I spent the evening doing a comparison of various versions of Beethoven's 3rd symphony and realized something I haven't noticed before. Modern recordings are dynamically compressed. Well I knew that it existed in pop recordings, but always thought that Classical music was free of such things.
Case in point: Furtwangler's 1950's recording compared to Claudio Abbado's recording in the 20th Century with the same orchestra. My memory of the live performance is the finale - when the full orchestra comes on song just before the close, the sheer loudness knocks your socks off. And so it should, when 100 musicians are playing full bore in a confined concert hall. When the same moment is reached in Furtwangler's recording, it compresses, clips, and distorts - which tells you that some recording engineer didn't have his finger on the volume to turn it down. But when the same moment is reached in the Abbado - the fortissimo is reached cleanly. But after careful listening (and the SPL meter on my phone) - the fortissimo is only 6dB louder than the preceding piano.
After listening over and over I am convinced that the Abbado performance isn't that much inferior to the Furtwangler, but the Furtwangler comes across as much more free and exciting - despite the sound quality issues. I think the failure to capture the dynamic swing is what makes it sound bland.
So who is to blame? Is it the media, which does not have enough dynamic range to capture an orchestra in full tilt? Or is it the recording engineer who is determined not to overload the disc?
Case in point: Furtwangler's 1950's recording compared to Claudio Abbado's recording in the 20th Century with the same orchestra. My memory of the live performance is the finale - when the full orchestra comes on song just before the close, the sheer loudness knocks your socks off. And so it should, when 100 musicians are playing full bore in a confined concert hall. When the same moment is reached in Furtwangler's recording, it compresses, clips, and distorts - which tells you that some recording engineer didn't have his finger on the volume to turn it down. But when the same moment is reached in the Abbado - the fortissimo is reached cleanly. But after careful listening (and the SPL meter on my phone) - the fortissimo is only 6dB louder than the preceding piano.
After listening over and over I am convinced that the Abbado performance isn't that much inferior to the Furtwangler, but the Furtwangler comes across as much more free and exciting - despite the sound quality issues. I think the failure to capture the dynamic swing is what makes it sound bland.
So who is to blame? Is it the media, which does not have enough dynamic range to capture an orchestra in full tilt? Or is it the recording engineer who is determined not to overload the disc?