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St. Mark's Episcopal Cathedral, Seattle Washington

Started by KB7DQH, April 21, 2010, 07:31:34 PM

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KB7DQH

Friday, 7:30 PM

All Bach concert   

Kimberly Marshall, organist

on this organhttp://www.saintmarks.org/Worship/Music/FlentropTechnical.php
which one could argue began the "tracker action revival" here in the USA...

Eric
KB7DQH
The objective is to reach human immortality—that is, to create things which are necessary to mankind, necessary to the purpose of the existence of mankind, and which have become the fruit that drives the creation of a higher state of mankind than ever existed before."

NonPlayingAnorak

I've got a recording of this organ and it sounds truly vile. And I think there was carpet on the floor. The lady organist - one Christa Rakich - totally failed to understand that you can't do Romantic/post-Romantic stuff on it.

KB7DQH

Now, see, there you go making me feel guilty about not attending the concert :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'(

A couple questions... When was the recording made?  With What technology?  I ask as there have been renovations made in 1992 and 1995 to the organ... and considerable improvement in recording technology made since that time.

Having not been there myself I can only rely on "publicly available information"... The room is said to have an acoustic decay of at least 6 seconds... and described as being constructed of "unfinished concrete".  A capacity crowd could absorb this down I suppose...

Microphone placement is critical to the success of ANY audio recording made of anything, as well as the type of microphone and the equipment it feeds. 

And in particular the recording of pipe organs in their "natural environment" ;D   Great examples of
this discrepancy are evident in our esteemed moderator's recordings made at St. Maximin... The camera audio, although good for a consumer-grade video recorder, is not without its limitations... the digital recording made with much better microphones (and placement 8) being far better, although I fear the microphone placement favored the upperwork rather than the foundation stops
in my humble opinion... although this could be as much a function of the instrument registration as well :-\

David's description indicates  that full-organ (which would include drawing the 32' pitch stops?) tends to flatten the tuning of the upperwork...  not surprising.  My father demonstrated this
flattening of the tuning with insufficient wind  to great effect when I was a boy on our church instrument by holding down
a big chord with the blower shut off, then switched on the blower whilst holding the chord... Fun stuff!

   But I digress.... So I will digress even further... and apply this to the generation of "samples"
of pipe organs used in "digital equivalents" and say (nudge, nudge ;)  that the only way to properly
experience a pipe organ is to actually go and hear one for yourself ;D ;D ;D

Yes, I am "preaching to the choir" ;)  But if you aren't in the "choir" THIS MEANS YOU ;D ;D ;D



The objective is to reach human immortality—that is, to create things which are necessary to mankind, necessary to the purpose of the existence of mankind, and which have become the fruit that drives the creation of a higher state of mankind than ever existed before."

David Pinnegar

Quote from: KB7DQH on May 05, 2010, 09:50:35 AMMicrophone placement is critical to the success of ANY audio recording made of anything, as well as the type of microphone and the equipment it feeds.  . . .  The camera audio, although good for a consumer-grade video recorder, is not without its limitations... the digital recording made with much better microphones (and placement 8) being far better

Hi!

Yes - very direct experience of this - particularly at St Maximin with
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSf7-4t_SWc recorded with a proper recorder and
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qrL7vdnibw with the camera sound. The proper recording is significantly degraded by video compression which progressively loses the top octaves of frequencies on higher sound levels.

These effects are even more pronounced on videos of my own concert instrument when recorded by the camera as they would be when taking any camera into an organ loft within 4 metres of the trumpet pipes, as demonstrated again at St Maximin:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81JzrpXMB14

In these days of armchair travelling instead of real experiences, people are getting very imbalanced and plastic views of the outside world, including organs.

Plastic . . . even listening through Lowthers http://www.lowtherloudspeakers.com/
is a recording which can only approximate to a live performance so how can anyone judge any sound through plastic speakers common nowadays, let alone through computer speakers and their poor audio paths . . .

Best wishes

David P

KB7DQH

 ;D  Finally heard an FM broadcast of a recording made of this instrument less than an hour ago...
I am playing back the Digital Audio Tape recording I made of that same broadcast ;D as I write this 8)

And I am going to add this to my list of Inspirational Instruments ;)  just as soon as I get around to it.

