Klarinet Archive - Posting 000877.txt from 2004/10

From: "Lelia Loban" <lelialoban@-----.net>
Subj: [kl] Mozart, Don Giovanni, and Tony Pay
Date: Fri, 29 Oct 2004 09:05:03 -0400


Re. the error messages I got when trying to connect to the selections on
BBC3 "Listen Up Again" site through RealPlayer, Dan Leeson wrote,
>From time to time I get the same thing. And then
>10 minutes later it's fine.

Thanks, Dan. I just tried again (Friday morning) and was able to connect
to the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment broadcast this time by doing
exactly what I did the other times (refusing all of RealPlayer's spam bait,
etc.).

I greatly enjoyed Tony Pay's fine performance in the Mozart concerto. The
ornamentation and interpretation sounds a bit different from the version
with Christopher Hogwood conducting the Academy of Ancient music, on Decca
/ L'Oiseau-Lyre 414- 339-2, which was recorded twenty years ago, in 1984
(released in 1986). That performance was / is my personal favorite, so
Tony, I hope you'll record the concerto again.

I enjoy hearing how a first-rate performer's ideas change over time and
often do buy more than one performance from the same artist playing the
same music. (Got you beat in the compulsive collecting category, Tony: I
own more than four dozen recordings of Bach's Passacaglia and Fugue in C
minor for pipe organ. Not sure how many more, since I'm not quite cracked
enough - - yet -- to tally them up every time I find another.) In fact,
I'd like to hear that whole BBC3 program on CD. I'd never heard the
Vorisek Symphony in D before. What a gem! And this was the first time I'd
heard Hillevi Martinpelto sing . Wow! I'll look for recordings of her,
for myself and for the retired singers among my relatives. Martinpelto's
voice and the basset horn blend splendidly, too. I like the whole approach
of this orchestra and I wish I'd been on the right side of the Atlantic to
hear this concert live.

Although I get reasonably good sound with other audio programs, on my
computer, RealPlayer sounds like a 1960s-vintage portable radio in a large
echo chamber, accompanied by underwater gargling, with frequent hiccups of
silence or backtracking over the last half-second or so that already played
(sounds like a small skip on an LP turntable). Applause sounds like what I
once heard while standing in a lake in a cave, directly behind a large
waterfall! Annoying--but it's odd how the human brain can adapt. After
awhile I hear through the noise and just ignore it. Still, adaptation or
not, I imagine I heard less than half of what was there, accompanied by a
lot of extraneous, mechanical noise that obviously wasn't the fault of the
orchestra or the soloists.

It is true, though, as someone on the klarinet list advised a few months
ago, that when using RealPlayer on the BBC3 site, it's possible to opt out
of all of RealPlayer's extremely irritating and aggressive advertising
options that bombard us here in the USA. Just be sure to scroll down and
shut off *all* of them. As far as I can tell, I haven't been spammed as a
result of using that site this week, and RealPlayer's damnable blinking
reminder icon (that has to be located, shut off and deleted, more than
once, because it somehow *reappears*!) has not invaded my computer this
time, so far, knock wood (knuckles to noggin). The "Listen Up!" program
ends November 5, but I'll keep the BBC marked and look for more good
programs there.

Lelia Loban
It's time to take our country back: Kerry and Edwards in 2004!

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