David Harbin wrote:

>Another good comparison is the old Polish EMI Matrix recordng of
>Szymanowski's violin concerto no. 1.  There the engineers miked the
>poor violinist so far forward it is ridiculous.  It almost makes you
>wonder why Szymanowski bothered delicately judging the orchestral balances
>in the first place.

It did not surprise me when we issued our disc of Nissman playing Liszt
that some critics didn't like the sound.  We used no post recording
processing and the microphones were placed to produce a sound that was
like being in the recording studio with a concert grand, the pianist and
the listener sitting nearby.  To appreciate the sound one would have to
listen at the level of the actual sound of the piano...too loud for most
living rooms.  It was of interest to me that so few critics listened at
such an amplitude...

This brings up, at least to me, the whole notion of how we listen and
how recordings are engineered to suit what one might consider to be the
preference of the average listener.

Karl