Through the marvel of technology, audio-visual engineers has been able to resurrect dead musicians from their grave and have them re-perform their pieces. I was first exposed to this by a friend Ray who told me me a special CD of Rachmaninoff plays Rachmaninoff which is not done by the usual re-mastering of old vinyl or master tape through post processing to rejuvenate the sound and remove static noise inherent in recording technology of that era. He asked to me look for the CD on his behalf but I failed to find it in a fine music store in downtown Singapore. For those of you who are interested in this recording, you can visit www.zenph.com.
During the visit to the music store, I was casually browsing through the DVD section which is very unlike me as I have so called dedicated myself to stereophony and does not wander into un-chartered waters of DVDs, surround systems etc. as my limited reasoning and knowledge concludes that with only a pair of ears, you can only handle sound from 2 speakers. Being an al-cheapo, I started with the discount section and saw 3 DVDs of Karajan ( who has passed away ) going for S$9.95 each and I must confess that it was the sticker price that drew my attention more than anything else. On reading about the DVD, I was fascinated that this was not a re-mastering of his old recording but a sort of re-performance. I shall quote from commentator Tobias directly as I cannot find a better way to describe it.
"Sony BMG Masterworks have announced the release of 3 special DVD sets to commemorate the 100th birthday of Herbert von Karajan. The DVD boxes will be released on April 5th of 2008 and comprise video footage of Herbert von Karajan conducting all nine symphonies by Ludwig van Beethoven, symphonies 4, 5 and six by Tchaikovsky as well as Richard Strauss’ Tone Poems. The label announced the DVD sets as a visually appealing extravaganza, which had received additional audio treatment through a very special re-recording procedure: “With an intricate speaker matrix, a well-levelled signal was generated on stage to trigger the room acoustics”, Sony BMG Masterworks explained. “In direct relation to the source material the room signals were then re-recorded with an orchestra-like microphone array and newly balanced – a technology spearheaded by a team around sound engineers Philipp Nedel and Michael Brammann at the Philharmonic Hall in Berlin and the Musikverein in Vienna – two main performance sites of Karajan’s career and also two halls world-renowned for their acoustics.” Almost 20 years after his death in 1989, Herbert von Karajan thus continues to be one of the record company’s and the entire classical scene’s most profitable brands."
On reaching home, I slotted the DVD into a Pioneer DVDS969AVi which was the flagship of Pioneer's range of DVD players many moons ago. This was hooked up to my stereo system via a digital coaxial cable to my Benchmark DAC and etc for the audio portion and through a HDMI cable to my flat screen but I set the volume down the flat screen to zero as putting it on mute will entail having a nagging "mute" insignia on screen which I detest but have not found a way to overcome it except to turn the volume down to zero. As explained above, the audio reproduction was fascinating unlike any re-mastering that I have heard. However, the video portion was a bit of a let down as Karajan was almost perpetually placed at the left hand side of the screen and my explanation being that the video mixing engineer could have either fallen asleep on the job or something to that effect. I spent the next 3-4 hours enjoying the 3 DVDs until the wee hours of the morning at considerably loud volume but I am lucky that there is some distance separating me from my neighbors plus some of the additional effort I put in to keep the sound mostly trapped within my room. Done the al-cheapo way again with materials from the neighborhood DIY store. Otherwise, I would have neighbors telling me off or calling the police or perhaps I have very understanding neighbors. With a certain excitement, I brought the 3 DVDs to Ray and told him about what I found and lent him the 3 DVDs and it has been with him since and I do hope it is because he enjoys it and not collecting dust in his home. This is what I call commanding Karajan from his grave for a re-performance. Luckily, I did not hear or see anything eerie while enjoying the 3 DVDs in the early side of morning like 3am.
During the visit to the music store, I was casually browsing through the DVD section which is very unlike me as I have so called dedicated myself to stereophony and does not wander into un-chartered waters of DVDs, surround systems etc. as my limited reasoning and knowledge concludes that with only a pair of ears, you can only handle sound from 2 speakers. Being an al-cheapo, I started with the discount section and saw 3 DVDs of Karajan ( who has passed away ) going for S$9.95 each and I must confess that it was the sticker price that drew my attention more than anything else. On reading about the DVD, I was fascinated that this was not a re-mastering of his old recording but a sort of re-performance. I shall quote from commentator Tobias directly as I cannot find a better way to describe it.
"Sony BMG Masterworks have announced the release of 3 special DVD sets to commemorate the 100th birthday of Herbert von Karajan. The DVD boxes will be released on April 5th of 2008 and comprise video footage of Herbert von Karajan conducting all nine symphonies by Ludwig van Beethoven, symphonies 4, 5 and six by Tchaikovsky as well as Richard Strauss’ Tone Poems. The label announced the DVD sets as a visually appealing extravaganza, which had received additional audio treatment through a very special re-recording procedure: “With an intricate speaker matrix, a well-levelled signal was generated on stage to trigger the room acoustics”, Sony BMG Masterworks explained. “In direct relation to the source material the room signals were then re-recorded with an orchestra-like microphone array and newly balanced – a technology spearheaded by a team around sound engineers Philipp Nedel and Michael Brammann at the Philharmonic Hall in Berlin and the Musikverein in Vienna – two main performance sites of Karajan’s career and also two halls world-renowned for their acoustics.” Almost 20 years after his death in 1989, Herbert von Karajan thus continues to be one of the record company’s and the entire classical scene’s most profitable brands."
