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THE PANELISTS INTRODUCED THEIR RECORDING PHILOSOPHIES WITH EXAMPLES OF CURRENT PRODUCTIONS

Morten Lindberg played an excerpt from his recent pro-duction of Ståle Kleiberg’s ”Mass for Mo-dern Man” for soprano, baritone, chamber choir and chamber orchestra (picture 2). The musicians of the Trondheim Sym-phony Orchestra and choir were carefully placed around the main microphone, a system of seven omnidirectional micro-phones, and they were arranged in a cir-cle, leaving out the “middle” microphone in the back. A square of omnidirectional microphones was mounted on top of the L/R front and L/R rear microphones for

The State of the Art:

ARE WE RECORDING THE SCORE OR THE HALL?Text Ulrike Schwarz Anderson

At the 29th Tonmeistertagung in Cologne an international panel of recording professionals from the world of classical music gathered to discuss their approach of taking the score from the hall to the listener.

(5.1 surround) and/or immersive 3D audio was central to the discussion.The philosophical interpretation of the title however goes deep into the concept of music recordings and the role of the recording team: Does a music recording represent an incident of a musical perfor-mance that takes place in a certain space at a certain time or an interpretation of the musical score where the space and performance are manipulated bring a pie-ce of music to life?

The panelists from left to right: Ulrike Schwarz Anderson,

Dan Shores, Akira Fukada and Morten Lindberg

All of the panelists have been recognized by their peers and the music industry with many awards and nominations and all specialize in High Definition acoustic music recording. They have made it their task to enhance the craft of recording music for many decades. Internationally, the approach varies from bringing the details of a score to life to focusing more on the performance of the piece in the recording space. The topic whether the score could be represented better in stereo, spherical multichannel

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the height information. As all singers we-re standing, the recording gives the im-pression that the choir is floating on top of the orchestra in the immersive 3D play-back. Other than a Blumlein system for the soloists, no additional microphones were used. The recording was planned for 3D immersive sound, however during the sound check the 5.1 and the stereo versi-ons were addressed, as well.Naturally, the recorded repertoire needs to be chosen carefully for this approach. Morten Lindberg engages in an in-depth communication with the composer and needs to be ‘on top of the score’ in order to place the musicians to reach the inten-ded three soundscapes. His conviction to this method is so firm that he decided to take on productions only if the repertoire was fitting the sonic language of his label 2L and the musicians are willing to follow the occasionally unorthodox seating and performance setups. The overwhelming international success of his recordings in the audiophile world confirms this convic-tion. He wants to present the music and uses the hall and score as tools to do so.

Dan Shores presented an excerpt of Da-niel Elder’s “Crossing Over” album, perfor-med by the Skylark Vocal Ensemble. This choir album was recorded with five om-nidirectional microphones closely spaced on a microphone bar system similar to the setup “Mass for Modern Man” (pic-ture 3). The microphones for the height information were mounted on top of the L/R front and L/R rear microphones. The vocal ensemble was placed in a 360° sphere around the microphone system and no supporting microphones were in use. In this recording, the 3D immersi-ve recording heightens the sensation of space and clarity, yet the score isn’t re-presented in three dimensions. Since the label Sono Luminus specializes in Contemporary Classical music, the re-cording team often plans the recordings with the composer. For the label’s premi-ere orchestral production with the Iceland Symphony Orchestra pieces were specifi-cally written for an immersive 3D recor-ding format.

Akira Fukada addressed the topic of re-cording the space and/or the score in a philosophical way. For him the listener and his enjoyment of the music are in the center of the approach to a recording. To give the listener satisfaction aestheti-cally and create deep sensation it is the

recording’s task to represent the score faithfully in a possibly virtual space that the composer had in mind for the piece. It is an important factor to know about the spacial arrangements the compo-ser wrote the piece for and be informed about the era’s halls. For example Iannis

