Classical Candor: Ravel: Bolero, La Valse (SACD review)

Ravel: Bolero, La Valse (SACD review)

Also, Pavane; Rhapsody espagnole; Daphnis et Chloe. Stanislaw Skrowaczewski, Minnesota Orchestra. Mobile Fidelity UDSACD 4002.

A few years ago, I found myself lamenting the passing of a good many audiophile record labels, forgetting that Mobile Fidelity had not been out of business for long before they had regrouped and begun producing high-quality products again. True, they no longer produce everything in the 24K gold format they used to, and they are now more into multitrack discs, but it’s good to have them around in any case.

Like Telarc some time ago, Mo-Fi saw the potential in multitrack SACD, a sonic potential that I find perfectly valid because on the occasions I’ve listened to a Super-Audio compact disc through my Sony SACD player, they have sounded pretty darn good. However, I believe that most people who have bought into multichannel sound have done so for the specific purpose of listening to movies in multichannel surround, not for listening to music alone. So, anticipating this dilemma, the folks at Mo-Fi are doing as the folks at Telarc and other companies still making SACD’s have been doing, producing discs in hybrid, dual-layered, two-channel and three, four, and five-channel SACD’s so they’ll play both on regular stereo CD players and on multichannel SACD machines. Like it or not, however, I continue to do my own music listening in the old-fashioned, two-channel mode in my living room, and I do my movie watching in a separate home-theater room equipped with 7.1, non-SACD playback. There is no multichannel SACD music in sight for me, I’m afraid, but, as I say, I like what I hear from the two-track SACD format.

Anyway, it’s good to have this collection of short Ravel pieces from Stanislaw Skrowaczewski and the Minnesota Orchestra on CD. Vox originally recorded them in the mid Seventies and released them on LP in both two-channel stereo and four-channel quad. The performances, packaged back then singly and in a four-disc box of LP’s, got great reviews. But when the CD era dawned and Vox first remastered them onto compact discs, they didn’t sound as good to me as I had recalled from the old vinyl days. Then, in 2004 Mobile Fidelity did a splendid job bringing the sonics back up to speed or better in their Ultradisc Gain 2 mastering process, so it was nice to hear Skrowaczewski’s Ravel again the way I remembered it.

A booklet note by MFSL chief engineer Shawn Britton tells us that Vox did the original quadraphonic versions of the recordings in Sansui SQ, which was stereo compatible, but that the “folded-down stereo” version yielded artifacts from the SQ-encoded rear channels. In the present remastering, he says, Mo-Fo have recreated the channels discretely in both the two-channel stereo and SACD layers, and in stereo there is no longer any interference from the rear channels. This may account for the sound being even better than I remembered it from LP days. Not that I found the sound absolutely perfect, as good as it is. As Marc Aubort, one of the original engineers on the project, writes additionally in the booklet note: “The top end and especially the bottom end were rolled off before it went to tape to prevent boominess.” That may account for the treble not appearing as extended as I’d like and for the bass being solid but not particularly deep. The result, however, is extremely vivid in the midrange, and its crystal clarity more than makes up for any minor losses at the extremes.

Of the five pieces of music presented on the disc, I enjoyed La Valse best of all. It’s a sardonic work, and the conductor nicely captures its wry undercurrents as well as the purely lyrical waltz qualities. It is, in fact, among the best performances of La Valse I’ve heard and is itself worth the price of the disc. Bolero builds up adequate energy through the conductor’s excellent control of ebb and flow and pays off in its passionate response, one I’ve heard in few other recordings. The Pavane pour une Infante defunte is wonderfully atmospheric, leisurely and serene; the Rapsodie espagnole colorful; and the Suite No. 2 from Daphnis et Chloe appropriately characterful, with the welcome inclusion of an additional segment, “Chloe Is Accosted,” that is now in 5.0 channels for those with the capacity for such playback.

It’s a nice package, undoubtedly sounding better in multitrack SACD playback than I had the opportunity to hear it. The only drawback: Since I first heard the Mo-Fi SACD, the company decided to withdraw it. So if you really want a copy, you’ll have to seek out it out used and probably pay through the nose. Nevertheless, Mo-Fi still make another Skrowaczewski Ravel album from the same source available in SACD that includes the Daphnis et Chloé Suites Nos. 1 and 2, Ma Mère l'Oye, and Valses nobles et sentimentales. It’s equally good.

To listen to a few brief excerpts from this album, click here:

JJP

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

Ravel: Bolero, La Valse (SACD review)

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"Their Master's Voice" by Michael Sowa