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01-03. Poulenc: Sonata for Flute & Piano
04-06. Schonberg: Duets for two violins
07. Debussy: La Plus que Lente
08-10. Ravel: Sonata for Violin & Piano in G Major
11-13. Stravinsky: Ballet Exerpts from Petrushka & Firebird
14-17. Bach: Partita no.1 in B minor, BWV 1002 (Live Performance) |
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Yarlung Records (雅魯唱片)是美國新進發燒品牌，以西藏中心之雅魯藏布江河谷命名，西藏人相信這裡是天與地之接合點。雅魯唱片為美國501第3項國內稅收法非弁利組織，公司使命是提供最佳的製作機會，把一些新進及有潛質的演奏家簽下，使用analog tape 或 24bits/176Khz數碼方式，錄下他們最真、最富感情的演奏。多張錄音後期工作均交由AcousTech的Kevin Gray及混音大師Steve Hoffman處理，24 Karat Gold Audiophile CD ，made in USA。
Features:
Martin Chalifour, violin (Milstein Stradivarius, Michael Fischer, Jack Benny Stradivarius and Guarneri)
Joanne Pearce Martin, piano
Maia Jasper, violin
Bryan Pezzone, piano
Recorded in Walt Disney Concert Hall June 2-3, 2008
Recording Engineer: Bob Attiyeh
Mastering Engineer: Steve Hoffman
Monitoring Equipment: Acoustic Image
Steinway Technician: Ron Elliot
Neumann & AKG Tube Microphones: Gearworks Pro Audio
Producer’s Notes:
I love Walt Disney Concert Hall. When Martin Chalifour and I first discussed making this album, we hoped it would be possible to record in the hall itself. Using Walt Disney Concert Hall for this project made perfect sense. Martin plays over one hundred concerts in this space each year, and I personally attend about forty. The acoustics have continued to improve since the hall opened in 2003, and they were good at the beginning. However, it was not easy to find time in this great building and it is thanks to Deborah Borda and Gail Samuel that this recording became possible. (Many thanks to you both!)
The Los Angeles Philharmonic owns one of my favorite pianos. The orchestra bought this instrument from Steinway in New York for the hall's opening. Helene Grimaud helped by trying the best pianos available at the factory, and sent four to Los Angeles. This one, serial number 562930 "won the competion" once these pianos arrived in Los Angeles. I have been itching to work with this instrument since I first heard it. (Incidentally, Mitsuko Uchida sent four Hamburg Steinways to Walt Disney Concert Hall as well, and the orchestra owns one of these magnificent instruments. I prefer the New York sound, which is darker and more linear, so we used it for this album.)
Additionally, we used five violins in this recording, each of which sounds very different. Jerry and Terri Kohl own the famous "ex Goldmann" Stradivarius (1 716) played for most of his career by Nathan Milstein. It is this violin, more than any other, with which Milstein made Bach's sonatas and partitas so famous in the twentieth century, both in concert, and on his renowned Capitol Records and Deutsche Gramophone recordings. The Kohl family kindly allowed Martin to use this instrument, and Martin plays it for much of this album. The Los Angeles Philharmonic owns the 1 729 "Joachim," or "Petschnikoff" or "Jack Benny Strad," owned and played by the comedian, and given by him to the orchestra. This second Stradivarius is the instrument Martin usually plays in concert with the Philharmonic. Martin owns a beautiful Josef Filius Andrea Guarneri, known as the "ex Sigmund Biel" (ca. 1 720), and he borrowed his friend Cheryl Norman's Michael Fischer violin made in Los Angeles in 1995 as well. Michael Fischer used the "Joseph Guarnerius fecit Cremonae" (1741) as his model for Cheryl's new violin. For the Schonberg duets, Martin plays the Fischer on the left track on our recording and Maia Jasper plays her Lavazza (ca. 1720) on the right track. The manuscripts indicate that Schonberg wrote these charming ditties when he was six years old. It may be, however, that he was the ripe old age of eight or nine. Either way, they reveal Schonberg's delightful whimsy years before he became the Arnold Schonberg.
It is always a pleasure to work with our friend Joanne Pearce Martin, principal keyboardist with the Los Angeles Philharmonic. You may have her Yarlung Records release foanne Pearce Martin: Barefoot (also recorded on a spectacular instrument, by the way, Steinway Concert & Artists piano number 599 in Zipper Hall at Colburn School across the street from Walt Disney Concert Hall). I have known Bryan Pezzone and enjoyed his playing for years, both with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra and the Los Angeles Philharmonic. I met Maia Jasper through this project, and look very much forward to hearing more of her music!
Thanks to our friend and supporter Jon Fisher at Gearworks Pro Audio, I selected two matched U-47 Neumann microphones for all the music on this recording except for the Schonberg duets, where I used an AKG C-24 stereo microphone, with the original brass surround CK12 tube. For the Schonberg we used Yarlung-Records-designed interconnects with a flat silver ribbon suspended in air for the dialectric. For all the other tracks, where we recorded violin and piano, we used the Gearworks Neumann U-47 microphones with their original VF14M tubes, which are metal-clad pentode tubes configured as triodes. These microphones may be the most famous microphones in the world, and Neumann made many of them, but it is a special privilege to use a pair with the original tubes in good condition. With the Neumanns, we selected short (five feet) stranded silver interconnects designed by Yarlung Records. We made no equalization curve adjustments on this album. We made all "EQ adjustments" with microphone placement at the start. It is always our goal to record this way, and we succeeded similarly with Orion, Evening Conversations, David Howard, Ryan MacEvoy McCullough in Concert, foanne Pearce Martin: Barefoot, Dialoghi, and Inner World. For all of these albums we used our customized vacuum tube microphone preamplifiers, no mixer, and recorded directly to two tracks sampled at 176,400 samples per second at 24 bit depth.
