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From: greg@olivee.UUCP (Greg Paley)
Newsgroups: net.music.classical
Subject: Re: Re: Goetterdaemmerung: bad pressing?
Message-ID: <410@olivee.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 3-Jul-85 15:20:07 EDT
Article-I.D.: olivee.410
Posted: Wed Jul  3 15:20:07 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 7-Jul-85 05:06:31 EDT
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Organization: Olivetti ATC; Cupertino, Ca
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I hadn't noticed the glitch mentioned when I was listening to the
CD set.  I have a Telefunken LP pressing, which is excellent and
pre-dates both the DMM reissue and the "Digitally Remastered" issue.

I haven't had a chance to go back and find this spot on my LP's,
but I have an idea with regard to what might be the cause of the
problem on the digitally remastered (LP and CD) copies.  On my
Telefunken copies there are a number of clearly audible splices.
They are easily detectable because they often blunt the attack on
a chord, and there is a definite shift in the acoustic perspective.
Considering the care that went into this project, I suspect that
the engineers at the time (1964) did not envision home equipment
with the kind of detail and ambience resolution that would make these
things so clearly audible.

In any case, these same splices were much less noticeable on the
CD, which means that, in the course of remastering, somebody went
back and re-edited the masters so as to clean these up.  My guess
would be that, in the course of doing this and, perhaps, trying
to "correct" a splice at the point in Act I mentioned, the result
ended up being a more audible glitch than was on the original.

Incidentally, good as the recording is, it can't compare in impact
to a decent live, staged performance.  This was reinforced in my
own mind by seeing the S.F. Ring recently - there is a particular
catharsis to be experienced in the theater that records are unable
to supply.  Furthermore, anyone who saw Nilsson performing Brunnhilde
live in the late 60's/early 70's will attest that the recording doesn't
begin to suggest the power and intensity of her interpretation, or
even the overwhelming cut and voluminous outpouring of the actual
sound of her voice, particularly in the top register.  She's the
only Brunnhilde I've heard who tended to go slightly sharp on the
top notes at the end of the Immolation Scene, and her oath on the
spear in Act 2 was, in the theater, about the loudest thing I've
ever heard.

Those who enjoy Culshaw's "Ring Resounding" book will also enjoy his
much later "Putting the Record Straight" - incomplete due to his 
sudden death from viral hepatitis.  At the time of his writing the
later book, the fact that he was no longer under a fixed contract to
any one firm allowed him to be much freer in speaking out and naming
names that he had been in the "Ring Resounding" book.

	- Greg Paley