Rheingau Musik Festival, Windsbacher Knabenchor at Wiesbaden Marktkirche

N    aturgemäß dirigiert er [Lehmann] anders als sein Vorgänger Karl-Friedrich Beringer, aber mit nicht minder intensiver „sprechender” Gestik und Mimik... enorm saubere Intonation, ausgereifte, homogene und ergreifende Piani, flexible Phrasierung, aber auch, wenn nötig, ein raumgreifendes, sattes Fortissimo... ist diese Perfektion nicht Selbstzweck, sondern dient dem musikalischen Ausdruck, der Textausdeutung, der Architektur des Stücks.

[Naturally, Lehmann conducts differently than his predecessor, Karl-Friedrich Beringer, but with no less intense ‘talking’ gestures and facial expressions than he... enormous clean intonation, mature, homogeneous and poignant piani, flexible phrasing, but also, as necessary, an expansive, lush fortissimo... This perfection is not an end in itself but serves the musical expression, the interpretation of the text, the architecture of the piece.]”
  —  Klaus Kalchschmid, Süddeutsche Zeitung, 07-MAY-2012.

S ing Bach and Mendelssohn in the dwindling twilight, with your dark blue suits and brilliant white shirts and long necktie or bowtie depending on your tenure with the choir.

S ing without ambition or guile. Sing like your sound can fix all that is wrong with the world, as it seems now very plausible to us in the audience that it can. Yes, we are sure of it.

O h, and yes, sing, if you can manage it, when your choirmate behind you on the 5-tier risers has just had the audacity/impudence to hoist your underwear and give you a ‘snuggy’ while Martin Lehmann is looking down at his score preparing to embark on the next piece, in this concert that is being recorded for CD. The smiles of your neighbors reveal how hard it is for them to maintain their facial and vocal composure amid such hilarity and extreme risk.

Y ou and some of your fellow singers in the choir have dead-on perfect pitch; some have a vocal maturity beyond their years; some of the younger ones have an innocent sound that will soon be lost as their experience of the world accumulates.

T he unstoppable beauty of your sound in this 2-hour concert is nearly impossible for us to bear. Afterward, we walk in the dark over the cobblestones back to our hotel and think about this, grateful for the sonic/spiritual gift you have given to all of us—a miracle of Olympic-level vocal performance and musicianship that seemingly has come without sacrifice of your ineffable boyness or your individual truth.

• Windsbacher Knabenchor website
• Windsbacher Knabenchor. Kein Schoner Land: Deutsche Volkslieder. (Sony, 2012.)
• Windsbacher Knabenchor. Bach: Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern. (Sony, 2012.)
• Martin Lehmann (artistic director/conductor) page
• Rheingau Musik Festival website

Holy Dog Water

Hans Zimmer & Co’s DAW methods are far from ‘elementary’

I ’ve continued exploring the Hans Zimmer ‘Sherlock Holmes’ soundtrack described in the previous post. There are a variety of spatial effects—things that add considerable dramatic excitement to the score—that can be “deduced” from exploring the recorded cues with tools like Cubase® or Nuance®. Some deductions are, at best, “educated guesses” based on inspection of the digitized waveforms.

F or example, you can get instruments to sound like they are coming from outside the stereo image by inverting the relative phase angle of a channel. Start with a single channel (say, an explosion in this Sherlock Holmes film). Pan it hard-left. Duplicate the channel, and pan it hard-right. Then invert the phase angle (180 degrees). Now start with the volume on the duplicate at zero, and bring up the level on the duplicate/phase-inverted channel. You now hear the explosion on the left move out wider than it was when panned hard left. Sounds like a paradoxically larger space than what appeared to your eyes.


A dmittedly, some of these “film” spatial sonic effects might only be implemented in live chamber music performance by the likes of Maya Beizer or Tod Machover, or other devoted electroacoustic artists. But the prospect of producing (and hearing) live ‘augmented reality’ through DAW processing and sound reinforcement becomes more appealing/exciting the more we understand how it works, even for artists who are today squarely in the analog/acoustic world.

• AES Technical Council. Multichannel surround sound systems and operations. AESTD-1001.1.01-10.
  
• van Daele B, van Baelen W. Auro-3D Octopus codec whitepaper. 19-MAY-2011.
  
• Viers R. The Sound Effects Bible: How to Create and Record Hollywood Style Sound Effects. Wiese, 2008.
  
• DAW forum at Recording.org
  
• Nuendo page at Steinberg.net
  
• Cubase page at Steinberg.net
  
• Samplitude.com
  
• ProTools page at Avid.com
  
• Shirley J. Compleat recording musician - Part 9. Recording Magazine.

