Piano World Home Page Forums Fun Stuff! - Parties, Tours, Projects & More... Member Recordings G. Catoire, Quatre Morceaux, Op. 12, No. 1, "Chant du soir"

Hi,

I continue on with the Catoire repertoire and have now turned to the Op. 12 "Quatre Morceaux" composed in 1901. The "Chant du soir" is No. 1 in the set. It's a lovely Late Romantic character piece, which I hope you'll enjoy. Here is the link:

http://www.pianostreet.com/smf/index.php?topic=36028.msg413885#msg413885

Very nice rachfan!

The recording is very good too.

May I ask about how you pan the mics in the mix?

Are they panned all the way left and right?

Gonna download it now and listen later. Review will be forthcoming!

Hi Hakki,

Thanks for the compliment on my playing!

I use a matched pair of Earthworks TC20 small diaphragm, omni-directional condenser microphones. They are mounted on adjustable height mic stands set at about a 5' elevation. The mic cables are high quality Monster cables (but without signal shielding) which feed into my Korg MR-1000 recorder. My piano is my Baldwin Model L Artist Grand (6'3").

I set the mics up in A-B stereo configuration, which works best for classical piano. So the mics are exactly parallel to one another (no panning left and right) about 8' back in front of the curve of the piano. The separation between the mics is always 12". The mics are inclined "looking" at the open top rim of the piano lid. In this case for the Catoire I didn't use the full prop to raise the lid, only the shorter "singer" prop.

Some classical pianists do "close-in" recordings, which is how I started out years ago, not knowing any better. Incidentally, X/Y configuration is inherently close in, as it cannot be placed much more than 3' at best away from the piano before the crossed mics "overshoot" both ends of the piano. Close-in mics pick up music in the making. So you get the perceptible percussive sound of hammers on strings. That's a very good method for pops and jazz, but unsuitable for classical.

To the contrary, classical demands a refined, blended, and finished sound. Thus, for classical the music should not be recorded inside the piano case, at the case rim, or merely two or three feet away. That captures raw sound in the making. Rather, the sound must fully exit the piano and fill the room. That's why I use the A-B stereo setup adequately away from the piano. Panning mics is best used in an auditorium to cover the full length of the stage. In a living room panning serves no useful purpose. That's why in A-B the mics are used exactly parallel to one another.

The important caveat is this: Making room recordings at home is difficult for all of us. And the acoustics of each room is bound to be different due to the size and shape of the room itself, furnishings, carpeting, ceiling height, windows, openings to contiguous rooms, etc. Each piano is obviously different too, even within brand. Given all that, the mic separation of 12" is a constant. The big variable then is how far to move the mics back from the piano. Usually it will be a range of between four to eight feet. Thus, extensive EXPERIMENTATION is everything. If you need more bass, the two mics (still separated by 12") can be moved laterally in lockstep to face the piano more toward the tail end of the grand. Of if more treble is needed, then move the mics latterally left in lockstep more toward the line of hammers. In my case, I like the sound captured at the center of the curve 8' out. But again, that's my room. Yours my be very different.

I know next to nothing about recording upright pianos, so cannot offer much advice there.

I hope this helps.

Rachfan, thank you very much for the very in depth reply!

I think, I have to make myself more clear about what I wanted to mean when I asked about panning of mics. It was not about the physical positioning of them relative to each other.

My setup is different from yours is that, my mics are connected the to the xlr inputs of my mixer, and then the stereo master output of the mixer is connected to my computer's soundcard's line-in. I record directly to the hardisk of my computer.

The mixer has "pan" knobs for each input. And with the "pan" knobs I can set where the signal from each specific mic is placed in the stereo image.

I thought you had a mixer too, and asked about how you panned the mics in the stereo image.
But for MR-1000 which is a stereo 2-track recorder, left is left and right is right I think.

Also, in AB stereo recording the obvious way of panning the the mics in the mixer could be hard right and left, and my question might be an ignorant one as well.

Anyway, why I wondered about this is that, if you listen to my Mephisto recording, it is not as spacious as your recording.

My setup is similar to yours (6 ft from piano, 2 Rode NT5 mics (with omni capsules) in AB stereo, 18" apart and parallel, pointing straight to the fully open lid with 0 inclination angle, 5,5 ft high)

So I thought whether it had something to do with placing the mic signals in the stereo image.