I wanted to share a personal anecdote about the Bach partita on this album. Jim Valentine served many years as head carpenter for Walt Disney Concert Hall and for the Los Angeles Philharmonic in the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion until his retirement shortly after our sessions in June of 2008. Jim helped with our recording, and supervised construction of the special Itzhak Perlman conductor's podium on which Martin stood for the Poulenc, Ravel, Stravinsky and Bach.
Jim heard a few minutes of Martin's offstage warm-up for his orchestra audition through which he became Principal Concertmaster in 1995. Jim told me during a recording break that it was obvious, even to him as a non-violinist, that Martin deserved the position. In appreciation, Martin and Joanne invited Jim to attend a "private concert" of the Bach partita in his honor. This performance is the live take included on our album.
Martin and I wish to say a special thank you to Terri & Jerry Kohl and to Silvia & Kevin Dretzka, whose generosity and enthusiasm made this album possible. Jerry and Terri gave us financial support for this recording and gave us the use of their magnificent violin. Kevin and Silvia told me previously that they would like to fund a "very special project." They did, and we are so grateful. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.
-Bob Attiyeh, producer |
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HI FI REVIEW (2010/11/1) Author:
馮春木
Walt Disney音樂廳名琴錄音 發燒賞樂兩相宜
CNA Music Limited引進美國古典唱片牌子Yarlung，這名字有點亞洲味。公司logo又是一座庭台樓閣樣子的塔。
除了個別製作有亞裔演奏家參與，Yarlung的音樂趣味倒是完全西方的。錄音製作又循高保真(hi fi)路線。以本月CNA Music Limited重點推介的「Martin Chalifour在禾路狄士尼音樂廳」(CD編號94004)為例，大部份曲目用配對的 Neumann U-47話筒及原廠的VF l4M真空管放大；另一小部份用AKG-C-24立體聲咪及原廠的CK 12膽放大。Yarlung有自己設計、製作的訊號線，錄音時扁帶式銀製訊號線懸空離地。夠燒吧?
一般錄音都會用電子均衡器 (EQ)，Yarlung認為這污染了訊號，所以靠小心擺咪來做「EQ調節」，事後，完全不用電子EQ。二聲道訊號(音源)經Yarlung「摩」過的真空管前級放大之後，不經混音台直接饋入數碼錄音機: 24bit/176.4KHz!
洛杉磯愛樂樂團首席樂隊首席 (Principal concertmaster)馬田．查理科(Chalifour)自1995年考獲這要職，除「拉樂隊」也有作solo演出。洛杉磯愛樂擁有1729 "姚亞幸" Strad小提琴，這名琴一度為演員Jack Benny擁有，Benny將這琴魄贈予「洛」團；而作為樂團的首席，馬田．查理科長期在音樂會上(和排練)使用這琴。
查理科本人則擁有一把名為"ex-Sigmund Biel"的J.F.A. Guarneri小提琴(製於1720前後)。為了這個 Yarlung錄音，查理科又向友人商借了一把Michael Fischer小提琴。這把現代琴是Fischer以 "Joseph Guarnerius fecit Cremonae" (1741)為藍本以仿製的。
上述三把小提琴還不夠「來頭大」?米爾斯坦 (Nathan Milstein)長期使用的 "eX-Goldmann" Strad (1716)、即米氏用來為Capitol(Eml)及DG灌錄「巴赫無伴奏」的那把琴，夠大未?目前擁有這支Strad的Kohl家族，借出這琴給查理科錄音。全碟63分鐘的音樂，其中約46分鐘就是用Milstein的小提琴來演出的。
查理科用了四把小提琴來錄本碟，可是唱片公司標榜五支violins。原來，其中一個作品是荀伯格 (A. Schoenberg)在六歲時作的三首(短的)小提琴二重奏，這裡查理科有小提琴家Maia Jasper做拍檔；Jasper用的是 Lavazza (約1720年)小提琴。
本CD收錄的作品，除上述荀伯格的，還有舒曼譜寫鋼琴伴奏聲部的巴赫solo Partita No.1 BWV 1002(查理科說。作為獨奏作品此曲是很dry的，最少被人選來演出；但恰是舒曼發揮他的和聲才華的最佳機會，是「舒曼版巴赫」最成功一曲)；史特拉汶斯基《三首芭蕾選曲》選自《火鳥》及《彼華利山，其故居就在荀伯格故居不遠處；這三首是作曲家因應小提琴家Samuel Dushkin要求而動筆的》；浦朗克長笛奏鳴曲(這是查理科的移植，當中包括加上雙音、撥弦、向下移調、將G弦的定弦移低半度等等)；德布西《更慢些的華爾茲》(採用小提琴家Leon Roques的編譜而非海費茲的)；和拉威爾的小提琴奏鳴曲(全碟唯一的原創，不涉及改編移植)。
本碟採用24K黃金製造訊息膜。Stereophile雜誌的資深編輯Michael Fremer聽了後，說:「才聽了幾個小節，你已知這個錄音把你帶進世上其中一個最靚聲的音樂廳裹。音色的正確性、層次織體的清晰度、3D聚焦與『可感知性』皆是最高水準。」
「要留意音量不應太大。太大的話，樂器的直接音會掩蓋清秀雅致的音樂廳堂音。這是一個透明的錄音，音量正確的話，你會清楚聽到音樂家背後有很大的、開揚的、有很靚共鳴的空間。」
Yarlung是對音響講究的。大部份出品是24K金碟，即使不是(例如Antonio Lysy的阿根廷大提琴音樂)，也標明採用高解像處女膠(Virgin Polycarbonate)。CD都用處女膠，我是首次見聞。下月評該碟。
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