Tallis Scholars’ sound, or why 176 KHz/192 KHz HD sampling for choral chamber music is important

I   t is known that energy in the 5-20 KHz range can be perceived even when it is 50 dB or more below the main voice spectrum peak. Also, these upper frequencies are conventionally emphasized in the production of popular vocal music. Yet very few studies of the acoustic content of this range have been made. High fidelity recordings were made of singers sustaining vowels at varying levels of vocal effort. A general characterization of the two highest octaves 5-20 KHz was sought. The prevalence of high-frequency energy, the variation of harmonics signal-to-noise ratio as a function of frequency, and the covariation with overall SPL were all highly variable, but several landmark features were identified... [including] clusters of resonances in the regions 7-10 KHz and 13-16 KHz. Harmonic energy was observed to over 16 KHz in strong female voices.”
  —  Sten Ternström, KTH Stockholm, 2008.

T he Tallis Scholars’ performance in Kansas City tonight was gorgeous. The concert was performed in the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, which has a central altar and a wide chancel such that there are myriad acoustic reflections that arrive at one’s ears from multiple directions. Unlike many performance venues where reflected sound for people seated in most locations is predominantly from one or two general directions, Immaculate Conception has quite high reflective efficiency from many of its interior surfaces.

I f you are seated close to the ensemble—not more than, say, 10 meters away from the sound source—the sound projects exaggerated cues of ‘spatiality’, accentuating the atmospheric qualities that are there in the music and the text. This was especially true tonight during the pieces by Arvo Pärt, which have considerable dissonance and frisson amongst the parts, with long sustained notes during which the spatial effects from the direct and indirect sounds arriving at our ears can be fully appreciated.

T    aking into account the speed of sound, we can convert energy defocusing in the time domain to “smear” in distance estimation by the ears. Energy spread over ±500 ms is the same as a distance smear of ±15 cm. 96 KS/s keeps almost all the energy within about ±50 ms, or ±1.5 cm. One of the observations people make about 96 KS/s material is that the spatial localisation of everything is very much better than 44.1 KS/s. 192 KS/s is better than this, although very dependent on amp and speaker performance to demonstrate it.”
  —  Mike Story, 1997.

T he spectrum of frequencies and harmonics returning to your ears in this marble-and-plaster, highly-reflective cathedral has a surprising, pleasing amount of power in the range 4 KHz and up. In an age when noise and unpleasant/irrational/blurred stimuli bombard us every day, the Tallis Scholars’ sound in this sort of brightly reverberant performance space restores our belief in clarity—restores our belief in the fidelity of human communication across large distances in space and time. It is as though high signal-to-noise ratio becomes an aesthetic and cultural emblem of Civilization itself.

W hat I mean is, the sound (with its high S/N and high-end harmonics) not only embodies the enduring and transcendent meaning of the sacred music that Tallis performs and the human spirituality that caused this music to be written so long ago, but it asserts the very possibility of transcendence and persistence—of meaning that lasts beyond one’s own lifetime. After the concert, I go to Gimell Records’ website and download a couple of their 24-bit 176 KHz-sampled Studio Master high-def recordings, to get more of this. What I hear is truly thrilling—as good as the live performance.

C onventional wisdom doubts that humans can hear frequencies much higher than 20 KHz—frequencies higher than that are only perceptible to dogs and other animals. That is foolish—misinformation propagated uncritically since 50 years ago. In recent years, the misconception persists as a reflection of the fact that otolaryngologists’ and audiologists’ primary focus has been on “basic,” “practical” functions such as a person’s ability to hear and accurately understand speech. By contrast, research concerned with aesthetic and musical functioning has received much less attention or funding. [Measurement equipment for studying acoustics of bats in the 20 to 100 KHz part of the spectrum has existed for quite awhile—bat and bird and other animal communication is the subject of scholarly articles in acoustics society journals—but not many researchers studying humans have utilized it. Part of the reason why the freqency spectrum above 4 KHz for vocalizations has been under-studied is that high-speed video strobolaryngoscopy has been unable to detect the very small-amplitude (~0.1mm) vibrations in the larynx. Not surprisingly, if you can’t detect something, then you tend not to study what you can’t detect.]

T here is a common, mistaken notion that frequency response above 10 KHz is only relevant to sibilant “S” or fricative “F” type consonants in speech or singing. Well, that is most definitely not true, as evidenced by tonight’s Tallis Scholars performance! Recent research by Brian Monson, Andrew Lotto, and colleagues at the University of Arizona in Tucson (link below) shows that the frequency spectrum above 8 KHz figures prominently in singers’ sustained-vowel sound imaging—and figures also in listeners’ perception of open vowel sounds. The Pärt works in tonight’s program—and the effects of reverberation in these, in Immaculate’s chancel—especially emphasize intervallic and spatial relationships and transformations, and remind me of a workshop led by John Roeder at the 2003 Mannes Institute. That workshop examined expressive transformational representations for music by Pärt and others, and addressed how transformational representations relate to musical form, and to how musical forms are experienced. Varied repetition as in Pärt amounts to retracing similar transformational pathways among different sets of musical objects, and plumbing the extent and meaning of their similarities. Canon and contrapuntal cyclical spaces are frequent vehicles for enacting or showing transformations, of course, and—to the degree that each of these enactments is individually convincing—uncovering these unexpected connections becomes our primary mode of understanding and enjoying the music.

