Vinyl Review: Mozart and Grieg performed by the Chicago Symphony Winds – Sheffield Lab 22 – Released 1983
Lab 22 – Mozart: Serenade No 11, Grieg: Four Lyric Pieces – 1983
Vinyl surface noise: 4+ (not pops and clicks)
Dynamic Range: 4+
Stereo Imaging: 4+
Image depth/perspective: 4
Overall frequency response: 4
Side One
Mozart – Serenade No. 11 In E-Flat Major For Wind Octet, K. 375
- Allegro Maestoso
- Menuetto Primo
- Adagio
Side Two
Greig – Four Lyric Pieces
- Wedding Day At Troldhaugen
- The Shepherd Boy
- Nocturne
- Remembrances
This album was recorded in the Sheffield Lab Studios at MGM, Culver City, California On September 8, 9, 10, 1983.
The recordng was accomplished using a single stereo microphone in order to capture a natural acoustic perspective. The signal chain used all tube electronics designed and built by Sheffield Lab.
Quote from The Absolute Sound magazine: “This is altogether a record not to be missed – offering reference level sonic quality, wonderful music and exquisite performance”.
Vinyl surface noise was generally low throughout all tracks on both sides of the album, never making itself apparent or intrusive.
The Symphony Winds is made up of eight musicians, all members of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. They became widely acclaimed for their performance as a chamber music ensemble. Their instrumental line up was:
- Two Oboe
- One English Horn
- Two Horns
- Two Clarinet
- One Piccolo
- Two Bassoon
Having listened to many recordings made in the Sheffield Lab MGM studios, the first thing that struck me was the level of studio ambience and reverb compared to any previous recordings I had heard made in that studio. With the studio ambience and acoustics being even more obvious on side two. This level of ambience and reverb added a wonderful warmth and feeling to the music giving it body and depth, being very obvious as the musicians setup for each track.
Being a wind ensemble I did not expect huge dynamics, but what you did get was a feeling of tremendous openness to the sound, with no restrictions to each instruments natural dynamics, ranging from piiasamo passages to several fairly strong crescendos.
The recording provided very good stable stereo imaging and a moderate amount of depth perspective. The ensemble being well spread between my two speakers providing solid depth placement, all be it rather shallow, for each of the musicians.
The various instrumental timbres and sound were extremely natural with no undue emphasis to any part of their frequency spectrum. Despite this, there seemed to be a little lack of top end detail making the recording lack a little in sparkle.
The vinyl created no tracking issue for my arm and cartridge, creating a clean open sound stage with no obvious objectionable spectral colorations.
Unfortunately I have little knowledge of classical music, and cannot comment of the musical interpretation and execution of these pieces. Other than to say that The Chicago Symphony Winds ensemble provided a very tight and well integrated performance with no obvious musical errors that I could detect.
Turning the volume up a little provided a more personnel and intimate performance with the feeling that they were almost in my room, clearly hearing various musicians intake of breath on several occasions.
This is a very good recording that was very well performed and engineered, and is a real pleasure to listen to. With several of the tracks, standing out for their gentle intimate feel and some for their moving crescendos.
If you are a classical music fan of Mozart and Grieg, I am sure that you will enjoy this wonderfully tight performance of these classical extracts by a highly accomplished group of musicians.
Available on vinyl and CD from Discogs, and CD from Sheffield Lab.
I was the first employee hired into the marketing department at Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab in Los Angeles.
That position got me introduced to our “friendly competitors” in town at Sheffield Lab.
Doug Sax and Andrew Teton graciously extended me invitations to sit in and observe their direct-to-disc recording sessions at the MGM Recording Studios in Culver City, Calif.
Including this recording.
At the time, I had upgraded my Linn Sondek turntable to an Oracle turntable — based on the review by J. Peter Moncrieff of International Audio Review magazine.
Peter championed the sonic test of “inter-transient silence.”
I paid close attention to that listening cue during the Chicago Symphony Winds recording . . as the notes decayed into silence in the cavernous recording hall. (A film scoring stage large enough to hold a full orchestra.)
Year later, Sony Pictures Entertainment purchased the MGM Studios. And years later still, I joined Sony as a marketing executive.
