Bizet: Carmen Suites (UltraHD CD)

Also, Grieg: Suite from Peer Gynt. Leonard Slatkin, St. Louis Symphony Orchestra. LIM UHD 059.

There is little doubt that for the past hundred-odd years people have found the opera Carmen and the suites derived from it charming. Yet French composer Georges Bizet (1838-1875) would never live to see exactly how popular his final completed opera would become, the work seeing a poor reception in the year of the composer’s early death. Sometimes, life is unfair.

Bizet set the opera in Seville, Spain, during the early nineteenth century, the narrative involving a beautiful and tempestuous Gypsy girl, Carmen, who lavishes her affections on a young but naive soldier, Don Jose. He becomes so enamoured with Carmen, he spurns his former lover, deserts his regiment, and joins Carmen and a crew of smugglers. When Carmen subsequently rejects him and takes up with a bullfighter, Don Jose becomes so enraged with jealousy that he murders her. How’s that for melodrama! Here, on this 1979 Telarc release remastered by LIM, we get two orchestral suites from the opera, containing most of the famous music.

LIM (Lasting Impression Music), if you remember, is an affiliate label of FIM (First Impression Music), a company that for the better part of a decade has been remastering classic older material, using the original master tapes and state-of-the-art processing. These days, they are using a new Ultra High Definition technology utilizing 32-bit mastering. They are also working with a number of recordings from the Telarc catalogue, Telarc being one of the companies that pioneered the digital revolution in recording.

Anyway, Telarc Records, conductor Leonard Slatkin, and the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra chose to do two orchestral suites from Carmen, the first containing six items, the second two. Suite No. 1 contains the Prelude to Act I, Aragonaise (Prelude to Act II), Intermezzo (Prelude to Act III), Seguidilla, Les Dragoons d’Alcala, and Les Toreadors (Introduction to Act I). Suite No. 2 contains only two numbers, La Garde Montante and Danse Boheme, but they are individually longer than those of the first suite.

In Slatkin’s readings we get sturdy, straightforward interpretations of the score, without too much characterization from the conductor. If you want more color in these suites, I would suggest you look to Sir Thomas Beecham (EMI), Paul Paray (Mercury), Leopold Stokowski (Sony), or Herbert von Karajan (DG). While these are much older recordings than the Telarc, they still sound pretty good, and the realizations are more creative. With these Slatkin renderings, it’s the sound that’s king.

Still, Slatkin’s version of the Intermezzo does come across beautifully, and Les Toreadors, which Slatkin takes at a rapid pace, is wonderfully exciting, especially with Telarc’s big bass drum pounding away in the background. Nevertheless, it hasn’t quite the swagger we hear from the aforementioned conductors. The Suite No. 2 has fewer but longer entries, as I say, and Slatkin gives them a fair amount of spontaneity, closing the show with a huge burst of energy.

Coupled with the Bizet sets is a six-movement suite from Peer Gynt by Edvard Grieg (1843-1907), taken from the incidental music Grieg wrote in 1875 to accompany Henrik Ibsen’s play of the same name. I liked these selections from Slatkin rather more than I did the Bizet because there seems to be more life, more vitality, to them. Here, I found a more convincing depiction of the events in the play. The “however” is that recordings from Oivin Fjeldstad (Decca) and Raymond Leppard (Philips) can be even more imaginative, and while they don’t sound as good as these from Telarc/LIM, they are a lot cheaper.

Telarc’s producer, Robert Woods, and engineer Jack Renner recorded the music at Powell Symphony Hall, St. Louis, in 1979, and LIM’s Winston Ma and Robert Friedrich remastered it using their Ultra High Definition 32-bit processing in 2011, releasing the remaster in 2012. The sound they obtain is better than anything else you’ll find in Bizet or Grieg. The definition is rock steady, firmer on the LIM remaster than on the original Telarc disc, and the bass and dynamic contrasts are slightly tauter. What’s more, the LIM brings out the imaging and depth better, too. Now, we’re not talking about night-and-day differences, you understand, but listening carefully and comparing, you’ll hear the improvements. Whether the LIM remastering is wroth the extra money, of course, is up to one’s ears and one’s pocketbook.

