Dvorak Cello Concerto

I couldn’t remember the name of the WDR before…thank you for jogging the memory bank.  
@melm i couldn’t tell if your comment was serious or questioning.  I will say that the newish Weilerstein will take a lot to beat in the Sonics department.  Decca hasn’t lost their touch.

  I am listening to DuPre/Barenboim now.  It’s better than I remembered it to be, but I still think DB gets a bit to cute with rubato in some of the melt in your mouth nostalgic parts.  The beauty is there in the music and it doesn’t need italicizing from a 30 ish wunderkind Conductor.  However as I stated previously it isn’t as blatant as I had thought, and if this were the only recording of the piece I could easily live it.  Like most Classical works in the pantheon it faces stiff competition, and the great is the enemy of the good

@goofyfoot 
In many ways I am partial to the older (stereo, of course) methods of recordings.  We don't have to span the universe of recordings to compare a few mentioned here.  I said earlier that I am partial to the Starker/Dorati Dvorak recording.  It is on Mercury.  Your discussion about old recording masters is besides the point here.  Mercury didn't make masters.  They went to the cutting lathe or to the ADC directly from the original session tapes.  They still do.  Moreover they continued to use the same set of three microphones whether or not there was a soloist (with one exception late in tlteir recording history).  

Now, a cello sounds very different close up than at a distance.  In the context of a concerto with a full orchestra and the cello at a distance, it's my personal experience that a cello will sound thinner and somewhat more nasal than when close up.  IMO that sound is captured by the 3 mike Mercury technique, the cosest mike being (probably) at least 16 feet from the cello.  The sound of the cello in the Dvorak sounds quite different than in Starker's famous Bach set, also on Mercury and more closely miked.

Modern recording, Decca or not, uses a forest of microphones to a mixing console.  They likely do place a mike or mikes on a soloist and get a different kind of sound that's not available to an audience member.  They mix a close-up of the solo instrument (sometimes with "proximity effect") with the sound of the orchestra.  

The difference may be in whether we get a sound per our audio preference, or one that is closer to an actual performance.  No different here than in so many other aspects of audio.

@melm yeah, well you asked me if newer recordings 'always' sound better than earlier recordings so I just answered the best I could. And, my reference to using master tapes means the original tapes from the original recording.

Microphone placement varies today just as it always has. The Jean-Guihen Queyras Dvorak recording from Harmonia Mundi  is open and natural sounding so I would guess that the microphone placement is further away from the cello. Also, the same types of microphones are available today just as they were back in the day. Telefunken still makes their ELA M 251E, U47 and C12 vacuum tube microphones.

I have no desire to argue, especially where it pertains to personal preference but recording technologies have progressed over the years. Whether a record label is capable or willing to use these technological advancements is questionable.

I've been amazed at the remastering job Analogue Productions did with the RCA Living Stereo of 'Scheherazade'. This recording is a simple three track recording from around 1958. The Analogue Productions remaster is nothing short of amazing.

I did state that I thought the performance practice of works is different now from what it used to be and for me, that is neither good or bad because there are great contemporary performances and great historical performances. I believe this applies to the Dvorak Cello Concerto as well.

@melm I heard Weilerstein and the Czech PO perform the piece in Chicago, with Bychkov conducting, as Behlolavak had passed away.  Aural memories can fail us, but I think the Decca recording is very faithful to a concert perspective .

  Starker had a more laser like intonation and at least in his non Bach recordings had less vibrato than Rostropovich, Gendron, Du Pre, Weilerstein, etc.  I have his Bach recordings but its been a while since I last heard them so  I will except those. The contemporary Cellist that most reminds me of Starker is Capucon.

I’ve been listening to the Rostropovich/Karajan the last few days and have been using it to do some system comparisons.  Regarding the performance, it is absolutely fine.  There is plenty of virtuosity on display, not the least being the burnished horns of the BPO.  This recording really shines in the slow movement.  Somehow it doesn’t sound as convincing to me as my two favorites, but its nothing to sneeze at.

  My CA streamer does AirPlay and Chromecast.  I recently added Apple Music as I have become dissatisfied with Qobuz for a few reasons and have been thinking of dumping it, and used this recording as a comparator this morning.  First I AirPlay from my iPad to the CA .  Next up was casting from Qobuz on my Android phone, and ended with Qobuz playing directly through the streamer.  It improved with each iteration, but the biggest jump was the last, as the Cello became distinctly fuller sounding and the sound stage snapping into place