I recently wrote to the BBC and Gramophone magazine, offering to send them a copy of a CD that has the most natural sound of a symphony orchestra of all time. My thought being that once having heard the particular and unique sound they would be so inspired as to realise that there could be a future for the classical music CD industry.
It is of course the industry itself that is and has been responsible for the current, 'Death of the Classical Music CD' situation, having been in self destruct for the past twenty years.
Neither the BBC nor The Gramophone replied; not interested? I suppose. They are so busy with their standard agenda of giving five stars for performance and sound quality to just about every CD they review.
Please tell me you are not the same.
Are you adventurous, passionate.? Do you love classical music in its true form, i.e. not streaming from internet through a couple of small plastic boxes
Up until now only a very few are privileged to have even been aware of the CDs existence. The time has come for the world to know - the Symphony no 10 by Shostakovich - recorded during a live concert performance.
Performance, from the musical standpoint, is highly personal and for a music critic to make categorical statements concerning which orchestra, conductor or soloist gives the finest performance of a work is only relevant to those who agree of course; many would and will disagree. However, when the actual sound quality is the point of discussion, ‘Finest’ can be determined conclusively.
Listening to this particular recording on the ultimate sound system would immediately confirm my claim for anyone who has experienced the wonderful sound of a live concert by a symphony orchestra.
It is so perfect that one gains the impression of actually being in the concert hall during the performance. The drama, the passion, the intensity, the range of orchestral colour; they are all there in stark realism. Most of all there is atmosphere, something that does not exist at all in studio performances and is rare on other CDs.
The dynamics and balance were controlled by the conductor and not compromised by the recording engineer in any way.
Following the concert the precious ‘Acoustic Mirror Image’ was taken home by the engineer and, for the next forty years, it remained in his private collection.
Then came the decision to publish it. It must be published. However, without the necessary marketing experience to ‘inform’, almost nothing has changed, other than a modest announcement on Internet; which we all know does absolutely nothing, unless external support is provided.
There have been just a few critical reviews:
Editor of Fanfare
“I’ve heard OCCDs Shostakovich 10th several times, and agree that it’s exceptional; better than any others I’ve heard. (I believe that the first time I bought it on LP was on DG with Karajan, which was exciting, but nothing like yours.)”
—Joel Flegler (publisher and editor ofFanfare), private correspondence, 30th December 2009
MusicWeb International
“The Royal Festival Hall is a notoriously unforgiving acoustic which especially at this time had a problematic, dry clarity. Nevertheless with canny and practised microphone placement this recording captures fidelity without undue spotlighting. It also captures the full complement of strings that the Prague Symphony orchestra took with them.”
“This fine performance, extremely well captured in sound, is a most worthwhile addition’
—Jonathan Woolf, MusicWeb International, March 2012
International Record Review
“Vaclav Smetacek was a fine conductor and here he shows an outstanding grasp of the long symphonic span of the first movement and a gripping, frenetic kind of urgency when it’s called for elsewhere. The orchestra plays with tremendous clarity and attack (as well as taut discipline) and the result is an account that deserves a very warm recommendation. The sound is particularly clean … this is a remarkable performance.”
—Nigel Simeone, International Record Review, June 2012
Fanfare
“Imagine my surprise when, opening the booklet of this CD, I saw a blurb praising the disc from my editor and publisher, Joel Flegler! Flegler’s rave for this disc references the Karajan recording, which just happens to be the performance I own … So I made the inevitable A–B comparisons.”
“[T]he rhythmic elements […]—like the sonorities—are crisper here than in Karajan’s hands … [W]hat is more interesting is the manner in which The Prague Symphony Orchestra plays the majority of the symphony, so that—thanks to the much greater transparency of texture—it is considerably lighter than Karajan without sacrificing a whit of Karajan’s emotion or energy. The sound quality on this live performance is […] clear, bright, and fresh…”
“Bottom line: Karajan’s version is now out of my collection and ‘Smetacek’s is now in. This one is truly a gem.”
—Lynn René Bayley, Fanfare,36:2, November/December 2012
Collecter review
“[This is] the most riveting, satisfying and moving performance of this great symphony I’ve ever heard. I’ve played it over and over again in the months since I bought it.”
“Your production and engineering on the Shostakovich strike me as things of wonder, with your superb skills placed completely at the service of the music.”
“Many, many thanks for one of the greatest experiences in almost 50 years of listening to recordings of classical music.”
—Bill Abbie, Edinburgh, private correspondence, 30th November 2012
There are some hints as to the exceptional sound quality but that particular aspect of the CD was not the criteria, the quoted comments concentrate, as indeed they should, on the MUSIC and the artistic performance.
I would be very pleased to have gained your interest, I can do no more now, but this historic document should be acknowledged for what it is, 'The Most Natural Sounding Recording of a Symphony Orchestra of all Time', so that the world might hear what, before, has always being unattainable.
You can hear a sample here http://www.orchestralconcertcds.com/cd/cd014.html
Lazinov