As icing on the cake (or to seal the deal, so to speak), the folks at LIM also provide an attractive, high-gloss, hardcover package, a twenty-page bound booklet, and a static-proof inner sleeve. For a complete listing of FIM/LIM products, you can visit their Web site at http://www.firstimpressionmusic.com/.

JJP

Meet the Staff

Meet the Staff
John J. Puccio, Founder and Contributor

Understand, I'm just an everyday guy reacting to something I love. And I've been doing it for a very long time, my appreciation for classical music starting with the musical excerpts on the Big Jon and Sparkie radio show in the early Fifties and the purchase of my first recording, The 101 Strings Play the Classics, around 1956. In the late Sixties I began teaching high school English and Film Studies as well as becoming interested in hi-fi, my audio ambitions graduating me from a pair of AR-3 speakers to the Fulton J's recommended by The Stereophile's J. Gordon Holt. In the early Seventies, I began writing for a number of audio magazines, including Audio Excellence, Audio Forum, The Boston Audio Society Speaker, The American Record Guide, and from 1976 until 2008, The $ensible Sound, for which I served as Classical Music Editor.

Today, I'm retired from teaching and use a pair of bi-amped VMPS RM40s loudspeakers for my listening. In addition to writing for the Classical Candor blog, I served as the Movie Review Editor for the Web site Movie Metropolis (formerly DVDTown) from 1997-2013. Music and movies. Life couldn't be better.

Karl Nehring, Editor and Contributor

For more than 20 years I was the editor of The $ensible Sound magazine and a regular contributor to both its equipment and recordings review pages. I would not presume to present myself as some sort of expert on music, but I have a deep love for and appreciation of many types of music, "classical" especially, and have listened to thousands of recordings over the years, many of which still line the walls of my listening room (and occasionally spill onto the furniture and floor, much to the chagrin of my long-suffering wife). I have always taken the approach as a reviewer that what I am trying to do is simply to point out to readers that I have come across a recording that I have found of interest, a recording that I think they might appreciate my having pointed out to them. I suppose that sounds a bit simple-minded, but I know I appreciate reading reviews by others that do the same for me — point out recordings that they think I might enjoy.

For readers who might be wondering about what kind of system I am using to do my listening, I should probably point out that I do a LOT of music listening and employ a variety of means to do so in a variety of environments, as I would imagine many music lovers also do. Starting at the more grandiose end of the scale, the system in which I do my most serious listening comprises Marantz CD 6007 and Onkyo CD 7030 CD players, NAD C 658 streaming preamp/DAC, Legacy Audio PowerBloc2 amplifier, and a pair of Legacy Audio Focus SE loudspeakers. I occasionally do some listening through pair of Sennheiser 560S headphones. I miss the excellent ELS Studio sound system in our 2016 Acura RDX (now my wife's daily driver) on which I had ripped more than a hundred favorite CDs to the hard drive, so now when driving my 2022 Accord EX-L Hybrid I stream music from my phone through its adequate but not outstanding factory system. For more casual listening at home when I am not in my listening room, I often stream music through the phone into a Vizio soundbar system that has tolerably nice sound for such a diminutive physical presence. And finally, at the least grandiose end of the scale, I have an Ultimate Ears Wonderboom II Bluetooth speaker for those occasions where I am somewhere by myself without a sound system but in desperate need of a musical fix. I just can’t imagine life without music and I am humbly grateful for the technology that enables us to enjoy it in so many wonderful ways.

William (Bill) Heck, Webmaster and Contributor

Among my early childhood memories are those of listening to my mother playing records (some even 78 rpm ones!) of both classical music and jazz tunes. I suppose that her love of music was transmitted genetically, and my interest was sustained by years of playing in rock bands – until I realized that this was no way to make a living. The interest in classical music was rekindled in grad school when the university FM station serving as background music for studying happened to play the Brahms First Symphony. As the work came to an end, it struck me forcibly that this was the most beautiful thing I had ever heard, and from that point on, I never looked back. This revelation was to the detriment of my studies, as I subsequently spent way too much time simply listening, but music has remained a significant part of my life. These days, although I still can tell a trumpet from a bassoon and a quarter note from a treble clef, I have to admit that I remain a nonexpert. But I do love music in general and classical music in particular, and I enjoy sharing both information and opinions about it.

