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From: ed@mtxinu.UUCP (Ed Gould)
Newsgroups: net.music.classical,net.audio
Subject: Re: Bernstein's new "West Side Story" (recording producer blues)
Message-ID: <421@mtxinu.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 24-Jun-85 19:33:44 EDT
Article-I.D.: mtxinu.421
Posted: Mon Jun 24 19:33:44 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 29-Jun-85 02:40:56 EDT
References: <395@olivee.UUCP> <396@olivee.UUCP>
Reply-To: ed@mtxinu.UUCP (Ed Gould)
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Organization: mt Xinu, Berkeley, CA
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Xref: watmath net.music.classical:1149 net.audio:5196

In article <396@olivee.UUCP> greg@olivee.UUCP (Greg Paley) writes:
>A side note on the "West Side Story" recording.  It's an ironic change
>of heart on Bernstein's part to use some of the top operatic names in
>the world today for the principals.  When he was casting for the broadway
>premiere, he rejected Connie Francis because her voice sounded "too
>trained".

There was a very interesting show about the recording of _West_Side_Story_
by Bernstein broadcast recently on PBS (with simulcast sound on FM).  One
of the comments they made was that the point of this particular recording
was not to capture the dramatic side of the music so much as the musical
side.  One of Bernstein's comments on the show was that it was good
to hear Riff's parts sung by a singer - on stage the part was usually
played, as he put it, "by a dancer who could sing a little".

Unfortunately, as good as Jose Carreras' voice is, I still lose too much
of Tony's character to his accent.  It just doesn't have the right impact.

I also wasn't too thrilled about the quality of the disk.  There seemed
to be an inordinate amount of tape hiss, even though the cover claimed
that the master was recorded digitally.  The music, though, is wonderful.
(I'm also not too fond of the way it was mixed - but then I never am
happy with recordings of orchestras made with more than 3 microphones.
The instruments always seem to be placed somewhat randomly about the
sound stage.)

-- 
Ed Gould		    mt Xinu, 2910 Seventh St., Berkeley, CA  94710  USA
{ucbvax,decvax}!mtxinu!ed   +1 415 644 0146

"A man of quality is not threatened by a woman of equality."