DVD-Audiobahn

Posted by Chris from Lafayette (A) on February 11, 2011 at 22:02:57

After the first of the Naxos Blu-ray audio discs in November (Corigliano's Circus Maximus - see link for comments on that disc), I was eager to hear more Naxos Blu-ray audios in more congenial (to me anyway) repertoire. I've been having a devil of a time getting the Alsop/Baltimore Blu-ray audios of the the last four Dvorak symphonies. But I was able to acquire the subsequent Naxos Blu-ray audio releases: the complete Chopin works for piano and orchestra, with Eldar Nebolsin and Antoni Wit conducting the Warsaw Philharmonic.

The performances are pretty straightforward, with no taffy-pull rubatos - if anything, I'd like to hear a bit more rhythmic inflection. I also wish there was more delicacy in the filigree playing. (It's a bit better in the miscellaneous works than in the concertos.) But overall, these are good performances. (I used to own Nebolsin's solo Chopin CD on Decca, recorded when he was in his teens I believe.) An interesting feature about both these discs is that they are apparently using a new Chopin edition for these works, and, as you listen, you'll surprised by some brief eyebrow-raising changes in articulation, melody lines, and even (in a couple of cases) harmonic underpinnings - none of these changes seems to last more than a few seconds.

As for the audio, what I'm about to say should be taken "cum grano salis", because I ran into problems with both of these new Chopin discs. And the problem for me was that, although the two-channel PCM tracks played fine, the 5.1 DTS HD Master Audio Tracks played an octave down and twice too slow! Bizarre! I could switch from two-channel to multi-channel and back more-or-less instantaneously, and no matter what I tried, the two-channel was fine, the multi-channel was down an octave and twice too slow! Heard via two-channel, the sound quality of these was far, far less spectacular than the Corigliano disc's was.

Up to this point, I've had this problem with one other disc: the Surround Records incarnation of Brendel's Mozart Blu-ray audio only disc (with the SCO and Mackerras) - which has no 2.0 tracks.

Ever since I got this disc, I've taken it out every couple of months and tried to play it - never with any luck. It always plays twice too slow and an octave down. So just for grins, I decided to pop it into the player and check it out, following my latest experience with the Naxos Chopin Blu-ray audios.

Lo and behold!

Perfect playback - I checked and indeed it was playing the DTS HD Master Audio - not merely the DTS core audio. This seems positively like black magic to me. Why did this disc refuse to play properly for months and months, and then all of sudden play perfectly on the very day that the player refused to play the multi-channel tracks of the new Naxos Blu-ray discs??? It's sorcery! The hi-rez sound allowed me to hear Brendel's relatively prosaic performances in great detail - especially in the solo works where his singing was just as annoying as GG's - but without GG's vitality and individuality.

This experience is enough to make me start believing in Shakti Stones!

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Edits: 02/11/11   02/11/11