T onight’s performance and these HD Gimell/Tallis recordings reveal why it’s desirable to have a sampling frequency that is at least 4 times the desired system bandwidth, a process that is known as oversampling. If your goal is to maintain a “flat” response with 6 dB or less roll-off at the upper limit of the band, then a sampling frequency that is more than four times the desired bandwidth is needed—hence, the 176.4 KHz or 192 KHz sampling rates on these Gimell HD Studio Master files.


A  problem (for me, at least) with off-the-shelf HD audio equipment is that the sound reproduction chain (player, preamps, EQ, power amps, speakers) can sometimes have too much high-frequency power. It can sound too sibilant—even for vowel sounds—somewhere between 12 KHz and 20 KHz. The spectrum EQ sliders on your playback equipment may not have center frequencies that correspond to wherever that objectionable tweeter “break-up frequency” peak is—so the adjustments you make to cope with it end up impairing the quality of the sound around that peak, essentially leaving you with a sound that's far less than HD. But Bowers & Wilkins speakers are one example of a product that doesn’t have this issue. They’re clear above 8 KHz, and give smooth mid-range and ample bass. Put two 800 Diamonds in front of you, two 802s behind you, plus a couple of DB1s somewhere in the room to cover the bottom bass frequencies. HD music recordings—such as those produced by Tallis and Gimell—have frequencies that exceed 20 KHz and we need speakers (and other components in the reproduction chain) that can accurately render these. The response of the 800Ds is essentially flat between 25 Hz and 33 KHz. Their tweeter “break-up” frequency is way, way out of harm’s way—at about 70 KHz.

R eproducing high frequencies has everything to do with recreating the sensation of sharpness and immediacy—the experience of being near the sound-source, in or near the front row (see Beranek, p. 511). There is not just the issue of rapid attenuation of high-frequency portions of the spectrum as a function of distance, but also the matter of inter-aural time-difference cues.

W    e found that robust pitch perception can be elicited by harmonic complex tones with fundamental frequencies below 2 KHz, even when all of the individual harmonics are above 6 KHz—well above the currently-accepted ‘existence region’ of pitch and above the currently-accepted limits of neural phase-locking. The results suggest that perception of musical pitch at high frequencies is not constrained by temporal phase-locking in the auditory nerve but may instead stem from higher-level constraints shaped by [immediately] prior exposure to harmonic sounds.”
  —  Andrew Oxenham, Christophe Micheyl, Michael Keebler, Adam Loper & Sébastien Santurette, Dept of Psychology, Univ Minnesota, 2011.

I n other words, our ability to perceive (a) spatial relationships—relative locations of different singers or depth and breadth of other sound-sources—and (b) overtones/harmonics generated by the blending of all of the lower frequencies in ensemble (Fourier spectra of mixed signals) ... depends primarily on the high-frequency (short-wavelength) components and on phase-angle relationships between the frequencies as they mingle with each other in the performance space (or the playback environment, for a recording). If the sound-sources are moving (as in an opera; or even for singers who are shifting or rotating slightly on-stage), then the high-frequency components contribute most to our ability to perceive that motion. It’s part of how our brain sorts out “signal” from “noise” in noisy environments.

A nd we get special pleasure from successfully doing this. Clarity that facilitates the listener’s own brain’s processing—which is what the HD 176 KHz/192 KHz-sampled media does for us (see Vorländer, pp. 222ff).

• Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck - Hodie Christus Natus Est
  
• John Taverner - Magnificat (A5)
  
• Robert White - Tota Pulchra Es
  
• Arvo Pärt - Magnificat
  
• Arvo Pärt - Nunc Dimittis
  
• Hieronymous Praetorius - Magnificat IV
  
• Robert White - Regina Caeli
  
• Morales - Regina Caeli
  
• Benjamin Britten: Hymn to the Virgin
  
• Giovanni Pierluigi Da Palestrina - Magnificat for Double Choir
  
• Giovanni Pierluigi Da Palestrina - Nunc Dimittis for Double Choir

I  very much hope that Phillips and colleagues continue to add aggressively to their HD DVD-Audio recording downloads. There are many of us out here who crave the immersive psychoacoustic experience that only very high sample-rate HD can deliver. The Tallis Scholars’ recordings are [one of the types of—] music that powerfully motivates and intensely satisfies the “immersive HD” desire.

B efore you place an order, Gimell recommmends to try the Test Files they provide for free download, to insure compatibility with your system.

