Piano concerto recordings better than live performances ?

[ahofer]

I doubt preferences are being driven by sponsorship. I think great artists deserve a little more credit than that.

I don't. But I don't think any humans do, because bias is unavoidable. They might avoid a company that makes bad instruments, but a basically decent design can be tweaked to their liking. Pianos are trickier because you don't usually travel with them, but Carnegie, for instance, has a warehouse full of pianos the artist can choose from. I remember seeing some great footage of Horowitz trying them out before his return concert.

 

[ahofer]

In most well designed halls there is minimal attenuation at any seat in the hall other than the nose bleed seats.

Tell it to the old Geffen Hall (I know "well designed", like "true scotsman"). I find recordings present a lot more volume for the soloist than you experience in a larger concert hall, again, I think, due to spot-microphone mixing.

 

[Justdafactsmaam]

I don't. But I don't think any humans do, because bias is unavoidable. They might avoid a company that makes bad instruments, but a basically decent design can be tweaked to their liking. Pianos are trickier because you don't usually travel with them, but Carnegie, for instance, has a warehouse full of pianos the artist can choose from. I remember seeing some great footage of Horowitz trying them out before his return concert.

Bias is unavoidable. But I doubt it’s causing soloists to choose inferior instruments due to sponsorship.

I very much disagree that “a basically decent design” is the bar for soloists and their choice of pianos. I think Carnegie has three Steinways. Most major venues have two or three. It’s not uncommon for a soloist to be dissatisfied with all of their options forcing them to choose the lesser evil. Steinways are the equivalent to both a formula one race car and a race horse. They are literally built on the edge of self destruction, have a period of settling in for about five to seven years, a peak period of about another five to seven years and then go down hill and are put to pasture after that. Each one has its own personality. Like a formula one race car they are fine tuned right before a performance and stay that way for maybe an hour or two.

The working relationship between a pianist, the piano, the piano technician and the concert hall is complex, intense and sometimes less than harmonious.

 

[Justdafactsmaam]

Tell it to the old Geffen Hall (I know "well designed", like "true scotsman"). I find recordings present a lot more volume for the soloist than you experience in a larger concert hall, again, I think, due to spot-microphone mixing.

Old Geffon hall was not a well designed hall. It was terrible. The new Geffon hall still sucks. The old one was worse. There is no shortage of bad concert halls in this world.

 

[Robin L]

Old Geffon hall was not a well designed hall. It was terrible. The new Geffon hall still sucks. The old one was worse. There is no shortage of bad concert halls in this world.

Yes, but it's "Geffen", as in David Geffen, the man who "Discovered Laura Nyro", created Asylum Records, became filthy rich and had a most hilarious lawsuit with Neil Young:

Geffen Records vs. Neil Young – Infamous Rock Lawsuits

ultimateclassicrock.com

How David Geffen spent the Covid Lockdown:

Billionaire David Geffen criticized for tone-deaf self-isolation post

Record producer Geffen, who is worth about $7.7bn, shares picture with his Instagram followers aboard mega-yacht in Caribbean

www.theguardian.com

 

[ahofer]

Yes, but it's "Geffen", as in David Geffen, the man who "Discovered Laura Nyro", created Asylum Records, became filthy rich and had a most hilarious lawsuit with Neil Young:

Also the new Geffen Hall is really pretty good. I’ve been to 7 concerts there so far and sat in various locations, none of them duds.

 

[danielha]

Hello all !

Since the 70's Cabasse has spent a lot of time and research in order to make their speaker deliver a sound as close to the recording as possible. This ended-up in public sessions were people could listen & compare both recorded and live music.

L'âme de Cabasse : la Live Music — Forum Cabasse

www.forumcabasse.org

Obviously this kind of session did require a little more than just a perfect stereo record and a mere pair of high-end speakers...

Daniel

 

[Cbdb2]

Maximum SPLs contrary to intuition are generally experienced from mid hall seats.

How's that work?

