Released in June 1950 as Decca LXT 2520
Download ID: 172579, 381656
(Duration: 36'03")
Play
sample movement:
César
Franck's Piano Quintet of 1880 was something of a watershed in chamber
music, both with regard to its originality and emotional tumults, and
it immediately divided the musical world into two camps. The story of
the première is very well told by Bill Rosen in his review (below)
- as such I intend here to concentrate on the remarkable technical aspects
of this particular restoration, after this brief word:
This
recording is one of the greatest performances of a chamber work
I have ever heard with sonic reprocessing that fully matches its
artistry... -
Bill Rosen
Unlike
the Quintetto Chigiano's other early 1950's recordings for Decca,
we can find no evidence of this ever reappearing in any form after its
initial release. It was among the first batch of LP records issued by
the company in 1950 - their LXT series started at 2500, and this was the
twentieth.
Perhaps
the main reason for its absence from the later catalogue is the persistent
pitch variation throughout the original, something that closer analysis
has revealed to be a product of the original master recording and not
of later poor pressing or disc mastering. Indeed, this would explain its
absence - if a master disc shows errors a company can return to the master
tapes and remake it. If, however, the problem is intrinsic to the master
tapes then perhaps one needs to wait 56 years until the technology is
in place to correct the problem!
The record
exhibited a double-wow througout the recording. In other words, for every
rotation of the disc, the pitch twice varied up and down by +/-0.15 semitones.
We have yet to figure out quite how this could come to pass but have some
possible ideas. What we do know is that the 'wow' affected the masters
as the its up and down cycle is clearly and visibly interrupted each time
there is an edit made in the recording.
Manually de-wowing
an LP:
Thus restoring
this recording produced real problems for the restorer, Peter Harrison
at disc2disk. Here are two audio clips, before and after restoration.
Listen carefully to the piano tone as it wavers up and down in the before
section:
Wow
removal demonstrated
Piano
Quintet clip before processing
Piano
Quintet clip after processing
Below is
a graphical representation of the clips - again the 'before' is on the
top and the 'after' is below.You'll see the noise and clicks on the top
picture as one would expect from an old LP. But look carefully at the
horizontal lines - the first four seconds show the end of the strings
opening - then there's a clear change in the music at the piano solo entry.
In the
top picture the notes, particularly the harmonics about halfway up the
screen, look a little like tadpoles - in the bottom they've been straightened
out. The wiggle illustrates the 66 2/3 rpm wow we found on the original
recording - over 2400 of them on the complete Quintet, which have been
carefully 'de-wowed' one - or a few - at a time.
Zooming
in makes the differences more obvious:
Before
fixing and processing
After
fixing and processing
:
Although
I've stated that this occured regularly, in fact the precise timing of
the wow could vary minutely from cycle to cycle, and thus a simple fix
for the whole 36 minutes was not possible - each section of processing
had to be individually addressed and adjusted to fit the precise nature
of the problem at that point. The finished product is quite remarkably
stable - something the Decca engineers of the 1950's would have considered
a miracle - and even today I find an astonishing achievement on the part
of Peter Harrison.
.
REVIEW
OF FRANCK: Piano Quintet in F minor Quintetto Chigiano (1950)
Perhaps
I should just let my heart take over and say that as in its
later recording of the Brahms F Minor Piano Quintet (PACM010),
this recording is one of the greatest performances of a chamber
work I have ever heard with sonic reprocessing that fully
matches its artistry. Anything else I write below is just
intellectual gloss.
The
Franck quintet announced its composer's arrival in the ranks
of world-class composers. Two people were much discomfitted
at its premiere. His wife, who sensed in the surging passion
of the first movement a transfer of his bourgeois religious
emotion into something rather more earthly. The pianist, Camille
Saint-Saens, who was the reigning instrumental French Composer
and whose very temperate aesthethic went well with the times,
was disgusted with such a naked display of passion. No succeeding
Franck work wore its heart so much on its sleeve; by the Violin
Sonata (perhaps the greatest of all violin sonatas and Franck's
greatest work) the passion and the classicism are fused into
a noble whole.
The
Quintetto Chigiano find the golden mean between spontaneity
and line. They play with immense integration. At the very
beginning, when the four strings play fortissimo and with
the utmost tension, the piano enters very relaxed and beautifully.
In most performances, the piano enters as from afar--some
other planet--but here the piano enters as a feminine spirit
but from the same family as those very agitated and "up-tight"
strings. But later on in the first movement, it is the strings
who attempt to calm the piano. There is never a gulf between
them; they are really one voice. Technically, they are incredible,
but it is their spirit which gets to me.
I
wish I knew what happened to this group. Why did they not
make a great career for themselves?
Download
our Illustrated Catalogue Complete
catalogue of recordings, fully indexed by composer and performer,
with links to website pages
Restoration
by Peter Harrison:
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This
recording is one of the greatest performances of a chamber work
I have ever heard with sonic reprocessing that fully matches its
artistry... -
Bill Rosen
