoped-for goal.”
I really related to the last sentence as that is the feeling I had walking around the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona. The 7th tries to capture that and more as its all about the sacred and religious faith, which are always the main themes of Bruckner’s symphonies. Sometimes knowing a bit of the composer’s back story and objectives is what can make the difference between immersion and appreciation of the piece and....falling asleep.! Enjoy.
Or to put it another way, Bruckner's music is stillness in motion.
Beautiful, just beautiful. I am the typical big Mahler and Bruckner fan and this one stands out. I hope they’ll do a 4th with another equally great conductor.
'Surpass the absence' what a phrase.
Nah, not the recording, your 'cooking' happens in your head.
The New Realism.
If you can't perfectly capture a live event, you can't perfectly portray a live event.
Much better than the previous double negative.
Yes, reproduction is not reality.
Even if one could perfectly capture a live event, using what is captured remains a reproduction.
But do we know what "perfectly capture" means?
Recording a CD. Perfect sound forever ... As far as I know it was the only time we had perfection in a very unperfect sound reproduction system known as stereo.
Similar threads