T allis and Gimell recommend using an audiophile-quality Network Music Player to listen to the HD download files. If you own a DVD-Audio player and your PC has a DVD burner, then you can create your own DVD-Audio discs by importing the HD download files into Cirlinca’s DVD-Audio Solo® or other similar software apps. The files are 15 to 18 times larger than the equivalent track with MP3 compression. The Gimell offerings also include multichannel Quadraphonic/Surround Sound formats. Cirlinca’s HD-Audio Solo Ultra® v4.1 software costs just USD$75 for a single-user license— HD-Audio Solo Ultra® is the product that I use. Cirlinca has relationships with record labels including Gimmel, Deutsche Grammophon, and Hyperion, plus orchestras and ensembles including Boston Symphony Orchestra, Philadelphia Orchestra, and many others.

M arketing-wise, when HD recordings such as these from Tallis/Gimell are coupled with correspondingly good playback chain equipment it opens up a promising (and to-date under-developed) market segment for serious music: tech-avid audiences and software developers and gamers whose primary passion is virtual reality (VR) and who have a strong but decidedly secondary interest in music. Many in this segment or niche market may not be musicians per se, and they may not be people who regularly attend ‘conventional’ live concerts. But they crave excellent VR and immersive “worlds” that can capture the heart and mind—as good music can do so effectively. And such people spend quite a lot of money each year on personal “world-building”. Their sort of passionate “sonic-experience-first-music-second” amateurism is, I suppose, not unlike serious HiFi audiophiles of the 1960s or late 50s.

I n summary, Tallis Scholars and Gimell are creating the right kinds of HD content to grow a VR audio market. Maybe more and different marketing, including social media, will be needed to really drive its growth. For now, I’m delighted to have experienced these wonderful recordings that prove once and for all that very high sampling-rates of 176.4 KHz and 192 KHz are actually necessary, to accurately reproduce the nuances that we hear up-close in live performance. The freshness and lightness and clarity of the sound invite the listener “inside” the world that the music conjures—the Studio Master HD files enable listeners to inhabit that world via interactive replay evoking “live” sensations and realism, most vividly when the listener/file-downloader can freely explore and re-explore again and again ad lib. We avid listeners want to rehearse our neurons—not only to re-experience the shivers up our spines, but (through practice) to train our bodies to optimally respond to the aural cues that are in these beautiful HD recordings, and in the next live performance we’re able to attend. Bravo!

• Tallis Scholars website
  
• Gimell Records website
  
• OnThingsImportant blog (“Tallisman” aka Peter Phillips)
  
• Steve Smith, recording engineer and General Manager, Gimell Records, interview with John Quinn, MusicWebInternational, 2010
  
• Cirlinca HD audio software
  
• Logitech Squeezebox Transporter® SE - Network Music Player
  
• HDtracks.com
  
• Passionato.com
  
• iTrax.com online Forum
  
• Audio Expo North America (AXPONA), 09-12 MAR 2012, Jacksonville, FL
  
• EnjoyTheMusic.com online HD audio Review ezine
  
• Stereophile.com
  
• The Absolute Sound (AVguide.com)
  
• Auditory Cognitive Neuroscience Experience Lab at Univ Arizona Tucson
  
• Bowers & Wilkins 800-series speakers (video shows testimonial by pianist Alfred Brendel at 0:26)
  
• B&W brochure pdf [p. 6 shows graphs of conventional aluminum-dome tweeter with 25 dB peak around 30 KHz, vs. B&W tweeter-dome material with smaller peak shifted far-far-right out of range of hearing, beyond 70 KHz]
  
• Sampling Rate page at Wikipedia
  
• DVD-Audio page at Wikipedia
  
• Cirlinca DVD-Audio mastering software
  
• Minnetonka discWelder DVD-Audio mastering software
  
• Steinberg WaveLab DVD-Audio mastering software
  
• Bowers & Wilkins website
  
• NagataAcoustics.co.jp (Yasuhisa Toyota)
  
• JaffeHolden.com (Mark Holden)
  
• KEMAR head-related transfer function measurements at MIT Media Lab
  
• Institute of Acoustics (IOA U.K.)
  
• Acoustical Society of America
  
• BSI EN-60268-4:2010 standard for sound system equipment. British Standards Institute, 2010.
  
• Bartlett B, Bartlett J. On-Location Recording Techniques. Focal, 2006.
  
• Beranek L. Concert Halls and Opera Houses: Music, Acoustics, and Architecture. 2e. Springer, 2003.
  
• Chan R, et al. Biomechanics of fundamental frequency regulation: Constitutive modeling of the vocal fold lamina propria. Logop Phoniatr Vocol 2009;34:181-9.
  
• Fastl H, Zwicker E. Psychoacoustics: Facts and Models. 3e. Springer, 2006.
  
• Figuerido R, et al. Incidence of tinnitus in MP3 player users. Braz J Otorhinolaryngol 2011;77:293-8.
  
• Hall R. Review of Lewin 'Musical Form and Transformation.' J Am Mus Soc. 2009;62:205-22.
  
