Re: GG: Royal Cons. & more

["John P. Hill" <jphill@frank.mtsu.edu>]

Klmmoor wrote:

"Lastly, I was listening to the GG Sibelius disc at the office on Tuesday,
and it got me thinking about the recording technique of multiple
perspectives that was employed for these pieces. (Stegemann's liner notes
to this disc and the comparison he makes to Prokofiev's similar recording
process are particularly pithy.) I would like the opinion of the more
ardent audiophiles out there,just how successful was the recording as a
new means of designing audio space and making "the image of the instrument
most appropriate to the music of the moment." It certainly provides a new
depth and lushness to Gould's performance, in light of his otherwise
skeletal performing style, but at the bottom of it all, is it really
anything more than a noisy reverb?"


The short anwser would be "yes", it really is different and also a rather
uncommon technique.  The more common production/engineering procedure
would be to establish *one* combination of close-placed and
distantly-placed microphones to establish the overall reverberant balance
and stereo imaging.  Once the producer (and possibly artist) have agreed
upon this balance, it is usually maintained WITHOUT CHANGE throughout the
recording process, even if the artist has to come in months later to redo
certain passages or add new material.

I don't have the Sibelius disc, so I can't comment on that one, but you
can hear a similar effect on the (Hindemith) Marienleben album by
carefully auditioning the first pieces in the cycle.  You'll notice
that the opening aria ("The Birth of Mary") is the sonic equivalent of
what would be a long-distance establishing shot for the film director
(it's pretty clear that GG thought a good deal in filmic terms and I know
several engineers who speak of "shooting" instruments with their mics in
an acoustic space).

The mix here includes lots of the more distant room mics and
both performers are set back in a pleasant "ambient glow" of the room
sound.  Without getting into a detailed analysis of the song's text, this
perspective does seem appropriate for this beautiful piece
describing the night of Mary's birth (from the angels' perspective!)
as they "soar aloft" and guide the principal characters toward the birth
of the Mother (and by extension, the birth of Christ).

The next song ("The Presentation of Mary in the Temple") sounds like
a subtlely different blend.  The piano perspective seems much
closer (more tight mics) and there is less of the room ambience in the
mix.  I believe the Marienleben was recorded on four-track (or was it
eight?), so it would be possible to change these perspectives to taste in
remixing.

I have no doubt that GG knew *exactly* what he wanted in this shifting
of acoustic perspective and I doubt very much (Kazdin could tell us) that
this was an accident or some sort of production oversight.  GG was way too
much of a control freak to allow that and Kazdin (apparently) gave him
carte blanche when it came to artistic decision-making in the recording
and editing process.

It is fairly routine to employ a more distance, reverberant perspective
for recordings of Impressionist works (Debussy, Ravel, et. al.) and a
closer, somewhat drier perspective for polyphonic pieces (Schiff's English
Suites notwithstanding).  What makes Gould's approach interesting is
the deliberate manipulation of these "shots" between movements or sections
of a work.


jh