And, why 12", I mean, is the 18" I used can be the cause of my recording not being as spacious as yours?

regards,

RachFan :

I have the 1999 PRO/Scribes Press volume of "The Complete Piano Music of Georgi Catoire," and while I have read through some of the pieces, I have never been able to "connect" with this music in any way that would encourage me to work on any of it.

Therefore, it's very rewarding to hear a finished, polished performance of one of the numbers; you've done me a great favour.

Not fully understanding Catoire's music, I cannot make an intelligent critique of your interpretation, although I do sense that you have a good understanding of the music. The musical vocabulary seems to me to be post-Romantic. There is in your playing a sense of line, a sense of direction and a sense of structure which this essentially chromatic writing needs - in my limited understanding of it.

I will look forward to hearing more Catoire from you, on your beautiful-sounding Baldwin.

Thank you so much for sharing this; you may eventually indirectly encourage me to start working on some Catoire, if ever I can find a piece of his that "speaks" to my limited musical tastes.

Again, thank you!

Regards,

Hi RachFan,

I've listened to this twice. This is a very interesting piece, in that it starts "directionless" and blossoms into lush, purposeful music. While Catoire doesn't "grab" me the way other composers do, this piece is really intriguing in the way you bring it forward. I think this is some of your best playing yet, and the piano sounds really great. Congratulations! (And, I've saved it in my "folder of RachFan performances".)

Hi Hakki,

OK, I'm with you now. I've never recorded directly to a PC hard drive, as many find that you can get drive noises on the recording. One of the things I like about my Korg MR-1000, apart from the great sound, DSD recording option, and ease of use, is that everything is on-board. It contains phantom power for the mics, an ultra-high quality preamp, and mixer. So everything is simplified. Thus you are correct, "right is right and left is left". The only two variables I need to check are the recording volume level, and to be sure that the volume bias in pickup between the two mics is fairly equal. The Korg worries about all the rest.

My previous setup was analog. And what a jumble it was--a separate amp, external power supply box, mic mixer box, cassette tape deck as well as a dubbing unit to copy tapes. The mic cables went to the mixer box and all of the other equipment was interconnected by RCA cables. Now, I have just the small Korg unit, the mic cables connecting via the XRL inputs, and that's all there is to it! I upload my WAV music files to the PC using a USB2 cable with gold connectors. There's nothing like today's digital equipment offerings and miniaturization.

On your "spaciousness" issue, here is what you might want to try next as you do some test recordings: 1) Definitely reduce your mic separation from 18" to 12". The human ears are positioned on the head about 12" apart, not 18", so you'll want the mics to emulate that same separation. And don't just eyeball it--do get out a ruler! 2) If your room size permits it, test the recorded sound at 6.5', 7', 7.5' and 8' out. 3) Sighting along the barrel of the mics, incline them (angle upward) to point at the very top edge of the fully opened lid. (If you use zero incline keeping the mics parallel to the floor, you can get too much reflection wash from the inside surface of the lid creating a swimming effect in the sound, particularly in a small room versus an auditorium.) If you incline them as suggested here, you'll get sound coming off the edge of the lid plus room ambiance with your omni's, which should also make the sound more natural overall. Try those measures to see if you hear improvement.

I hope your experimentation can fine tune your recording protocol to give you better results. Good luck on that!

I listened once, and I love it! I agree with Chris's comments. Let me listen a few more times, and I'll be able to review in greater detail.

It's a shame your piano always sounds a bit off in the treble. Is that due to the season, and winter dryness?

Hi BruceD,

Thanks for your compliments on my playing. But no need to wait to hear more Catoire, as I've already posted 8 other pieces (links) here earlier: the Four Preludes, Op. 17 and the Chants du Crepuscule, Op. 24. Right now, of course, I'm working on the Quatre Morceaux, Op. 12. Here are two links where you can hear the complete sets for the Preludes and the Chants:

http://www.pianostreet.com/smf/index.php/topic,33929.0.html

http://www.pianostreet.com/smf/index.php?topic=35614.0

Catoire is Late Romantic music at its best. Enjoy!