• Honda K, et al. Hypopharyngeal cavities and vocal-tract acoustic modelling. Comput Meth Biomech Biomed Eng 2010;13:443-53. [spectra above 2 KHz]
  
• Klumpenhouwer H. 2006. ‘In Order to Stay Asleep as Observers’: The nature and origins of anti-Cartesianism in Lewin’s generalized musical intervals and transformations. Music Theory Spectrum 2006;28:277–89.
  
• Lamesch S, et al. Phonetograms of laryngeal source parameters for vowels and laryngeal mechanisms of singers. Proc Acoust Soc Am. 2008;123:3243 (Abstract 2pMEe4)
  
• Lamesch S, et al. Frequency jumps during laryngeal mechanism transitions: Influence of vowel, sound pressure level, and starting note. 4th Intl. Physiology and Acoustics of Singing Conference, San Antonio, 2009.
  
• Lewin D. Musical Form and Transformation. Yale Univ, 1993.
  
• Malecki P, Wiciak J. Acoustic parameters of Russian Orthodox vs. Roman Catholic churches: Overview and preliminary psychoacoustic tests using choral music. Proc AES 130th Annual Conf 2011;Abstract 8439.
  
• Monson B, Lotto A, Ternström S. Detection of high-frequency energy changes in sustained vowels produced by singers. J Acoust Soc Am. 2011;129:2263-8.
  
• Oxenham A, et al. Pitch perception beyond the traditional existence region of pitch. PNAS 2011;108:7629-34.
  
• Story M. Suggested explanation for (some of) the audible differences between high sample-rate and conventional sample-rate audio materials. AES, 1997.
  
• Takemoto H, et al. Acoustic analysis of the vocal tract during vowel production by finite-difference time-domain method. J Acoust Soc Am 2010;128:3724-38.
  
• Tsai C, et al. Laryngeal mechanisms during human 4 KHz vocalization studied with CT, videostroboscopy, and color Doppler imaging. J Voice 2008;22:275-82.
  
• Sten Ternström page at Speech, Music, & Hearing Division, School of Computer Science and Communication, KTH (Kungliga Tekniska Högskolan), Stockholm
  
• Ternström S. Hi-Fi voice: Observations on the distribution of energy in the singing voice spectrum above 5 KHz. J Acoust Soc Am. 2008;123:3379.
  
• Ternström S. Hearing myself with others: sound levels in choral performance measured with separation of one's own voice from the rest of the choir. J Voice 1994;8:293-302.
  
• Vorländer M. Auralization: Fundmentals of Acoustics, Modelling, Simulation, Algorithms and Acoustic Virtual Reality. Springer, 2008.
  
• Witzsch J, Fessler H-U. High-resolution-Downloads promise musical enjoyment like listening directly to the mastertapes: Are they able to replace DVD-Audio and SACD? Steroplay, JUL-2009.

Theorbo-Dulcian-Viola Trio: Beautiful Performance; Beautiful Recordings

E arly music trio last night at Deutscherordenkirche Wien was really excellent.

• Katharine Mandl, Fagott / Dulcian
  
• Elzbieta Sajka, Violetta / Viola da braccio
  
• Hermann Platzer, Theorbe

T he program was comprised entirely of 17th Century works.

• Bartolomeo de Selma y Salaverde (1595-1638) - Canzon a due tenori (alto dulcian; viola da braccio; theorbo)
  
• Johann Hieronymus Kapsberger (1580-1648) - Toccata nona und Passacaglia für Theorbe Solo
  
• Adam Jarzębski (1590-1648) - Cantata Giovanni Gabrielli
  
• Selma y Salaverde - Sonata Vestiva i colli für Dulcian Solo (with Theorbo continuo)
  
• Jarzębski - Concerto secondo
  
• Alessandro Piccinini (1566-1638) - Toccata XII, Gagliarda III, und Chiaccona in partite variate für Theorbe Solo
  
• Giovanni Battista Fontana (1571-1630) - Sonata nona
  
• Philipp Friedrich Böddecker (1607-1683) - Sonata “La Monica”

D ulcian is a precursor to the modern bassoon. Ms. Mandl performed on two of them—a smaller alto one, plus a tenor one with a range similar to tenor sax. The trio achieved a fine balance and blending of the timbres of dulcian, 5-stringed violetta / viola da braccio, and theorbo (lute).

T he dulcian part in the Böddecker is amazingly ornate and fast—performed over a languid dotted-quarter/eighth/quarter/quarter viola melody, accompanied by the theorbo continuo. The neume-like notation (which Ms. Mandl explained and illustrated in her pre-performance talk) is prolifically dense in its own right; however, the improvisational cadenzas that Mandl applied took this far beyond the densely-notated score. Truly virtuosic bassoon—on this tender, very old instrument.

