Berg Violin Concerto. Szeryng, Bavarian RSO, Kubelik, 1971. #1

Description

[newdigitalremasters]

For @JerryAttric42
(This post may be of some interest to other viewers, so I'm also posting this separately)
Thank you for your comments. The first part of your comments is easier to answer, the second part is much harder and my instinct is to "blame the other fellow", at least until I can perform several "ABX" listening experiments.
The "About" section of this channel, and my description "The anatomy of this remaster" on the Adagio of Rachmaninoff's Second Symphony may also be helpful. (All the music referenced here refer to the uploads of this channel.)
All the music in this channel have been remastered one track (one song, one movement) at a time. This is due to the sound quality that is particular to each music track, especially in regards to dynamic range, headroom usage, and noise floor. For example, remastering the 32 tracks of Gould's 1955 Goldberg one track at a time and then stitching them back together took about 50 hours, whereas a "quick & dirty" remastering of the 32 tracks all at once will take less than 10 hours. But the difference is dramatic-- and a job worth doing is a job worth doing well. For easy access, I tend to upload each track (movement) individually, such is the case for this Berg VC-- its 66-page score starts with the Roman numeral "I" on page 1, the lower part of page 29 is left blank, and page 30 starts with the Roman numeral "II", therefor I did not stitch these 2 movements back together in my upload; but there are exceptions: often for the sake of continuity of the underlying theme (Bach's Goldberg), or the shortness of the piece (Bach's VC, BWV1041); and in particular, when the composer marked the transition between movements as "Attacca" such as the Beethoven and Tchaikovsky (Spivakov) VCs, Sibelius Second Symphony (all these refer to the transitions to the last movements); or the way it is traditionally performed (Tchaikovsky's Fourth Symphony, transition from third movement to fourth movement-- I included screen captures of this stitching between two different recordings in my upload). Sometimes the stitching is seamless (the Beethoven VC, the Sibelius SN2), sometimes not as seamless as I wanted (Spivakov's Tchaikovsky VC, Beethoven Fifth PC). The fact that individual movements within the same piece of music (Symphonies, Concertos, etc.) received very different number of views is indicative that viewers did take advantage of this feature. But ultimately, it's a subjective decision, and I sometimes changed my mind after the fact, for example, the Bach Violin Partita BWV 1002 should have been four uploads, each containing a movement and its "Double").

As for your comment about the sound quality-- I didn't do it! I wasn't even there! Blame the other fellow! (Please also refer to 30ftftyft's Comment from 7 months ago and my reply). My remaster was based on the 2004 CD released by Universal Music. It was an "ADD", and not a direct Analog to Digital Conversion (AAD), but a Digital Remaster. Because both hardware and software (and I hope, my skill as well) improve over time, I have made a remaster of this CD twice, the upload here was from my remaster made on 16 May 2016. Referring to my notes on that remaster, I did not use equalization or tonal modulation, but I did use several non-linear dynamics re-processing curves (different curves for each movement), which were fine-tuned several times-- this may give the impression that some part of the music is louder, because the goal is to maximize the use of available headroom, in (grudging) recognition that music is now often consumed via fingernail size amplifiers and speakers (or, heaven forbid, self-powered Bluetooth airpods, or even worse- fashion and status accessories misrepresenting themselves as over-priced headphones, the likes of BEATS and SKULLCANDY. But this dynamic re-processing is insufficient to account for the the violin being overwhelmed by the orchestra. Whereas a single Noise Print Noise Reduction (NPNR) was sufficient for the first movement, the second movement required 4. The NPNR lowered the noise floor, thus increasing the Signal to Noise Ratio as well as allowing the use of headroom expansion; this tend to make the music sound more clear, as you keenly observed. My objective is to be able to hear every note from every instrument with the right playback equipment. Sometimes I succeed, more often, I don't.
However the sonic properties between the first and the second movements were dramatically different (thus justifying my remastering them separately), so much so that it's reasonable to conclude that (at least) two sound engineers were employed in the 2004 digital remaster, each doing their thing (re-mixing, equalization, etc.) according to their own whimsical preferences, and with no regard to the other.
There are 2 more subjects that needed consideration, one is in the area of audio-psychology (which I know next to nothing), the other is the intrinsic differences in the playback equipment:
1) Memory vs Reality. (I'm guilty of this, just like everyone else.) What I hear now vs what I think I heard decades ago. Sometimes, I'm right-- When I hear a Carpenters song and think "this is not what it sounded 40 years ago", that's because after Karen's passing in 1983, Richard has been releasing a "best of" Carpenters Album every couple of years, often re-mixing, and adding full vocals and orchestra backups, so my memory served me well. But often times, I'm wrong-- the analog of viewing the past with rose-color lenses. I have the original vinyl LP, so it's a matter of matching the volume level with the CD, and set up an "ABX" listening test. An ideal candidate is my neighbor's 5-year old golden retriever Tramp, alas only if he can speak well enough, and I'm going to find out. (He can play computer perfect Deuces Wild, but my cat Bert beats him every time because Tramp wags his tail furiously whenever he has a good hand.) I'll update this if the listening test confirms your observations.
2) Even with the best playback equipment, Vinyl LP will sound very different to it's digital counterpart. In our case, the Analog to Digital Conversion (ADC) was at the whimsical mercy of at least 2 remaster engineers at Universal Studios. We do have some control over the choice of Digital to Analog Converters (DACs). However, there is a huge disparity between DACs-- the DAC that is part of a chip inside a cell phone costs pennies; the stock DAC in a typical home PC sound card costs a few US dollars; the Wolfson WM8740 DAC chip, proudly advertised by the manufacturer in the mid price range, stand-alone music player DSD FTWWAT costs about 1 dollar; the entry level Vermeer DAC weighing in at about 20 lbs, considered merely "adequate" by audiophiles, would cost severe damage to my IRA portfolio-- and they all do exactly the same thing and no more-- convert a digital signal to an analog one. This is a carry-over from the age of the vinyl LP-- should one blow one's entire month's paycheck on a carbon fiber tone arm for a turntable? Or an entire year's paychecks on a stand alone hybrid vacuum phono pre-amp? Moving magnet or moving coil?
So, regarding the reproduction of digital music, the choices of ADC, DAC, amplifier / headphone amplifier, headphone, loud speaker, attention toward matching impedances and damping factors, all contribute to the final result, which will only be as good as the weakest link. And it is the stated purpose of this channel to mimic the warm, lush sound of the vinyl LP, without having to spend a king's ransom on the equipment. And if one is willing to pay the king's ransom, spend it on what actually count. In particular, money spent on "over sampling", "high bit-depth" is money wasted-- this is the band wagon that unethical manufacturers capitalized on the consumers' ignorance or mis-interpretation of the Nyquist Shannon Sampling Theorem. Indeed, 44.1 kHz, 16-bit is as good as it gets for us humans, so is YouTube's native audio of 192kbps.acc, but please don't tell Tramp about this.
In the age of Google and Wikipedia, providing references and links are likely superfluous, but if you have further comments, they will be adored.

[JerryAttric]

I confess, i'm confused. why is this upload in two parts? I bought this LP in the 70s and if the upload is accurate it shows what a dramatic effect remastering can bring. the remastering in some ways strikes me as more clear, but the violin in louder passages nearly disappears here, so much so that I wondered if this was the same recording. but, two parts and all, i'm happy to find it on youtube.

[everything_nintendo]

This is fantastic; how did you get access to these records?