 

[MattHooper]

I can always tell real from recorded also. Dosnt mean one is better than the other. If you can't hear critical distance I can't help you there. Considering most of the audiance in a concert hall is beyond that distance (it can be as low as 20') your listening to its effect all the time. When the sound of the room (reflections, reverberation, even room modes) is 10db hotter than the piano the piano looses clarity, definition and its freq response changes. Most of what your hearing happend 200ms before covering up the attack of the present sound. It can turn to mush. And the room dosnt have to be that large. So yea if you like a mushy boomy vague sounding piano sit in the last third of a bad hall. It still sound real though.

Certainly. I wasn't making the case someone else has to prefer all live piano sounds over any recorded piano. I'm just expressing my experience that live piano always sounds different, and it sounds different in particular ways that I like. I will choose hearing a real piano at a distance in a concert hall than a closer recording played back through speakers.

 

[Justdafactsmaam]

How's that work?

Concert hall acoustics: Recent findings

In recent years a number of papers have appeared in a variety of technical publications that deal with both the physical and psychological aspects of the acoust

pubs.aip.org

Section V sound field in the hall explains it.

 

[NTK]

Maximum SPLs contrary to intuition are generally experienced from mid hall seats.

How's that work?

Concert hall acoustics: Recent findings

In recent years a number of papers have appeared in a variety of technical publications that deal with both the physical and psychological aspects of the acoust

pubs.aip.org

Section V sound field in the hall explains it.

Your reference contradicts your assertion. Section V is about the relative strength and timing of the direct sound vs the reverberant sound, not total perceived loudness.

 

[Cbdb2]

Concert hall acoustics: Recent findings

In recent years a number of papers have appeared in a variety of technical publications that deal with both the physical and psychological aspects of the acoust

pubs.aip.org

Section V sound field in the hall explains it.

Table 3 clearly shows sound strength decreasing in all halls as you move to the back. This strength is the sum of direct and reverberant sound. The direct sound strength drops off 1/r*r while the reverberant sound strength is consistent (more or less) thru out the hall.

From that paper: "This author's listening experience agrees with Griesinger's argument that the early reflections should not be so strong and arrive so early as to mask a person's ability to hear the direct sound clearly. It is from the direct sound that one can clearly distinguish a succession of musical notes."

This is what I've been saying about pianos (or any other instruments) in bad halls, they can sound like mush, especially if your not front and center.

 

[Cbdb2]

Certainly. I wasn't making the case someone else has to prefer all live piano sounds over any recorded piano. I'm just expressing my experience that live piano always sounds different, and it sounds different in particular ways that I like. I will choose hearing a real piano at a distance in a concert hall than a closer recording played back through speakers.

Even if it sounds like mush?

 

[gaz]

I like classical music, but prefer recordings because... I tend to fall asleep at concerts!

I prefer ballet with an orchestra - great music and dancing, keeps me awake.

 

[Justdafactsmaam]

Your reference contradicts your assertion. Section V is about the relative strength and timing of the direct sound vs the reverberant sound, not total perceived loudness.
View attachment 337768

View attachment 337770

Yeah, you are right. And I couldn’t find the article that I had read stating otherwise. But I did find this one AESJ paper talking about perceptual loudness in a concert hall.
ASPECTS OF CONCERT HALL ACOUSTICS RICHARD C. HEYSER MEMORIAL LECTURE Leo L. Beranek
Audio Engineering Society 123rd AES Convention New York, NY

 

[MattHooper]

Even if it sounds like mush?

I suppose there could be a scenario where a live piano sounds so bad I'd rather listen to a recording. I haven't encountered it yet.

I mean, thinking of unconventional or sub-optimal listening conditions: even walking down my street I pass by a local church and the piano is wafting out the open window and I stop and listen from the street a story below. And sometimes people are practising piano in homes with the window open as we pass by in the summer. To me it sounds unmistakably, recognizably a real piano being played and I stop and listen. I like it better than the typical piano recording. Or when someone is playing piano down the hall in a house, the sound is ricocheting everywhere through the house, but it still sounds richer and more compelling to me than recordings.

