My UHQR copy of "Kind of Blue" for jazz.
"Dire Straits" (their debut album)
If there was only ONE album/cd/release you can listen to, over and over.............
Your " best ever " recording, which has likely been discussed ad nauseam, would you select, say, if given a choice of only one ( whatever the scenario would be; stranded on an island, locked up in isolation, all music gone, but this one ). As hard as this is, as there are so many to choose from, I have selected " A Tribute To Jack Johnson ", by the esteemed Miles Davis ( 1992 Columbia version ). I have selected this, specifically for the performances, as I do with all of my listening. The playing.....the musicianship.....the arrangement.....the story, set to music, by the esteemed M.D.. And, my system delivers the message, so I feel proud of my set up. What can I say ? I hope everyone well, and, ENJOY ! Always, MrD.
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Easy: I have burned my entire CD collection onto my streamer and assembled into a continuous stream. That is my pick.
Does this violate the rules?
And it was recorded by some of the best orchestral and choir sound engineers. And it was recorded DIGITALLY, back in the day when digital was the enstranged child of music recording. Sorry, vinyl people, your best bet is to get this in a digital format. (Qobuz’s rendering of this equals the CD pressing.)
I believe that John Eliot Gardiner is to Handel what Neville Mariner and The Academy of Saint -Martin-In-The-Fields was to Mozart. Handel’s "Der Messias", conducted by John Eliot Gardiner Gardiner’s Messiah was recorded in a European Cathedral, where it was written to be performed.
Gardiner, the small size of the choir and chamber orchestra, is precisely how Handel wrote The Messiah--more as a ballet, a ballad--not a huge in your face choral shout-fest, and NOT for giant choirs and giant orchestras.
Handel’s Messiah was written nimble and precise, with fast attacks and transients, as man audiophiles love to say. For instance, the first two-thirds of The Hallelujuah Choir is to sound like a light-hearted ballet, with delicate instruments playing in the vein of Mozart’s Eine Kleine Nachtmusik (A Little Night Music). Only a small, tight choir and orchestra can accomplish this.
Most recordings of The Hallelujuah Chorus blow it out and come on full bore with 300 voices. It is like how to properly cook an egg: most folks murder the eggs--overcook them by overbeating them, adding way too much ingrediants, and add too much heat, turning them into rubber. A properly cooked egg is simple, fluffy, delicately spiced and presented in a tasteful manner that allows the natural elements to shine. If you want LOTS OF EGGS (i.e., huge soundstage), then increase the amount of properly cooked and layered eggs--not heat, additives or physical beatings of the whisk.
Of course, The Messiah has sections where the choir is supposed to sound HUGE--the most well known of these sections being the last third of The Hallelujuah Chorus. And here is the trick: a small, tight choir--classifically trained--projects their voices against each other, layering upon each other, building an amplification of tones that--when set against a Cathedral backdrop that resonates--swells the sound of the choir to a presentation every bit as huge as the Mormon Tabernacle Choir (now renamed as the "The Tabernacle Choir").
However, unlike how the Morman Tabernacle Choir’s "hugeness" is sloppy and dissonant (like a poorly ported sub-woofer that lacks precision), the Monteverdi Choir achieves a huge choral soundstage while retaining the tightness and articulation (like a Magico speaker) that only a small choral group can achieve.
It is a landmark recording.
Of course, I have to turn up the volume to hear the delicate complexities. This will not play at the same volume level of an Ed Sheeran recording, whose tracks are modern and clear and immensely voice forward--which I truly love for HIS recordings. Rather, you--well, I do, at least--have to really crank up Gardiner’s version of Messiah to realize the full soundstage.
But this is a GOOD thing, because it shows how superbly and properly the sound engineers packed all of the complexities of a chamber choir and orchestra, recorded in a huge cathedral, in proper relationship with each other, without losing precision and layered nuance. It is ALL there. Just crank it up. And to boot, when you crank it up, you will NOT hear noise. The backgrounds are BLACK and QUIET.
Again, truly a landmark recording. I can go to my grave with this one.
PS: My very close runner-up is the John Rutter conducted Christmas Night: Carols of the Nativity, by the Cambridge Singers and City of London Sinfonia. This is THE GREATEST Christmas recording. Period. Crank this one up for soundstage, as well. Make sure to get the recently digital remastered release. |
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