The audiophile bug bit about the same time that I returned to classical music. I’ve gone through plenty of equipment, brands from Audio Research to Yamaha, and the best of it has opened new audio insights. Along the way, I reviewed components, and occasionally recordings, for The $ensible Sound magazine. Most recently I’ve moved to my “ultimate system” consisting of a BlueSound Node streamer, an ancient Toshiba multi-format disk player serving as a CD transport, Legacy Wavelet II DAC/preamp/crossover, dual Legacy PowerBloc2 amps, and Legacy Signature SE speakers (biamped), all connected with decently made, no-frills cables. With the arrival of CD and higher resolution streaming, that is now the source for most of my listening.

Ryan Ross, Contributor

I started listening to and studying classical music in earnest nearly three decades ago. This interest grew naturally out of my training as a pianist. I am now a musicologist by profession, specializing in British and other symphonic music of the 19th and 20th centuries. My scholarly work has been published in major music journals, as well as in other outlets. Current research focuses include twentieth-century symphonic historiography, and the music of Jean Sibelius, Ralph Vaughan Williams, and Malcolm Arnold.

I am honored to contribute writings to Classical Candor. In an age where the classical recording industry is being subjected to such profound pressures and changes, it is more important than ever for those of us steeped in this cultural tradition to continue to foster its love and exposure. I hope that my readers can find value, no matter how modest, in what I offer here.


Bryan Geyer, Technical Analyst

I initially embraced classical music in 1954 when I mistuned my car radio and heard the Heifetz recording of Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto. That inspired me to board the new "hi-fi" DIY bandwagon. In 1957 I joined one of the pioneer semiconductor makers and spent the next 32 years marketing transistors and microcircuits to military contractors. Home audio DIY projects remained a personal passion until 1989 when we created our own new photography equipment company. I later (2012) revived my interest in two channel audio when we "downsized" our life and determined that mini-monitors + paired subwoofers were a great way to mate fine music with the space constraints of condo living.

Visitors that view my technical papers on this site may wonder why they appear here, rather than on a site that features audio equipment reviews. My reason is that I tried the latter, and prefer to publish for people who actually want to listen to music; not to equipment. My focus is in describing what's technically beneficial to assure that the sound of the system will accurately replicate the source input signal (i. e. exhibit high accuracy) without inordinate cost and complexity. Conversely, most of the audiophiles of today strive to achieve sound that's euphonic, i.e. be personally satisfying. In essence, audiophiles seek sound that's consistent with their desire; the music is simply a test signal.

Mission Statement

It is the goal of Classical Candor to promote the enjoyment of classical music. Other forms of music come and go--minuets, waltzes, ragtime, blues, jazz, bebop, country-western, rock-'n'-roll, heavy metal, rap, and the rest--but classical music has been around for hundreds of years and will continue to be around for hundreds more. It's no accident that every major city in the world has one or more symphony orchestras.

When I was young, I heard it said that only intellectuals could appreciate classical music, that it required dedicated concentration to appreciate. Nonsense. I'm no intellectual, and I've always loved classical music. Anyone who's ever seen and enjoyed Disney's Fantasia or a Looney Tunes cartoon playing Rossini's William Tell Overture or Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 can attest to the power and joy of classical music, and that's just about everybody.

So, if Classical Candor can expand one's awareness of classical music and bring more joy to one's life, more power to it. It's done its job. --John J. Puccio

Contact Information

Readers with polite, courteous, helpful letters may send them to classicalcandor@gmail.com

Readers with impolite, discourteous, bitchy, whining, complaining, nasty, mean-spirited, unhelpful letters may send them to classicalcandor@recycle.bin.

"Their Master's Voice" by Michael Sowa

"Their Master's Voice" by Michael Sowa