orchestra brass balance

[bloke]

Those of us - who have lived through the entire thing - have watched the balance of brass in orchestras (decibels and presence) virtually explode since the early 1970s.
I believe (??) I can pinpoint its beginning with the hiring of Sir George Solti by the Chicago Symphony, and London “FFR” records recording performances by them with tremendous quantities of microphones and a heavy brass balance in the mix. Compared to Reiner recordings, these were vastly different. I can’t be certain whether the Chicago Orchestra (live) sounded like their new recordings at first, but (I believe) that (at least) soon after they (“they”, meaning Solti and brass) attempted to emulate the sound that was mixed into the London “FFR” recordings in their live performances...and so it spread - across the world - quickly from there.
I haven’t noticed the over-the-top brass thing so much in Europe, and perhaps because of tradition – being that orchestras originated there – and perhaps because many of their music halls acoustics are so resonant that playing that way would obliterate all patron aural acuity.
Please understand that I am not indicting Chicago nor Solti, and nor am I indicting the sound-alikes that have followed. This style is really exciting, and particularly well-employed in recent-decades movie music.
I’ve been watching quite a few OLD movies from the 1940s and 1950s, and – when standard orchestral literature is being played in the background in many old movies - it is strikingly obvious that the balance of those past American orchestras (when their sound is brought to the fore, in old soundtracks) is vastly different from the standard today, when it’s time for the brass to be heard.
This topic has been “talked around“ a little bit in the past, but I’m not sure that it’s ever been discussed as a stand-alone topic. After all, we love playing out, and not very much criticism of this tendency will be found in our camp.
Just to clarify, I’m not in favor of any “return to the past“ and neither am I “championing the past”. All I am doing is remarking on the difference, having been – once again - reminded of it.
Just as a suggestion on how the thread might go - if others decide to post in it, there has been quite a bit of emphasis in enhanced low range response (in tubas and bass trombones) since this tendency came to the fore…That’s obviously understandable. To me, this tendency seems to have often been at the expense of easy intonation characteristics...thankfully, not always.
...so post your thoughts.
Unless you are a classical music historical audiofile, you may need to be as old as I am to understand - and be aware of - what has happened.

[DandyZ629]

You KNOW I have to comment on this...and I promise too once I have some time to type things out!

[Alex C]

Some observations from a long time ago.

I remember going to concerts at Orchestra Hall in Chicago in the early 70s. The sound you hear on recording is very similar to the sound we heard in person.

I do remember going to a concert by a "not top five" orchestra. Halfway in to the first piece, I caught myself leaning forward to hear better and I realized that this orchestra was playing at a significantly lower volume than the CSO. One of the reasons Chicago played at a higher dynamic than other orchestras... I am convinced.... is that the hall soaked up sound. Orchestra hall was not acoustically friendly.

Arnold Jacobs did not blow the roof off of orchestra hall. People talk about his legendary "one lung" tuba playing. In his studio, we measured his lung capacity at 3 liters during a lesson. With that lung capacity, he could not sustain loud volumes without a lot of physical exertion. A lot.

So how did he get heard in that orchestra full brass heavyweights and in that hall that soaked up sound? Color. Jacobs did not play with a dark sound because a dark sound will blend in to the basses and even the cellos and bassoons. He played with a very colorful sound. As the orchestra volume increased, he sound became more colorful. And THAT is the mystery of Arnold Jacobs' playing.

I think he must have said to all of the students of that era, "THINK your sound to the back of the hall." Whatever he did, it made the Chicago Symphony Orchestra sound unique in the entire orchestral world.

The goal of todays tuba sound is... to me... overblown and harsh, without color. I prefer a sound with color but that does not include a blat color.

[Doc]

The trombones and I used to have a running joke about it expressed through dynamic markings (not that any of it ever applied to us ) :

mp - moderately piss off the conductor
p - piss off the conductor
pp - piss him off profusely
ppp - piss off that pompous pr*ck

mf - moderately fry
f - fry
ff - fry face
fff - fry f***ing face

[bloke]

Solti was the M.D. there beginning in 1967, so his concepts would have been well-established by the early 1970's (around the time that I had begun - as a high school student - purchasing their "exciting-brass" recordings).
Though he stepped down from that position in the early 1990's, he continued to conduct there as "Laureate" as late as 1997.