Xenakis’ piece “Polytope” is written for four orchestras surrounding the audience, a faithful representation would be in a surround sphere with the listener in the center. In Gustav Mahler’s 8th Symphony the angel could be very well represented in the height dimension of an immersive 3D recording.Since the listener of a recording is lacking the visual sensation it is the task of the recording team to enhance and interpret the score to create the desired e§ect just by listening. It is furthermore the task of

a recording to implement a three dimen-sional imagination even in a stereo play-back thus making the representation of the actual recording space not a prerequi-site to a good recording.For him the possibility of presenting a recording in surround or immersive 3D sound may create a larger sense of space but doesn’t guarantee more aesthetic sa-

tisfaction for the listener. Especially con-sidering the listener’s 3D playback envi-ronment in a private home. It may be very di¨cult to reproduce the intent of the production.His pick as musical example was an ex-cerpt of the “K-Trilogy” of Taro Iwashiro performed by the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra recorded in a concert hall in concert seating (photo 4). His main mi-crophone system consists of three widely spaced omnidirectional microphones in a Fukada Tree as front system and two wi-dely spaced omnidirectional microphones for the rear L and R channels. The height microphones are in a 6,0m edge length

Picture 3: Main micro-phone setup of Dan Shores’ recording of “Crossing Over” for Sono Luminus

Picture 2: Schematic illustration of Morten Lindberg’s recording session of “Mass for Modern Man” for 2Lgr

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of a square over the orchestra. The violin soloist has a supporting stereo system, supporting microphones are placed in all groups of the orchestra.His mixing philosophy for this piece is to use the natural reverberation of the room and enhance it to taste with artificial reverberation.

An excerpt of Ulrike Schwarz Anderson’s recording of Johannes Brahms’ 2nd Symphony, performed by the Stavanger Symphony Orchestra, conclu-ded the musical examples (picture 5). The main microphone system was a widely spaced Decca Tree of large diaphragm omnidirectional microphones with widely spaced omnidirectional outriggers to the left and right of the Decca Tree, paired with wide A-B pair behind the Decca Tree. Two very widely spaced omnidirectional surround microphones were placed in the front rows of the audience. The height microphones were placed on top of the A-B pair and the surround microphones. Supporting microphones for all orchestral groups were in place and the orchestra was seated in standard concert seating on the stage.

The recording setup was optimized to create a powerful stereo image that would be compatible for a vinyl release. The surround mix placed the listener in the virtual place of the conductor that would surround them with strings, while the height dimension was purely to en-hance clarity in performance and present the spacial image of the concert hall. In order to create di§erent positions for the listener and the orchestra the natural re-verb was enhanced by artificial and live chamber reverbs.

This approach is based on the belief that the delivery of the music by the perfor-mers is the key to the success of the production and to the enjoyment of the listener. The intention is to present the orchestra and conductor with the best conditions in which to perform and turn their interpretation of the score into mu-sic. This balances the technical needs of a recording while allowing the musicians perform as close to their typical perfor-mance setup as possible. The new Stavanger Konserthus, with its excellent acoustic enabled the orchestra and conductor to perform at their high-est level and enabled the recording team

to embrace the natural sound of the hall and build on it.Performing in a concert setup also enab-les the production team to capture a live performance, which can create quite dif-ferent emotions than pure productions can. Many orchestras have turned to re-leasing concert productions not simply due to financial and organizational rea-sons but in order to present the listener with the emotions and performance level of a live concert.

However, the production must enhance the producer’s and performers’ interpreta-tion of the score in both cases since the listener of an audio only production is la-cking the visual component of the perfor-mance. For the recording team, the recor-ding/performing space can act as an ins-trument that the performers can respond to, but that space might not necessarily be the acoustic space in which the music is taking place on the recording. For the listener, the acoustic space is optimized to the playback format to create an aest-hetically pleasing experience.

The discussion among panelists and liste-ners continued long after the o¨cial end of the round table at a di§erent round table in Cologne. It turned to the linearity and non-linearity of the musical perfor-mance in productions and its consequen-ces for time and space of a recording. All parties felt that this topic will have to be addressed in detail at the next Tonmeis-tertagung.

Picture 4: Akira Fukada’s schematic

illustration of the “K-Trilogy” recording of

the Tokyo Philharmo-nic Orchestra

Picture 5: Anderson Audio’s microphone setup for Brahm’s 2nd Symphony at Kon-serthus Stavanger for the Stavanger Sym-phony Orchestra.

The protagonists Akira Fukada, president of the pro-duction company Dreamwindow Inc., former senior recording engineer for the Japanese Broadcasting Corporati-on, NHK, and former chief engineer for Sony Studios, Tokyo, Japan,Morten Lindberg, CEO, head producer and engineer of the Norwegian Audio-phile label, 2L,Dan Shores, chief engineer of the studio and Audiophile label Sono Lu-minus in Virginia, USAhosted by: Ulrike Schwarz Anderson, co-owner of the production company Anderson Audio, New York, and for-mer senior recording engineer at BR, München.

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