Well, dear readers, I continue my love affair with the music of Heitor Villa-Lobos. I have not yet found a dud piece of music and I’ve listened to a LOT in the last day and a half. One of my favorite CDs of what I’ve found was a CD of his harmonica concerto and a bunch of other works that the harmonica player has adapted, all with orchestra – fabulous music and sound. The mono recordings conducted by Villa-Lobos were a bit of a bust – the sound is pretty horrible – mono can be great, but this mono is distant, muffled, and muddy and does the music no favors at all. So, almost all that got nuked except the pieces that were peculiar to that set. And as I mentioned, I wasn’t that pleased with the sound of the Enrique Batiz-conducted stereo Bachianas Brasileiras. So, I have on the way a complete set of the Bachianas and Choros – sound samples were great and I think it will be a big improvement, sound-wise. And then, of course, he wrote some symphonies, so those are thankfully all together in a box and that, too, is on its way. And then I heard all five of his piano concertos, each as good as the last. I may have some extra stuff available if anyone wants to give old Villa-Lobos a try.
Other than that, it was kind of a wacky little day. I got a bit under eight hours of sleep. Once up, I answered e-mails, printed out a few orders, and then got a surprise invite to lunch with Nick Redman and the wonderful actress Kathleen Wilhoite over at the local Thai place. They were meeting at noon-thirty, which I couldn’t do, but she was signing Murphy’s Law Blu-rays and I knew that would take thirty to forty-five minutes. So, we had our work session, but I knew that would go pretty quickly since our MD has played a previous Christmas show. We went over the few new things and a couple of new put-togethers and the whole thing only took thirty minutes. I then moseyed on over to the Thai jernt for some lunch. I had the small lunch-sized portion of the yummilicious cashew chicken, which is pretty small. Kathleen was a delight and I had a really good time chatting with her and Nick and his cohort Mike are great fun, too. And I got the new batch of Twilight Time Blu and Rays, too. Kathleen sings, so we’re going to try and have her in a Kritzerland show in the coming year.
After that fun lunch, I picked up several packages and then came home. And I had my first experience with SACD. I’d never bothered with it because I knew nothing about it, until I read that all the RCA Living Stereo classical stuff had been remastered specifically for SACD – those were all recorded on three-track tape and that’s what you get on SACD, all three tracks. I put in the Mercury Living Presence SACD of Howard Hanson’s first two symphonies in my main Oppo player. For whatever reason, the receiver was spazzing out and I couldn’t get sound, so I switched to my slightly older Oppo and there it worked fine. And holy moley on rye the sound was absolutely amazing – the three channels sounding glorious and perfect – clean, detailed, sharp, warm, and beautiful and sounding so much better than the normal CD release. That led me to wonder if the CD layer would sound that good, in other words if this was better than the previous CD – but that test with this CD failed miserably – it sounded exactly like the previous CD – dry, thin, and okay but nothing like the SACD three-track. Then I tried a bit of the Arthur Fiedler/Earl Wild Rhapsody in Blue, a Living Stereo three-track – and it, too, sounded absolutely amazing with crystal clear clarity. I did the same test with that and this one passed with flying colors – the CD version sounded excellent – not quite as good, but excellent. So, that must differ from CD to CD. Anyway, color me impressed and I have a few more on their merry way. It really was kind of glory days for stereo recording, those wild and wooly years, and with all the newfangled technology, I’m not so sure it’s better today.
Then I decided it was high time to watch a damn motion picture on Blu and Ray. I actually decided to sample a bunch of stuff and I ended up watching quite a bit of each and will finish all of them today at some point. I began with the new Twilight Time Blu-ray of Moby Dick, the John Huston film, starring Gregory Peck. I saw it back in the day and it freaked out the eight-year-old me for many reasons, so much so that many of its scenes remain very vivid in my memory – and I’ve only ever seen about ten minutes of the movie in all these years. Well, it’s exactly as I remembered it. The original look of the film was very interesting – Huston wanted it to look like old whaling engravings, and so they drained the color by adding a black-and-white negative behind the color records to create a really unique look. They’ve never replicated it correctly on home video, but Nick and company went the extra mile and hired someone to recreate it as closely as possible, using the not perfect MGM/UA transfer. The result is better than I could have imagined and I was quite pleased with it – I watched about forty minutes and was mesmerized.
Then I moved on to two films for which I already had import Blu-rays – Pretty Poison and The Boston Strangler. I first looked a bit of the German Pretty Poison so I could compare it to the Twilight Time new Fox transfer – and there is no comparison. The German is too bright, is slightly faded, and has milky contrast. The new transfer from Fox has the proper contrast, has actual shadows and black, and has perfect color – a major step up, I’d say. I do really love the film and will have more to say when I’ve finished it. Then I did the same for The Boston Strangler – first I sampled a bit of the French Blu-ray and then the Twilight Time and again there is no comparison – the French is a way older transfer, has speckles galore, isn’t really detailed at all, and is a little too brown. The new Fox transfer is much better – no speckles anywhere, rock-solid, and for a film that has tons of opticals, it looks so much better. And finally I watched the first forty minutes of I Want to Live, directed by Robert Wise and starring Susan Hayward. One never knows with MGM/UA what you’re going to get – most of their transfers are older and Twilight Time has to accept what they are given or turn it down. But once in a while something great slips through, which is the cast with I Want to Live – it’s quite obviously a newer transfer and it’s pretty spectacular – gorgeous black-and-white, great contrast, and sharp as a tack. Can’t wait to finish it.
Then I had the leftover chicken that I hadn’t made on Thursday, so I made a tiny bit of Wacky Noodles (only four ounces of pasta) and it was great. I’d already decided there was no way for me to go to the partay – too far away and I really needed to get the commentary done. So, I began listening to the piano concertos of Villa-Lobos and wrote two-thirds of the commentary, which I can now easily finish today. Then I relaxed and began listening to a few Milhaud symphonies that arrived today. They’re very well played and the sound is excellent. Interestingly, one of this set from CPO (I didn’t buy the box because I already had three of the five CDs), the second and third symphony, same orchestra, same conductor, same everything, sounds nowhere as good as the others – the others all sound of a piece but that one disc is mastered at least 5 to 7 db lower and it sucks all the life out of the vibrant music. Yes, you can turn the sound way up, but that makes everything sound kind of weird.
Today, I think she of the Evil Eye is coming so I have to be up by eight-thirty. I’ll be annoyed if she isn’t coming because who wants to get up that early? But I think it’s her week to come. I’ll do an early jog, then go have some light breakfast, hopefully pick up some packages, then come back home and listen to music, watch Blu-rays, and also finish the commentary.
Tomorrow was supposed to be a total ME day, but instead I have to trek out to Calabasas for a four o’clock rehearsal with the kids who are performing in the Richard Sherman event. There is a chance we won’t do it if they all can’t be there – I should know tomorrow. And then it’s the big Kritzerland rehearsal week, and I have to deal with a few things that aren’t that pleasant but hopefully it will all go well and we can settle in for a happy holiday season. Certainly we don’t want a brutal holiday season, so here’s hoping for the best of all possible worlds.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, do a jog, eat something light, hopefully pick up packages, listen, watch, and write, and then relax. Today’s topic of discussion: What are your favorite films of Miss Susan Hayward and Mr. Gregory Peck? Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, happy to have discovered the very interesting joys of SACD.