Posted by Eric Nagamine on February 16, 2002 at 16:54:07:
In Reply to: Re: Old CSO Low Brass......overrated???????? posted by Richard on February 16, 2002 at 10:43:09:
Multimiking/multichannel recordings were being done long before Decca started recording in Medinah Temple. Reiner's Scherezade has some jumbo clarinets that ain't natural. Stokowski was a notorious dial spinner whose ideas weren't for natural sounding recordings and part of the Heifetz sound is due to the miking.
The problem with many CSO decca recordings is that they took an agressive sound and exaggerated it. I've never heard a CSO concert where the brass were as agressive sounding as they did in the final recording. If anything, Decca got worse as time went by, not better. I attended several CSO concerts in orchestra hall that Decca recorded live for release and final product was nothing like the concerts. The orchestra was heavily miked with isolation/reinforcement baffles in place and horns were often placed away from the rest of the brass for better isolation in the concerts. On the issued CD, the horns were panned back into place electronically. Hardly the way they sounded in concert.