 

[Robin L]

I suppose there could be a scenario where a live piano sounds so bad I'd rather listen to a recording. I haven't encountered it yet.

I mean, thinking of unconventional or sub-optimal listening conditions: even walking down my street I pass by a local church and the piano is wafting out the open window and I stop and listen from the street a story below. And sometimes people are practising piano in homes with the window open as we pass by in the summer. To me it sounds unmistakably, recognizably a real piano being played and I stop and listen. I like it better than the typical piano recording. Or when someone is playing piano down the hall in a house, the sound is ricocheting everywhere through the house, but it still sounds richer and more compelling to me than recordings.

I think there's no confusing the live stuff with canned. However, I recall a performance where the pianist was trying to drown out the orchestra, in the process making a particularly ugly sound. Sounded like he was angry with the orchestra. And I also recall hearing performances where I was too far back in the hall, so the piano sound was mush. That's one of the primary virtues of recordings of piano. It really isn't all that difficult to get a good sound with a piano recording. And, of course, there are fewer distractions with a decent recording (even a "live" one) than listening to a concert from most available seats. I've noticed that "Absolute Sound" quality even more with brass and percussion than with pianos. Whatever may have been said before, keyboards - including harpsichords and especially clavichords - sound better from closer seats, up to and including turning pages for the pianist (something I recall doing once at a recording session with another engineer/producer).

 

[Justdafactsmaam]

I suppose there could be a scenario where a live piano sounds so bad I'd rather listen to a recording. I haven't encountered it yet.

I mean, thinking of unconventional or sub-optimal listening conditions: even walking down my street I pass by a local church and the piano is wafting out the open window and I stop and listen from the street a story below. And sometimes people are practising piano in homes with the window open as we pass by in the summer. To me it sounds unmistakably, recognizably a real piano being played and I stop and listen. I like it better than the typical piano recording. Or when someone is playing piano down the hall in a house, the sound is ricocheting everywhere through the house, but it still sounds richer and more compelling to me than recordings.

I have. Davies Hall first balcony

 

[Robin L]

I have. Davies Hall first balcony

Davies Hall is one of those venues designed to have the only really good sounding seats up front. I remember hearing a concert at Davies Hall on the first balcony. It was the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, think it was during Blomstedt's years. I recall Dvorak's 9th being played. The sound was anemic.

Berkeley has a church frequently used as a concert venue, First Congregational Church, corner of Dana and Durant. I recorded many concerts there. Considerably smaller than Davies Hall, with sonics that were far superior. The seats at the front balcony were probably the best in the church. It was a very good site for piano concerts. Only flaw was the bus stop right by the door near the stage to the street. We would hear the bus roll up with its warning signal every time it came around, usually every 20 minutes. Other than that, it was perfect for Baroque concerts - lots of reverberation but without mud.

 

[Justdafactsmaam]

Davies Hall is one of those venues designed to have the only really good sounding seats up front. I remember hearing a concert at Davies Hall on the first balcony. It was the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, think it was during Blomstedt's years. I recall Dvorak's 9th being played. The sound was anemic.

Berkeley has a church frequently used as a concert venue, First Congregational Church, corner of Dana and Durant. I recorded many concerts there. Considerably smaller than Davies Hall, with sonics that were far superior. The seats at the front balcony were probably the best in the church. It was a very good site for piano concerts. Only flaw was the bus stop right by the door near the stage to the street. We would hear the bus roll up with its warning signal every time it came around, usually every 20 minutes. Other than that, it was perfect for Baroque concerts - lots of reverberation but without mud.

Absolutely! Davies Hall has decent sound in the first 10 rows and then it dies quickly. The Steinway piano technician from LA Phil has been working with them to tweak the hall. I think I have been to that church you mention for two different guitar recitals with Xuefei Yang. Great sound