Well, there was a lot of ambient noise at my house last night (the Newark flight path was over my house last night, it seemed), but I think you're hearing Heifetz breathing. You can also hear some of the orchestra's sheet music being turned at one point, I think.
Slipknot's right about the Water Lily recording, it's a very minimalist recording that sounds very realistic, although to hear it at its best you need to have your speakers at a 90 degree angle to each other or something like that, and don't expect to hear any hall sound (not at all the recording's fault, the venue is as dry a hall as there is). Of the current recording philosophies, I like Delos's best, as I am a fan of their chief recording engineer John Eargle and his work--he does use a few spot mikes, but mixes them in very unobtrusively. Other current classical recording engineers whose work I think is top-notch are Tony Faulkner, Peter McGrath and Michael Bishop (plus the person responsible for the latest SFO recordings), as they seem to have a very good sense of how to make an orchestra sound like you'd hear it in concert. And of course, the great recording teams of the past, Mohr/Layton for RCA, Cozart/Fine for Mercury, and Wilkerson for Decca, all made great-sounding classical recordings. There is no one way to make a recording of an orchestra, as all of these folks use different techniques, but they all have results that are satisfying.
Slipknot's right about the Water Lily recording, it's a very minimalist recording that sounds very realistic, although to hear it at its best you need to have your speakers at a 90 degree angle to each other or something like that, and don't expect to hear any hall sound (not at all the recording's fault, the venue is as dry a hall as there is). Of the current recording philosophies, I like Delos's best, as I am a fan of their chief recording engineer John Eargle and his work--he does use a few spot mikes, but mixes them in very unobtrusively. Other current classical recording engineers whose work I think is top-notch are Tony Faulkner, Peter McGrath and Michael Bishop (plus the person responsible for the latest SFO recordings), as they seem to have a very good sense of how to make an orchestra sound like you'd hear it in concert. And of course, the great recording teams of the past, Mohr/Layton for RCA, Cozart/Fine for Mercury, and Wilkerson for Decca, all made great-sounding classical recordings. There is no one way to make a recording of an orchestra, as all of these folks use different techniques, but they all have results that are satisfying.