On my first day touring the studio’s back lot, I sought out the scoring stage.
I found it — and was saddened to see that the cavernous hall had been subdivided into multiple smaller spaces.
I miss being a guest at those Sheffield Lab live recordings. I miss Doug Sax, who passed away in 2015.
One of my dashed hopes was to find this recording on compact disc.
Apparently it never made it to that medium (citing https://www.discogs.com/Mozart-Grieg-Chicago-Symphony-Winds-Serenade-No-11-Four-Lyric-Pieces/release/3197934).
Every classical music lover’s loss — first for the foregone listening pleasure of the music, and second for the ease and portability of that physical medium.
Bob,
Thank you very much for sharing your experiences in particular with Sheffield Lab. As you can tell I was and am a great fan of their recordings many of which still set the gold standard for the sonics that vinyl can achieve. I too lived in LA from 1993 to 1999 working for 20th Century Fox TV but never got the chance to visit Sheffield Lab or meet with Doug Sax whose death is a real loss to the world of music and vinyl.
I was recently given the opportunity by Lincoln Mayorga, who only lives a few miles from me, to buy the Sheffield Lab library rights, but unfortunately it was outside my available budget and I do not have enough ‘connections’ in the industry now to make a go of that business.
Thank you for popping by and commenting. If you enjoyed my posts please let others know of the web site.
Another friend from that time period was James Boyk, a pianist and music/audio lecturer at Caltech who was friends with Sax and Mayorga.
I wonder if Chad Kassem of Acoustic Sounds is a candidate to buy the library?
I haven’t spoken with Lincoln for over twelve months now but I know that he had a pending offer that was under discussion but would not tell me who it was from. It sounds reasonable that it could have been Acoustic Sounds as I understood that they purchased most of the Sheffield Lab equipment.
It is lamentable that we don’t have a documentary about these audiophile record companies, their founders and their recording practices.
My MFSL colleague Stan Ricker, Sheffield Lab’s Doug Sax, Wilson Audio’s Dave Wilson and Reference Recordings’ Keith Johnson are “characters” in the best sense of that term.
And three of the above four are now gone.
When I worked for GNP Loudspeakers, our “Showcase” retail store hosted “oral history” nights interviewing the above folks and more. Recorded on audio tape for posterity.
Scores of folks — members of AES, employees of nearby Caltech/Jet Propulsion Lab, and Los Angeles audio enthusiasts — attended. We included plenty of Q & A time for those in attendance (who were meeting their “heroes.”)
Yes these titans of vinyl are going fast and I don’t see a lot of interest from the upcoming generations in entering this line of work. I can only hope that the remaining few, and others like them, find staff to pass their skill sets on to.
The good news from my production side is that all the tape ops, engineers and producers that I worked with at the Livingston Complex are still going strong, some of who now own their own studios. Livingston Studios maybe be a lot smaller than it once was, but it is still going strong to.
Maybe PBS should produce a documentary on the history of vinyl production!
What has been lost in the transition from analogue audio to digital audio is the notion of “fidelity.”
Dating back to the 1950s with the RCA and Mercury recordings was the ambition to reproduce the acoustic sound of an orchestra in the home. That required loudspeakers in a dedicated playback space.
Today audio is played back digitally on earbuds and headphones. There is no “fidelity” left in high fidelity.
I basically agree. However, I think that digital gave convenience and lower cost and high fidelity took a back seat for most users. The idea of dedicated rooms and stereo speaker setups is still for the minority of us but back in the 60’s and 70’s there certainly seems to be a lot more ‘of us’ audiophiles who strived for a great (realistic) sound. Also these listening environments allowed us to share the musical performances with others, something earbuds and earphones cannot do.
Digital in itself doesn’t mean low fidelity and I am sure we both have some great digital recordings in both LPCM and SACD to show that. Its how the technology has been used to dumb down the listening of music to becoming what appears to be nothing more than background noise on earbuds, rather than a listening experience where one sits down and focuses on the musical performance and production.
My wife and daughter are both classically trained musicians both being pianists and vocalists. Its always a real treat listening to them practicing on our baby grand.