T he sanctuary at Deutschordenkirche is small and narrow—only about 10 meters wide. The consort last night positioned themselves near the altar, in a 60° circular-segment arrangement with chairs separated by about 1.5m. They recorded the performance using a Roland EDIROL R-44 4-channel digital recorder and two Schoeps MK-21 condenser microphones on a mic stand elevated 2.0m above the floor and angled downward 10° so that the mic axis of the left mic was midway between the dulcian and viola seats and the mic axis of the right mic was midway between the viola and theorbo seats. This distance to the instruments is a good compromise for these pieces—enough separation and directivity for the solo passages and appropriate lower-directivity for the tutti playing, so the listener’s attention is not confronted by unnatural left-right contrasts.

T he wide off-axis response of this mic helps to blend adjacent instruments and enhance ensemble-ness. The 48-volt phantom-power Schoeps CMC-6 preamps (matched pair; one on each mic) are designed to be compatible with really long mic cables—as was the case last night with the EDIROL R-44 placed at one side of the sanctuary. The R-44 uses multi-gigabyte miniature camera-type SD cards or larger-capacity SDHC cards as the recording media and offers 24-bit wide A-to-D conversion and sampling frequencies (44.1KHz/48KHz/88.2KHz/96KHz/192KHz).

T he MK-21 Schoeps mics have a ‘subcardioid’ (wide cardioid) pattern—moderately high directionality and pretty flat frequency response. A pair of them currently costs about USD$3,500 new, and the R-44 is currently under USD$1,000. Mr. Platzer and Ms. Mandl easily set all the mics and recording equipment up within just two or three minutes before the program commenced, switched the EDIROL on, and so began the group’s performance: no muss, no fuss.

W e eagerly purchased 3 of the CDs that were available at last night’s performance (recordings made in 2007, 2009, and 2010, in Deutschordenkirche—which you can order off the group’s website [link below]). The sound imaging that they achieve with these nice mics and this set-up is phenomenally warm and detailed… heartily to be recommended to other early music groups who wish to capture high-quality sound of period instruments without tremendous worry or logistical troubles.

B ravo, for the live performance and for these excellent recordings!

• Pandolfis Consort Wien website
  
• Piccini Chiaccona score at IMSLP
  
• Facsimile scores for 16th and 17th Century dulcian compositions at Dulcians.org (Hans Mons)
  
• Schoeps wide-cardioid mikes
  
• Roland EDIROL R-44 4-channel digital recorder
  
• Deutscherordenkirche Wien

Meditating on Ken Ueno, Musical Seismology, Japan

U   eno’s concert music, writing for a variety of ensembles from chamber groups to orchestra, has been informed in significant ways by his experiences as a performer... Cultural resonances abound in his music; for example, the biwa and shakahuachi concerto Kaze-no-Oka (‘Hill of the Winds’) has an architectural basis, being inspired by buildings designed by Fumihiko Maki... [Japanese] ideograms are used as musical formants, the details of which can be extrapolated and recontexualized to create an organic, but continually changing, whole. Subjecting an acoustical object or objects to scrutiny using computer-based tools of timbral analysis, Ueno extracts details of its musical makeup, such as its prevailing frequencies and how that profile might change over time... What are the limits of perception? ... In Kaze-no-Oka, in addition to the architectural origin, the conceptual-musical idea is of the orchestral body as a reflection and amplification of the biwa (orchestral strings as ‘super-biwa’) and shakuhachi (bass sax and contrabass clarinet as ‘super-shakuhachi’).”
  —  Robert Kirzinger, liner notes, Ken Ueno - BMOP ‘Talus’ CD.

I was relieved to hear that composer Ken Ueno’s parents, grandma, and other family members in Japan are okay following the quake and tsunami.

T hinking of them and others affected by Friday’s magnitude 8.9 temblor and hundreds of aftershocks, I put Ken’s CD ‘Talus’ on to play. I look at its CD jewelcase. It still bears this orange warning label:

I  think: how big is the dynamic range in decibels of the music in this recording, to which the safety warning label refers? The quietest room on Earth (the old Sound 80 studio in Minneapolis) has an ambient sound pressure level (SPL) of -9.4 dB. And the latent SPL of the top-of-the-line audio signal path (microphones, cables, connectors, pre-amps, amps, EQ, digital recording media, audio workstations/mixing consoles, audio CD media, playback amplifier and EQ, monitors/headphones, tympanic membranes and ossicles in the ears, cochlea, Organ of Corti, spiral ganglion, and acoustic nerve, cranial nerve VIII) is about 3.1 dB RMS, at 2 KHz and 20 years of age.

T he corresponding minimum perceptible ambient vibration in the Earth is about -0.7 Richter, according to Thouvenot and Bouchon (see link, below).

T he biggest recorded earthquake was the Great Chilean Earthquake of 22-MAY-1960, which had a magnitude of 9.5 Richter. So, 10 times [9.5 minus -0.7] equals a perceptible dynamic range of 102 dB for maximum earthshaking ever, and 96 dB for Friday’s Japanese earthquake.

A nd the approximate maximum of dynamic range for playing this BMOP CD of Ken’s is about 96 dB on standard digital audio at 16-bit resolution and 44.1 KHz sampling rate, given the limits of CDs and available amplifier chains and monitors/headphones.

