Author: bau55536
Date: 2010-11-01 04:30
I need to jump in on this one...
While Mahler's 7th isn't the most familiar to me, I'm going to agree and disagree with some of the opinions above.
I was in the hall Thursday, Oct 14 (recording was taken from Oct 14-15, I don't recall if I saw that in the opening credits from last Wed) and what I heard that night doesn't resemble anything near what I heard on the PBS broadcast. I agree, the broadcast audio was mediocre at best.
Even the live performance may not have been up to the CSO's normally high level of performance, as the work was moved up by nearly 5 months with about 7-8 days notice (at least externally, only the members or someone else closer could tell us what they actually received. I was notified of the change the weekend before as I had tickets for the original performance date out in March.) What I heard in the hall was excellent, and quite well played. Balance, blend, intonation were all at the level I've come to expect with CSO, and in some cases I think even better than the norm. Maestro Muti's influence, I think. (I also heard the Berlioz program several weeks ago, and the playing there was at this same level.)
The are several possibilities that I can attribute the broadcast to. First is the possibility that the performance broadcast was either all or mostly from Friday evening, and I didn't witness that, and it could have been a substantially different performance than Thursday...unlikely, but possible. The more plausible is the possibility that either Great Performances or the local PBS affiliates severely compressed the video and audio to levels that while acceptable, limit the subtle nuances that we would expect to be there.
I do have to agree with Ken that Dale's performance was substantially better than in the recent past. I hate to admit that I had to agree with whomever the music critic was from NY who noted Dale's performance at the recent Carnegie Hall performance. Most definitely last season he seemed to miss at least 3-4 notes in major solos on every performance I attended (15-18.)
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