Composer Birthdays

Today marks the birthdays of Franz Peter Schubert, and Philip Glass. In honor of the latter, we present the Minimalist version of "Happy Birthday."

(With apologies to Jessica Hill.)

Happy happy happy happy happy happy happy happy happy birth
Happy happy happy happy happy happy happy happy birth day
Birth birth happy birth day happy happy birth birth day day
To happy to happy to happy to birth to happy to birth to day
Birth to happy day day happy to birth happy birth happy birth
Happy birthday to you Happy birthday you to
Happy birth happy day birth birth day Philip happy birthday
Happy birth happy birth happy day day birth Glass day birth
Happy birthday happy birthday happy birthday to you.

Then repeat as needed for the next four hours.

Bring On The Bad Guy: Matti Salminen as Hagen

Footage of the great Finnish bass, Matti Salminen, as Hagen in Götterdämmerung at the Metropolitan Opera. Filmed as part of the complete Ring Cycle, and now on Youtube for your viewing pleasure. The scene here is "Hagen's Watch", which is the bad guy's monologue in Act I of the opera, and his voice is making the speakers on this computer distort.

And since there's no titles on this film, here's a quick English translation:

Here I sit, on watch
Guarding the house. Guarding the hall from the foe.
Gibich's son sails away on the wind. Away to his wooing he goes.
He sails with a brave hero, who will face the danger for him.
He brings his own bride back with him,
But for me, he brings the Ring!

You sons of freedom, lusty companions,
Sail you on your way.
Though you deem him lowly, you will both soon serve,
this Nibelung's son.

Enjoy.



Photo Credit: Matti Salminen as Hagen in 1988. 
Photo © 2009 Johan Elbers/ Metropolitan Opera.

Can of Brahms: The Analogue/Digital War

The new Complete Brahms Edition from Deutsche Grammophon is a 46-disc box set housed in a cardboard cube. The set opens with the four symphonies, recorded by Herbert von Karajan with the Berlin Philharmonic. Unfortunately, these recordings have brittle string textures, compressed horns, and very little low end: common traits in the conductor's later recordings, especially those in the much-ballyhooed "Karajan Gold" series. Checking the label, these symphonies were recorded in 1987, two years before his death.

Classical music collectors know about the SPARS code, the three-letter system (developed by the Society of Professional Audio Recording Services) to indicate the recording source, mixing process, and mastering of a recording. Used throughout the 1980s and 1990s, the SPARS code is a useful tool in determining the quality of a classical or opera recording.

The codes are:

• AAD Analogue Recording, Analogue Mixing, Analogue Mastering.
  
• ADD Analogue Recording, Digital Mixing, Digital Mastering
  
• DDD Digital Recording, Digital Mixing, Digital Mastering
  

A fourth code, (DAD) exists, but it's almost never used.

Recordings like this 1987 Karajan Brahms cycle were vaunted and marketed as being "all-digital"  DDD, and sold at a higher price. But that doesn't make them better than their predecessors. They were made in the first decade of digital recording, when the recording systems would break the sound down into pixels, taking the natural "curves" of sound-waves and rendering them as digital approximations.

The same problem occurred with early releases of the (analogue) LP catalogue on CD. Much audible detail was sacrificed in the pursuit of digital clarity, and these early masterings suffer from the same harsh, bright sound in place of the warm, full orchestra that was originally recorded on analogue equipment.

Starting in the mid-1990s, record labels bought faster computers with more memory and 20-bit mastering technology was born. Revamping their AAD and ADD catalogues (and re-issuing the new pressings at a much lower price) has helped matters for the classical collector. However, the early digital recordings still suffer from their source material, made on those early machines. These Karajan recordings fall into that category. As part of the big box set, they are serviceable, but far inferior to the analogue set made by the same conductor, with the same orchestra in 1978.

CD Review: The Lost Parsifal

The salvation of a great recording consigned to the vaults. 

by Paul J. Pelkonen

Rafael Kubelik

Rafael Kubelik was a great conductor who received shabby treatment from the Deutsche Grammophon label. In 1967, his studio recording of Die Meistersinger was shelved to make room for another set starring Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau. History repeated itself in 1980, when this  crystalline Parsifal was banished to the vaults in favor of Herbert von Karajan's set with the Berlin Philharmonic. Released in 2003 by the small Arts Archives label, this set is now out of print, and remains a lost Grail for Wagner aficionados.