K en’s ‘Talus’ CD jewelcase orange warning label alerts us to acoustic SPL differences in his compositions that are basically comparable to the SPL differences of what people experienced in Japan on Friday, just in different ranges of frequency spectrum. [...Heeding orange warning label, turns volume down.]


    [30-sec clip, BMOP, Ken Ueno, ‘Kaze-no-Oka’, 1.1MB MP3]

K en’s music is like koans... not a progression from pain to realization, or pain and loss as a reminder of realization. It is the lean-ness of the mind focusing on the present, consciously exerting energy in the face of difficult odds and adversity. Yamada Roshi: “When you stand up, there is only that standing-up in the whole world, with nothing sticking to it.” Ueno’s music is, like, “This! Just this!” ... something of a ‘last word,’ a rhetoric of pure experience. His compositions’ expression is without judgment, sort of a Zen-like “letting the Shodo calligraphy brush write whatever it wants,” but that does not mean that it is ‘acquiescing’ or accepting of the reality, the suffering that Nature dishes out, nor is it free from worry.

O ur thoughts go out to those in Japan and their families.

Video #1
Video #2
Video #3

D   o not say
that the deepest meaning
comes only from one’s mouth!

Day and night,
eighty thousand poems
arise one after the other—

and in fact
not one audible utterance
has ever been spoken.”
  —  Musō Soseki (夢窓 疎石, 1275 – 1351).

• Ken Ueno page at UC Berkeley Dept of Music
  
• Ken Ueno website
  
• Ken Ueno on Twitter (#DJ_Moderne)
  
• Ken Ueno page at BMOP.org
  
• Bruce D. Interview with Ken Ueno. 29-OCT-2008, CompositionToday.com
  
• Ken Ueno page at American Academy in Berlin
  
• NOAA Pacific Tsunami Warning Center (PTWC) online warning log
  
• Audio Engineering Society
  
• Acoustical Society of America
  
• Institute of Acoustics (U.K.)
  
• Seismological Society of America
  
• Fries B, Fries M. Digital Audio Essentials. O'Reilly, 2005, pp. 144–7. (dynamic range of 16-bit digital audio)
  
• Guidoboni E, Ebel J. Earthquakes and Tsunamis in the Past: A Guide to Techniques in Historical Seismology. Cambridge Univ, 2009.
  
• Hebenstreit G, ed. Perspectives on Tsunami Hazard Reduction: Observations, Theory and Planning. Springer, 2010.
• Hebenstreit G, ed. Tsunami Research at the End of a Critical Decade. Springer, 2010.
  
• Joseph A. Tsunamis: Detection, Monitoring, and Early-Warning Technologies. Academic, 2011.
  
• Kajikawa K. Tsunami! Philomel, 2009.
  
• Levin B, Nosov M. Physics of Tsunamis. Springer, 2010.
  
• Liu P, Yeh H, Synolakis C, eds. Advanced Numerical Models For Simulating Tsunami Waves And Run-up. World Scientific, 2008.
  
• Ray D. Hokusai: The Man Who Painted a Mountain. Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2001.
  
• Satake K, ed. Tsunamis: Case Studies and Recent Developments. Springer, 2006.
  
• Thouvenot F, Bouchon M. ‘What is the lowest magnitude threshold at which an earthquake can be felt or heard, or objects thrown into the air?’, in Modern Approaches in Solid Earth Sciences, vol. 2, Historical Seismology: Interdisciplinary Studies of Past and Recent Earthquakes. Fréchet J, Meghraoui M, Stucchi M, eds. Springer, 2010.
  
• Tsuchiya Y, Shuto N, eds. Tsunami: Progress in Prediction, Disaster Prevention and Warning. Springer, 2010.
  

Barocco Toscano, Auser Musici, and Music-as-Protagonist

The Baroque ensemble, Auser Musici delivered a breathtaking performance on 08-JUN. The concert, Barocco Toscano, was part of the Stockholm Early Music Festival (SEMF), performed in the Finska Kyrkan (bak Slottet) in Gamla Stan.


Sveriges Television (SVT) did a superb job of miking and video production of the Auser Musici performance, without intruding on the delicate baroque music. A diagram of the SVT mics is shown below (mics are denoted by diagonal lozenge shapes).


SVT is the Swedish public service television company. SVT programming is non-commercial. Advertising is not allowed but sponsoring of sports events is. SVT’s programming covers the whole genre spectrum. In fact, 81 of the 100 most popular Swedish TV programs of 2007 were produced domestically by SVT, many of these as HD productions. I am not certain whether or not the SVT recording of Auser Musici at SEMF was in HD. But the SVT digital audio engineering was expert and insightful. Besides the cardioid-pattern mic near the open lid of the harpsichord, the SVT audio engineer also placed a contact mic inside the harpsichord (see photo, below).


