Yes Howard, you are right, I didn't read the notes. However I have now, and I shall listen again. It must be a very spectacular building to get sound refelctions like that.
As there are very few Lute Recitals given here in the north of England ( Yorkshire ) I don't have much appreciation of the 'live' sound. There is an old Manor House not far from where I live that I've often thought would be a nice venue for an evening of early music. It is called Oakwell Hall near Birstall. It was the family seat of the Bat Family, who along with the Saviles were one of the great land owners of the 15th - 16th century. Google it and tell me what you think. Perhaps the Lute Society might consider organinsing something there. London is way too far to travel and I'm always disappointed that they choose to have the majority of their recitals in London. Neil -----Original Message----- From: lute-...@cs.dartmouth.edu [mailto:lute-...@cs.dartmouth.edu] On Behalf Of howard posner Sent: 07 September 2010 21:44 To: LuteNet list Subject: [LUTE] Re: Marco dall'Aquila / O'Dette On Sep 7, 2010, at 12:59 PM, Narada wrote: > I recently purchased this CD. .but didn't read Paul's insert notes? > The sound quality is awful, it is completely > washed out with 'Hall Reverb' The individual notes can hardly be > seperated in some of the faster passages. This recording needs > remastering and the level of reverb reduced massively. If anything the > reverb should only add a little 'wetness' to the sound, not drowned > it. You seem to think reverb was added. It wasn't. The CD was recorded in a room in a castle in Capestrano, near Aquila (a last-minute arrangement because the intended venue in Aquila had been damaged in an earthquake), and the sound is very likely what you would have heard 15 feet from the lute (or what one of Marco's contemporaries would have heard him playing from down the banquet table). This is an effect I've experienced in larger resonant rooms as well, particularly with lower frequencies: the cello's 16th-notes in a Vivaldi concerto are perfectly distinct close up, but from ten steps back they're a vague shimmering wash. You can choose to regard this as a problem, or you can conclude (as Nicolaus Harnoncourt has in a published essay) that Vivaldi intended the shimmering effect, or at least expected it and didn't mind it. Since I'm writing a review of the recording for LSA Quarterly even as we speak, I've listened to it enough to get over the strangeness of the sound, and find that I rather like it, and have no trouble making out the lines. To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