I only heard them twice - during Solti's tenure. I will agree that the sound was similar to the recorded sound but (as you went into, in the rest of your post) tempered/deadened by the acoustics of that music hall.

My understanding is that many of the CSO recordings made during that time were made in a church, which offered much more reverberation.

Some observations from a long time ago.

I remember going to concerts at Orchestra Hall in Chicago in the early 70s. The sound you hear on recording is very similar to the sound we heard in person...

[peterbas]

...

[matt g]

I was told by a quite capable audio engineer (the kind of person that believed in using as few microphones as possible), that the CSO Hall was very dead onstage and particularly at the area where the podium was at and at human height. For that reason, Reiner demanded more from the brass who were happy to comply. From there, it became the signature sound with Bud on top and Jake on the bottom.

I think putting the microphones about 12 feet or so (maybe 20? It’s been 25+ years) above stage got the balance that was being heard in the hall.

There were renovations to the hall to correct that along with shells and whatnot, iirc. But the sound just kinda stuck.

[bort2.0]

Weren't the Chicago guys the first to drill out mouthpiece backbores to allow for "more more"?

[ProAm]

When I was discovering classical music in the mid-70’s, I purchased a lot of Deutsche Grammaphon records often featuring Berlin and Karajan.

Didn’t this generation of DG also exploit the use of multi mics and creating the resultant orchestra sound in the mixing room?

I only in the last 30 yrs or so started seeking out and collecting recordings of Chicago from the Living Stereo era, with Reiner and others as guest conductors. I much prefer the older, unmixed, more-like-live recordings. I am not much of a fan of Solti.

The only times I heard the CSO live in Chicago was 3 or 4 times in the 79-80 season. I regret that I did not know enough about what I was hearing to fully appreciate the experience. The person I had with me at the Mahler 5 concert, Solti conducting, called the performance barbaric.

Joe

[bloke]

Thanks for those four links. I will listen to them later, when I have access to speakers larger than the end of a cigarette.

[GC]

I saw a highly-regarded regional symphony several times in the '80's and was appalled that the brass section sounded like a very-well-in-tune pep band, the woodwinds were overblowing horribly to try to keep up, and the strings were sawing themselves to death. I'm overjoyed that there's been a couple of decades now of growing awareness of the ruination of tone quality from brass overplaying and its effects on the rest of the orchestra. And that's not even to mention the effects on the hearing of folks who sit in front of blaring brass (or behind superpowered French horns or next to ludicrously excessive percussion).

/whiny rant

[UncleBeer]

Didn’t this generation of DG also exploit the use of multi mics and creating the resultant orchestra sound in the mixing room?

Yes. UncleBeer was lucky enough to do a recording with NY Phil under Bernstein with DG (two tubas). Literally everyone in the orchestra had their own microphone. Hadn't seen this before nor since. This is the piece:

[bloke]

Just as I expected, more passion was expressed by the half-century-ago European orchestras (ref: Twilight of the Gods selection) than by the half-century ago American orchestra (and I did not allow my ears to be affected by Solti's acrobatics)...

...but what I was reminded of more (and not all the blame may be laid at the feet of the Wagner tubas' operators) is how much intonation standards have risen, worldwide, since that time. Had any of those run-through's been executed in any rehearsal past the first reading rehearsal (by most per-service orchestras, today), the music director would have stopped and insisted on fixing the tuning.