The combination is a belt-and-suspenders approach that provides great phasing and extra mix-down options for the recording engineers, once the digital media are brought back to the studio. If one mic only were used, the tender harpsichord might be might be muddied by other nearby, stronger instruments. The insights gleaned from the excellent SVT production set-up were very valuable for those of us interested in recording and sound reinforcement of early music ensembles in churches or other boxy, deep performance venues.


The activity of the ensemble has grown over the past ten years and has recently been given institutional recognition as a project called Tesori Musicali Toscani [Tuscan Musical Treasures], supported by grants from the Italian government.

• Elena Cecchi, soprano
  
• Carlo Ipata, traverso (transverse baroque flute)
  
• Luca Ronconi, baroque violin
  
• Daniela Godio, baroque violin
  
• Teresa Ceccato, baroque viola
  
• Marco Ceccato, baroque cello
  
• Francesco Romano, theorbo
  
• Alfonso Fedi, harpsichord

Auser Musici arrange their musical programs in consultation with academic musicologists. The SEMF performance was just such a program, thoughtful yet emotionally accessible. Sonata, operatic and symphonic concerto forms were all represented, with works by Nardini, Traetta, and Cherubini, among others. The premise of Auser Musici’s program at SEMF was that music is itself a character, a protagonist in musical narrative—and that this feature was first grasped by composers of sacred and secular music in the early Baroque period. In other words, not only are individual character’s parts capable of rhetorical gestures, but instrumental sectional playing and tutti ensemble passages also embody ‘characters’ whose natures and motives are elucidated in the course of performing each work. The string section provides a narrative context for Cecchi’s arias for example. The whole ensemble functions as a kind of omniscient ‘narrator’, offering clues to the listener as the performance unfolds and presaging the outcomes of the various movements and passages.

Articles on Ipata and Auser Musici in magazines such as Klassik Heute, Early Music Magazine, Le Monde de la Musique, Repertoire, Diapason, and Goldberg reviewing Auser Musici’s recordings tend to highlight the excellent interpretive skills and beautiful playing. But the SEMF performance—apart from its aesthetic attractiveness—illustrated the importance of the scholarship of Auser Musici on Tuscan repertoire of the 17^th and 18^th Centuries in terms of discourse analysis, semiotics, and rhetorical practice. This is far, far from any ‘conventional-minded’ conception of musicology. Ipata and Auser Musici are showing us an innovative fusion of literary theory and music theory! Here they are, convincing us of the validity of their theses by virtuosic demonstration: “Sentire che dico a lei. Lí è! QED.”

Carlo Ipata’s lyrical and virtuosic playing on baroque flute was spectacular. (Ipata had his musical training first at the Banff Center in Canada, followed by the Royal Conservatory in Ajax, and finally at the Conservatory National de Region of Paris, where he got an honors diploma in baroque flute and chamber music. With the ensemble Suonatori della Gioiosa Marca, I Barocchisti, Il Capriccio, Seicentonovecento, and with AuserMusici, he has performed at the European Festival of Lubiana, the Italian Festival in Dortmund, Berliner Tage für Alte Musik, Festival Antiqua, Musikinstrumenten-Museum of Berlin, Festivoce (France), Celebrations of Boccherini in Madrid), and now SEMF. He has recorded for EMI, Amadeus, Agorà, Tactus, Bongiovanni, Symphonia, Hyperion.

As director of the Tuscan Musical Treasures Project, Ipata has collaborated with the Conservatory of the University of Cremona, the University of Pisa and the Scuola Normale Superiore, and the Italian Musicology Society. He is an author of ‘Il flauto in Italia’ ( Istituto Poligrafico dello Stato, 2005), and he has given courses and seminars at New York University. Ipata is Professor of Chamber Music at the Conservatorio Statale di Musica Gioacchino Rossini in Pesaro.


Here are links to a couple of MP3 tracks on Auser Musici’s website, to give you a feel for the musicianship and interpretive sensibilities of the ensemble:


    [Auser Musici, Pietro Nardini, Flute Concerto in G Major, No. 2, Mvt. 3 (Allegro), 1.1MB MP3]


    [Auser Musici, Francesco Barsanti, Sei Sonate op. 2 per Flauto traverso, Sonata in a minor, No. 6, Mvt. 4 (Allegro), 5.1MB MP3]

Their website provides easy links, to enable you to purchase their recordings online. The enthusiasm of SEMF attendees for Auser Musici’s playing in the filled-to-SRO Finska Kyrkan that Sunday afternoon was such that the cartons of CDs the ensemble had brought to Stockholm were immediately sold-out…

• Auser Musici
  
• Stockholm Early Music Festival (SEMF) website
  
• Tuscan Musical Treasures Project
  
• Carlo Ipata page at Hyperion
  
• Auser Musici. Barsanti: Flute Sonatas. (Hyperion, 1998.)
  
• Auser Musici. Lidarti: Musica da camera e concerto per clavicembalo. (Tactus, 2003.)