On reaching home, I slotted the DVD into a Pioneer DVDS969AVi which was the flagship of Pioneer's range of DVD players many moons ago. This was hooked up to my stereo system via a digital coaxial cable to my Benchmark DAC and etc for the audio portion and through a HDMI cable to my flat screen but I set the volume down the flat screen to zero as putting it on mute will entail having a nagging "mute" insignia on screen which I detest but have not found a way to overcome it except to turn the volume down to zero. As explained above, the audio reproduction was fascinating unlike any re-mastering that I have heard. However, the video portion was a bit of a let down as Karajan was almost perpetually placed at the left hand side of the screen and my explanation being that the video mixing engineer could have either fallen asleep on the job or something to that effect. I spent the next 3-4 hours enjoying the 3 DVDs until the wee hours of the morning at considerably loud volume but I am lucky that there is some distance separating me from my neighbors plus some of the additional effort I put in to keep the sound mostly trapped within my room. Done the al-cheapo way again with materials from the neighborhood DIY store. Otherwise, I would have neighbors telling me off or calling the police or perhaps I have very understanding neighbors. With a certain excitement, I brought the 3 DVDs to Ray and told him about what I found and lent him the 3 DVDs and it has been with him since and I do hope it is because he enjoys it and not collecting dust in his home. This is what I call commanding Karajan from his grave for a re-performance. Luckily, I did not hear or see anything eerie while enjoying the 3 DVDs in the early side of morning like 3am.
Not sure why but all these mention of re-performance against re-mastering gathered momentum . Ray had a new acquisition of Glenn Gould's re-performance of his 1955 Bach Goldberg's Variations recording by first using sophisticated computer technology to MIDI like files. The main difference being that standard MIDI has only 128 bits resolution but this modified form has a resolution of 1024 bits. This makes it possible to be almost equal to Glenn Gould's fingers and legs. This modified MIDI was feed into a modified Yamaha DISKLAVIER to accept the 1024 bits. This modified grand piano is then place in a concert hall to get the ambience and reverberations of a concert hall. The files were then fed into the grand piano and the keys and pedals then move in almost exact manner in which Glenn Gould would have done so in the 1955 recording. Microphones were placed around the piano and hall and recorded and transfered to CDs like a normal modern recording except that the you have Glenn Gould's ghost playing it instead. For a full description, visit www.zephn.com The re-performance enjoyed the advantage of current recording technology plus a stroke of genius of a dead musician Glenn Gould. I happen to have a 1981 Glenn Gould recording of Bach Goldberg's Variation done a few months before he died and both Ray and myself came to the conclusion that the two recordings sounded different sound wise as well as playing style. Perhaps an older and dying Glen Gould in 1981 has a different perspective to the piece as opposed to his 1955 recording. I am still searching for the actual mono recording of his 1955 recording so that we can conclude whether it is the MIDI re-production technology that made it sound different or the artiste actually played it differently. Perhaps the difference could be due to the piano used itself. I do not have the brand or model of the Piano used in the original 1955 recording but the re-production was on a Yamaha Grand and the 1981 on a model 'D' Steinway.
The latest re-production technology was also an introduction by Ray and it was a Telarc re-performance of Rachmaninoff playing his own compositions and recorded on music roll in 1930. I thought that Thomas Edison invented recording on Vinyl but was surprised that before that, there was a technology called music roll which was essentially rolls of paper and as the pianist plays on a special recording piano, holes were punched on the paper roll to indicate which keys and pedals were in play. Rich households then usually have a 're-producing piano' and by feeding the music rolls into the re-producing piano, the piano would play by itself as if the recording artiste was playing it. Wayne Stahnke has managed to lay his hands on some of these music rolls as many of these have vanished or destroyed over time. He then wrote a special computer scanning program to scan these ancient music rolls into a computer and then re-produced these music rolls again as the originals were in too frail a state to be used. For pieces that he has multiple copies, his special computer program would actually make a comparison of the different versions and make an approximated guess of what is deemed the most correct. He next managed to find an ancient Bosendorfer 290 SE re-producing piano and had it restored to its almost original condition. The new music rolls were then fed into this piano and modern microphones were used to record the sound produced by it. Do visit www.telarc.com for more details.
I stand amazed at the ingenuity of our human specie in raking up these new ideas to so call resurrect the dead musicians back to for a re-performance. As for my friends in the legal fraternity, it would be interesting to have a hypothetical debate on who owns the intellectual property rights of these works. Perhaps, if I am brave enough, I would openly make copies of these recordings and post it on the internet and see if a legal suit would come my way. I have looked up the covers of all these 3 recordings and they have copyrights attributed to their respective record company but wonder if it would stand in court.
Cheers,,,,Peter Lye aka lkypeter
Safe Harbor. Please note that information contained in these pages are of a personal nature and does not necessarily reflect that of any companies, organizations or individuals. In addition, some of these opinions are of a forward looking nature. Lastly the facts and opinions contained in these pages might not have been verified for correctness, so please use with caution. Happy Reading. Peter Lye