Could any of you kindly recommend a classic recording of 'Pagliacci'?
I'm talking about a recording from the 1940's or 1950's. My grandfather used to love this opera and being the good Sicilian that he was, he loved to sing along in full voice....but down in the basement because my grandmother evidently didn't care for opera.
I'm guessing that what he must have listened to must have been from around then since my mom remembers him doing that when she was in her teens in the early 1950's. But she can't remember who was on the recording.
Any suggestions or recommendations would be greatly appreciated.
I have also read that the remaster of this sounds better, but I have yet to hear a single EMI remaster that actually sounded better than the original. I believe that the above release was the first one on CD.
Let me add something to my rather rude post: The best of the soundbars available can be surprisingly good, given they're a compromise to the true surround concept, but they are still a compromise. None of them will compare to a upper-end stereo, or even to a better mid-fi two speaker setup.
Actually, the notion of listening to classical music in surround sound mode sounds weird. After all, the sound you hear in a live concert is not quite surround unless you sit within the performing orchestra.
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Back then I had the electrets. Powered by one's own amp. Later on I was lucky enough to to get Signatures with the tube powered "Energizer", a dedicated amp direct-coupling the "Earspeakers" to the output triods. This goes back to 1988. So If I sometimes seem over-critical of early digital recordings, understand that my first exposure to CDs was mostly via very high resolution earspeakers. I think my ears have adjusted. Many of the early Decca recordings from Cleveland and Toronto were clearly streets ahead of what Sony and DGG was up to in the early years of digital recording. Dorati's remake of Stravinsky's Rite of Spring with the Detroit S.O. springs to mind.
The phones on my "main" system are Stax electrets. Unfortunately, the plastic fork holding one of the earpieces is about to snap, and the elements seem to be loose inside the earcups. In other words, a sadly decayed set of Stax electrets. I stay with them because they are notably revealing, balanced, airy, and neutral. They are also about the most uncomfortable things I've ever tried putting on my head--my ears are sore within maybe 15 minutes every time I use them.
I would add that they are inconvenient in being a second set of "speakers" instead of feeding from the headphone jack, but at the moment I'm relying on a T-Amp that doesn't have a headphone jack, so here the Stax, connected via an external speaker selector box, are actually an ideal choice.
Leoncavallo: I Pagliacci. Gigli, Pacetti, Basiola, Nessi, Paci; La Scala Or. and Cho./Ghione. RVicO set AM 249, 9 12". Exc.
That's as entered in my personal catalogue. To decipher, it features the celebrated Beniamino Gigli, probably the most popular operatic tenor of his day, as recorded in 1934 and originally issued on Victor 78s as set AM 249. (In my coding, "RVicO" means it's an RCA Victor orthophonic scroll label set.) The other cast members are Iva Pacetti, Mario Basiola, Giuseppi Nessi, and Leone Paci with the La Scala Orchestra and Chorus under Franco Ghione. It would have been available as a reissue on LP as soon as Victor threw in the towel and adopted that format. Today it is available as Naxos 8.110155.
 Oh, by the way, there is a recording made under the composer's direction dating back to the acoustic era. It probably wasn't that one, which, curiously, was released as a series of singles, not a set.
For whatever it's worth, the usual practice is to put the performers up front and "ambiance" (read: hall echo) in the rear channels. For my money, surround is valuable in classical music primarily when one is playing things like Venetian Renaissance antiphonal music or the Berlioz Requiem, where the composer directed that some of the musicians should be spotted all around the hall surrounding the audience. It's also interesting with some of the RCA Living Stereo issues, which were recorded in three-channel tape (front-center-right) and then mixed down to two for stereo release on LP. These have no information in the rear channels. That "hall echo" can be impressive in big choral works, but to be honest most of the time I don't find it worth the bother.
As I get older I dig this stuff more and more.
that's cool. I also had the Stax electrets. I believe the designation was the SR40 and later i got the SR44. I think they still would work except the cables went to pot, and now the earpads have crumbled too. I thought they were wonderful headphones. When I got into CDs, I bought a cheap Magnavox player, but I modified the daylights out of it, until it was finally quite musical. Those Stax headphones were a great tool in evaluating the effects of various mods -- capacitor upgrades, IC upgrades, damping, power supply regulation, etc. etc.
I have been away from classical music for awhile. I'm getting a bit bored with jazz lately, but I have amassed a big stack of classical that I've purchased over the past few years, including the Mercury Living Presence and Living Stereo box sets, plus my old favorites. I'm going to have to needledrop some of my old Nonesuch and Odyssey classical recordings, and enjoy them again on my new Grado headphones. I have a fair number of other Rampal discs that weren't recorded digitally.
I have heard the center channel can in fact bring out the voice of choral works better than only the L & R channel.
The only exception to that in my experience was in a concert with some of Henry Brant's spatial music. Of course that kind of distributed arrangement does radically affect harmonic perception among other things.
That should be the goal. However the listener can accomplish that without extra speakers to a fairly great extent just by positioning themselves within the nearfield of the front stereo speakers.
Hey, I'm a two channel guy all the way. And I do listen near field.
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I think mine are SR30s, and with the adapter the system is called SR34. Leastways, that's what I'm remembering (not at home right now). I bought a pair of Grado SR60i phones from the forum's very own KT88 a while back; I love the sound, and unlike the Stax they are hands down the most comfortable headphones I've ever worn.
They're great headphones. At work I listen to Sony ECR-500 electret headphones which are great. At home, I typically listen to Stax normal bias Lambdas or Fostex orthodynamics. 99% of the time, I listen to headphones. I don't own a good speaker setup. My wife wouldn't put up with it and wouldn't put up with me playing music out loud even if I had the speakers. I do have very nice receivers to drive the headphones.
Weren't Decca and DG different divisions of the same company -Polygram?
Later. But in any case, originally they were independent holdings and the companies retained engineering staff and recording techniques.
. . . and the occasional Polychoral spree, like the Tallis Spem in Alium or Pretorius' Polychoral Christmas Music.
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Thank you both for your recommendations!!!
Where are you seeing it for that price?
At amazon.co.uk. Unebelievable! They are all gone by now, or the algorithm changed the prices after my order. I managed to order one from dodax-online-uk after posting this message and it is now on shipping status. George, you should have waked up earlier! Or change your time zone.
Listening to Jean Martinon conducting the complete orchestral works of Debussy. HDTracks has a 96/24 download for $27 ($30 less 10% due to a storewide sale). This was part of the Japanese EMI SACD remastering project. Third party resellers at Amazon have the discs for about $90.
I've never owned any other version of this music, but I like the sound of this download.
A practical, non-musical question for Stuart. How have you been getting to work?
I do a reverse commute from NYC to Norwalk, CT, but because of a major problem on the rails, service has been cut by two thirds and will continue to be for several weeks. I telecommuted Wed - Fri, but have to go in on Monday.
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