Sat front row at the symphony...

@viber6 , thank you for your comments.  We clearly have different perspectives on some of the issues discussed.  I feel that you take some of the points that you are making to an extreme that is not only inaccurate imo, but that clouds the issue being discussed.  It is simply not true that an orchestra is always reduced to playing pianissimo when the solo violin is playing.  Of course care is taken so as to not overpower the solo violin in the big tuttis, but in most concerti there are passages in which the orchestra can play at and the score instructs reasonably healthy levels while the solo violin plays.  With respect, I think you exaggerate the point.  One may prefer a different type of balance as a listener, but that is not necessarily “best”.  Moreover, if sitting very close it is not only the soloist that is then heard more loudly.  Everything will be louder.  On hears more separation of instrumental lines, but little blend.  Blend is important.  

I stand by my comment about the significance of the fact that there was no recording technology when these great works were composed.  Additionally, there also existed large concert halls at the time and the idea that only sitting in the first or second row can one hear the work as intended by the composer is unrealistic.  This is the problem with comparing the home high-end listening experience to the live.  We can become used to the music and its details being thrown at us, instead of being willing to aurally lean into the music as we listen.  We may prefer the balance and spot lighting that home audio provides, but this doesn’t necessarily honor the composer’s intent.  In my opinion the composer’s intent is paramount.  

****It is a legitimate tactic of the recording engineer to boost the SPL of the violin by close miking in order to get more equality between the soloist and orch, even if the natural balance is altered.****

How can altering what is natural be legitimate?  Perhaps a necessary evil and legitimate for recordings only because the immediacy of live performance is lessened by the recording process, even in the best recordings.  Then, you have the problem of the way that close miking inevitably alters timbre, not only volume.

An example that I pointed out previously.  A unison line scored for, say, bass clarinet and cello (a common orchestration technique) heard from the first row of the audience will sound like…..a bass clarinet and a cello playing the same notes twenty feet apart.  Two different tonal colors playing the same notes.  Heard from a distance, say, tenth row or even mid hall it will sound much more as intended: a single, but altogether new and different tonal color in the composer’s tonal palette.    
 

In answer to your question.  I have played clarinets (primarily bass clarinet) and saxophones professionally my entire working life.  Often in the very hall and with the orchestra where mahler123 heard the Shostakovich concerto.  “David Geffen Hall”, is the new name, btw.  I agree with his assessment of the improvement in the sound after renovation.  Not only from the audience, but on stage one hears much improved definition from the bass section.  Before, the low frequency energy was there, but little pitch definition.  Much improved clarity overall. 
 

Regards.

frogman,

Ah, now I understand you better.  Your references are bass clarinet, saxes which are middle and lower midrange/midbass instruments, as opposed to the violin, which is midrange/HF.  Lower freq instruments gel at greater distance, and are more focused at greater distance.  But the violin has severe HF loss with distance, due to the physics of the air medium's preferential absorption of HF.  As a result, the limited SPL of the violin is severely lost at HF.  Still, the sax has HF transients which can be lost at greater distance.  I once played on a shallow stage, seated in an inner violin seat close to the French horn.  For the first time, I heard the midrange/HF tactile edges of the horn, part of its natural tone, whereas when heard from greater distance it has only a smooth, amorphous legato type sound.  James Boyk wrote an article about "life after 20 kHz" to show that even the old smoothie F horn has significant output at 9 kHz.

I appreciate that the bass clarinet and cello are separated more at close distances than from further away.  Now we get into the issues of different seating arrangements on stage.  The standard American seating is 1st and 2nd violins together on the left, cellos in front right.  I admit that onstage, playing 1st violin, I love this position where I can hear the 2nd violins playing the lower octave close to me.  But in the audience, this rear 2nd violin position severely rolls off the HF and brilliance of that section.  The composer wrote the 2nd violin part to be less brilliant than the 1st violin part, so it is a shame to further handicap the 2nds.  An exception is the Rossini string sonatas where the 1st and 2nd violin parts are almost identical, and he wanted a ping pong effect from the European seating (see below).  You probably enjoy the recessed usual 2nd violin positioning, so when the 1sts and 2nds alternate, you get an echo effect, a spatiality game from the upfront 1sts and recessed 2nds.  I just hate the obvious muddied sound of the poor 2nds compared to the 1sts.  

The European style is to have the 2nd violins in the front row on the right.  Toscanini described the 1st violins as his left shoulder and the 2nds as his right shoulder.  As a player on the stage, I dislike this arrangement the way you dislike the separation of the bass clarinet and cello.  But in the audience, it is nice to have the separation that Toscanini liked.  Still, the 2nds are handicapped because their soundboard projects to the rear of the stage, and the 1sts project front to the audience.

My most enjoyable recordings have been with small chamber groups spread out like a crescent.  Relatively close miking lets everyone shine.  Even if there is more separation which has the risk of poor blending, good musicians play together to get good blending even in this situation.  But if the stage is wide and deep, the separation impedes the ensemble.  An example was when I heard the Prelude to Act 1 of Lohengrin.  The front string section was brilliant and clear, but the two cymbal crashes at the climax were a DISASTER sonically.  The cymbals were at the rear of the deep stage.  The reverberation from the deep stage caused smearing of the HF brilliance of the cymbals.  The cymbal is the most brilliant instrument, with lots of energy up to 200 kHz, but this sounded worse than a terrible home speaker with the tweeters blown.

Also, do you know the 1967 Turnabout LP of the Rachmaninoff Symphonic Dances, Dallas Symphony conducted by Donald Johanos?  The 3rd movement highlight is the crackling brass fanfare near the end, culminating in cymbal and tympani crashes.  This was done with close miking on a shallow stage.  All other recordings have a distant, reverberant perspective which dilutes and confuses the impact from excessive ambience.  Boring garbage sonically.

+1 @frogman 

  especially the comments about highlighting the soloist in recordings, and the excellent comment about the doubling of instruments to form a unison line.

I've been enjoying all of this discourse about concert hall seating. No so much different from user preferences in home audio I think. Some folks want infinite  detail (they call it transparency I think) and folks who go to concerts like the big blend not so much an audiophiles 'transparency'. At home I'm hearing music I know pretty well and often I listen to it in a subdued fashion as I read or otherwise occupy myself. When I go to a concert I want to be involved! I want dynamics. I want the impact I can get in isle 8 dead center (for example). If I want to learn the music I do it at home, but in a live concert I don't want to even think about anything that might be important to an audiophile. But that's just me. :-)