ref: Brubeck
Yes, I think I get the point...(??) Almost no one plays (can play...??) the saxophone in the manner anymore. Nearly to a player, everyone seems to see just how much sound they can coax out of those things - and via wide-open tipped and very low-baffled mouthpieces...(or did I miss the point?)
-------------------------
I'm a huge fan of Brubeck, and have met his son, Chris (whose music was featured in an IRIS Orchestra concert several years ago). My guitar teacher introduced me to (Dave) Brubeck's music (c. 1968 - I was probably 11 - 12 years old) well before I was old enough to drive, and (though it's not really practical to try to perform most of those Brubeck quartet tunes on solo guitar), I did pair up with a talented (high school-aged) pianist (nylon-strings guitar/piano) a few years later, and we worked up a few Brubeck tunes as a duo...Take 5, Blue Ronda a la Turk, a couple more (along with the typical standards and popular movie tunes fare - again: playing at private cocktail parties for middle-aged adults and "passing" as young adults ourselves, though we ourselves weren't even quite old enough to obtain driver licenses). LOL...We ended up doing our "act" at one of our high school bands' (as he was also a trumpet player in the band) spaghetti suppers, which - during that era - were a great way to raise money to help cover school bands' expenses. Speaking of the topic: VOLUME...Amplification-wise, we quickly discovered that working-class adults talked over spaghetti (in church basement fellowship halls) much more loudly than rich people talked over martinis (in exclusive homes' dens and living rooms).

[peterbas]

...

[bloke]

Early stereophonic recordings (and for quite some time) tended to be very gimmicky, and the balance that engineers employed with many of them was quickly labeled “ping-pong“.
Eventually, engineers developed the skills to position (never completely putting any one track completely in any one channel) sounds in more subtle and sophisticated ways to more closely imitate reality.
I’m not certain about this, but I believe that the first LP disc “record” company to produce stereophonic recordings was Audio Fidelity.
A member of this board is a direct descendent of a family of monumental jazz musicians who recorded at least a dozen LPs on that label.

[peterbas]

...

[bloke]

Medium-open (vs.wide-open) saxophone mouthpiece tips with higher baffles (leading into the chamber) are those which tend to sound less harsh.
As brass players, we know from experience that cups with more volume in them also tend to sound less harsh.
Of course, both saxophone and brass players – as we see fairly often – can overcome the acoustical tendencies of their equipment.
The tendency with woodwinds has followed that of bowed strings and brass: to come up with ways to project either more sound or more strident sound. Eighty-year-old absolute top-drawer bassoons are arguably some of the most beautiful sounding…but it is difficult to produce the volume and projection out of those instruments that is more easily produced with the top-drawer modern instruments. Obviously, there are always trade-offs, again: as we have discovered with our own instruments

[russiantuba]

I heard the Cleveland Orchestra rehearse before we did a concert in Severance Hall. We did American in Paris—albeit with band. Playing the solo in that hall, and just playing in general, reflected this hall theme that was mentioned. I noticed Ythe low brass got the hand frequently during their playing a few times and it sounded balanced, just. Playing on that stage requires a bit of finesse. For a period, Ron Bishop used a Miraphone 184CC, at least from what I was told. The Prokofiev Symphony No. 5 recording where he is overly present, I am willing to bet required minimal effort.

I was heavily influenced by the Chicago sound in graduate school for orchestral playing. The older I get, the less I feel I have to play that loud to get it.

[Dan Tuba]

I love listening to orchestral recordings. However, from my experience, many of the recordings that I have heard don't give an accurate representation of the sound of the orchestra that you actually hear when attending live performances. Definitely a lot of variables(maybe where I can afford to sit in the hall?), however, this is from my experience. In regards to the tuba sound, or the brass section for that matter, the sound is way more diffuse, less directional than on recordings. I'm not saying that either is "bad", but that the two are different, and hard for me to compare when I usually can't hear the orchestras up close

[bloke]

The times that I heard Mr. Herseth play his trumpet with the Chicago Orchestra were towards the end of his career.
Being all that I could (can?) afford, I was up in the cheap seats, and I don’t know how different the cheap seats‘ acoustics are from mezzanine seats.
My comment is that his sound was very bright, but - by the time it made it to my ears - it wasn’t all that loud...
...and the same was true with the rest of the brass…not so much the brightness, but the “not that loud”-ness.