Now I REALLY want to hear this one "in the flesh".  I measured at least 4 seconds of reverberant decay in this particular recording and broadcast, and estimating the dynamic range at around 70dB after the obvious gain compression (analog judging by the noise) in the recording (and broadcast compression to boot)added to the couple  dB of broadcast path noise, which I could likely get rid of
by using a much more directive antenna than what I am using currently.  After all that it is still amazing to listen to  ;):o  and I now have a better recording than anything I have been able to dig up on the  Midmer-Losh op. 5550.

Quote from: NonPlayingAnorak on May 05, 2010, 12:59:54 AM
I've got a recording of this organ and it sounds truly vile. And I think there was carpet on the floor. The lady organist - one Christa Rakich - totally failed to understand that you can't do Romantic/post-Romantic stuff on it.

All I can say now is I think you were unfortunate enough to obtain a truly vile recording of a really fine instrument :'( :'( :'(

Eric
The objective is to reach human immortality—that is, to create things which are necessary to mankind, necessary to the purpose of the existence of mankind, and which have become the fruit that drives the creation of a higher state of mankind than ever existed before."

NonPlayingAnorak

Quote from: KB7DQH on May 10, 2010, 07:55:32 AM
Quote from: NonPlayingAnorak on May 05, 2010, 12:59:54 AM
I've got a recording of this organ and it sounds truly vile. And I think there was carpet on the floor. The lady organist - one Christa Rakich - totally failed to understand that you can't do Romantic/post-Romantic stuff on it.

All I can say now is I think you were unfortunate enough to obtain a truly vile recording of a really fine instrument :'( :'( :'(

Eric

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Christa-Rakich-Recital-Marks-Cathedral/dp/B00005YK75/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1274691182&sr=8-3

That's the recording in question. The Franck was truly horrid, using a honky Krummhorn or somesuch in place of a Cavaillé-Coll Voix Humaine...

KB7DQH

Probably because there ISN'T a Vox Humaine  on that instrument ??? ??? ???
Krummhorn in 8' pitch however...

Tuned in equal temperament...

I have heard exactly two pieces of music played on that instrument,

Maurice  Durufle's transcription (from 78RPM records) of a Charles Tournamere improvisation on
Victime' Pascgali....   on this albumhttp://www.gothic-catalog.com/French_on_Flentrop_Melvin_Butler_p/lrcd-1013.htm

and a transcription for organ of Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition. 

I guess I should consider myself lucky that there is at least one classical music station left on the air
locally, and that at least one hour on one evening they devote entirely to organ and organ/choral music... mostly by local organists or on local organs 8) 8) 8)

Eric
KB7DQH
The objective is to reach human immortality—that is, to create things which are necessary to mankind, necessary to the purpose of the existence of mankind, and which have become the fruit that drives the creation of a higher state of mankind than ever existed before."

NonPlayingAnorak

I knew that there was no VH at Seattle! I was just saying that the recording showed playing and registration that was entirely inappropriate... mind you, I think it's criminal that there's a single modern organ in the world of the size of that organ in Seattle with no VH. It's an absolutely essential stop for so much repertoire. Alas, in this country, many were cast out as irrelevances in the 60s, 70s and 80s... and now they're being put back again!

KB7DQH

Your argument about registration definitely holds water IMHO...  The Flentrop is certainly capable of conveying that sound with the pipes it has, if registered appropriately ;)  Spinning on the minidisc as I write this is the previously mentioned Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition...  the Organist uses a great deal of the instrument's tonal resources to grand effect throughout 8) 8) 8)

Oddly enough, a number of theater organs have a Vox humana 8) as does the Fisk Op. 114 "just over the hill" from the Flentrop...  I will have to view the disposition of the "chapel" organ (at St. Mark's) and see what's there :)
The objective is to reach human immortality—that is, to create things which are necessary to mankind, necessary to the purpose of the existence of mankind, and which have become the fruit that drives the creation of a higher state of mankind than ever existed before."