P.S. Where did you ever find that volume of Catoire's piano music? I've had to use PDF files from the IMSLP which are harder to read.

Hi Chris,

Happy New Year to you!

Thanks for listening to my latest Catoire recording. Thanks too for your kind words on my playing, and I'm flattered that it'll be in your Rachfan performances folder! I first analyzed this piece away from the piano and concluded that it would be a walk in the park. Far from it! I soon discovered the hidden complexities of the piece, and I spent more time on it than I initially imagined. I was pleased with the results though when I recorded it. Yes, the Baldwin sounds good (it was just tuned a couple of days ago), but it's tuned sharp now to offset the winter's low temps and humidity that tend to make pianos go flat here. Come March I hope to get it back to A440 again where it sounds best. Thanks again for your comments.

Thank you very much Rachfan, for the excellent info. I will try your suggestions.

My setup is nearly a jumble as your old setup. Since I record to my laptop, I had to put an USB external soundcard to connect the output from the mixer. And, yes I sometimes have random pops/cracks probably caused by recording directly to hard disk.

But for publishing mp3s or youtube videos this setup serves me well for now. In the end, I have to convert the audio file to a low bit rate mp3 file anyway, which is also a lossy format.

regards,

Hi Horowitzian,

The piano was tuned just a couple of days ago. It is tuned sharp, however, to counteract the very low winter temps and humidity which causes piano tunings to go flat here. Although tuning flat, directly at A440 or sharp, depending on circumstances, should in theory be a relative pitch thing, I suspect that tuners are most accustomed to and comfortable with the standard A440. So I'm conjecturing that sharp tunings might not be quite as precise. But I could be wrong.

I look forward to your feedback on the performance. You've probably noticed that in the same way that the Catoire "Chants du crepuscule" were noticeably different from the "Preludes", the first entry from the "Quatre Morceaux" (a still earlier opus than the other two sets) is different as well. This composer was very versatile in his creativity!

Ah, that could explain it.

It will be forthcoming; I want to listen several more times. I may have asked this before, but is there any way I can get my hands on a score without special ordering something?

Hi,

All of Catoire's music has been out of print for decades. The Soviet Ministry of Culture grudgingly approved of one volume being printed in 1928 and that was it. The only source that I know of and use is the International Music Scores Library Project (IMSLP). There you can click on Composers on the left navigation bar, click on the letter C on the next page, choose Catoire, then it will take you to his page listing his works with a declaration of copyright status. You can select scores there, acknowledge the copyright status (his stuff is all public domain now), and download it for free. It'll arrive on you PC in PDF files which, of course you can put into your PDF folder and print off the music as well. The only problem I find is that where PDFs are in 8 1/2" X 11" format, which is smaller than standard scores from publishers, it's harder to read as the notes are that much smaller.

Oh, cool. I guess I was too lazy to check out IMSLP. PDF will be fine; I just want to see the music you are playing.

PS — Mac user here.

Just got myself a nice collection of Catoire scores. The transcription of Bach's C minor Passacaglia looks interesting — and difficult.

Cool! You know, some of my favorite Catoire works are for violin and piano. He has two sonatas and and an elegy for those instruments. You can hear them on YouTube if interested. Recently I bought a nice CD of these violin and piano pieces played by Herwig Zack and Bernd Zack. The sonics of the recorded sound is much better than the sound on YouTube, although I can't complain about listening to Goldenweiser and Oistrahk's performance of the Elegy there, especially where Goldweiser appears in my own teaching heritage in the Russian School part of it. But I recommend the CD, a Bayerischer Rundfunk-Studio Franken label, to anyone. I also have his Piano Trio and Piano Quartet on the Hyperion label, but am still warming up to those pieces.

Thanks for the recommendations!

Hi Hakki,

You're welcome!

I hear you on mp3 format. I dread it too, as it robs the recording of its fidelity, but the hosting sites require it to conserve their server space. On conversions I find that a sample rate of 44,100Hz and bit rate of 192kbps works best for me. I can go steps higher than 192kbps, but in experimenting with them the sound seemed too diffuse to me. Plus I notice that on one hosting site if users get into the 200 settings on bit rate the moderators complain and admonish. You can't win.