This Week’s Music: Boccherini — “Serenade on the Way to Madrid” (Long Live Vacuum Tubes)

Newman’s MP4 really is awful. Though it’s nice that it can play lossless files, there are simply too many lossless files that explode with clipping; by experience, one can generalize that APE is usually more prone to clipping, and the higher the quality of the music, the more likely it is to clip. But the “Antique Vacuum Tube String Baroque” album I downloaded recently is a counterexample—it is both APE and ultra-high quality, yet it plays with remarkable smoothness……

This is also the first time I’ve clearly heard the difference between lossless and MP3. I don’t even know exactly what this vacuum-tube microphone is, but it really is different!

Anyway, as the music-illiterate I am, I won’t say much more. I found an introduction to it:

http://www.hispeed.com.cn/Forum/ReadPost.asp?PostID=1287960#2 

Chinese title: String Baroque of Antique Vacuum Tubes
English title: Die Rohre-The Tube
Also known as: Antique Vacuum Tube Art / Tube Mic III
Resource type: MP3
Version: TACET 74
Release date: 1999
Album artist: Stuttgarter Kammerorchester Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra
Region: Germany

Album introduction:

There are quite a few recordings of classical music from the Baroque period, but this “Baroque of Tube Mics,” published and released by the German company TACET, can be said to be the most audiophile-oriented Baroque music recording currently available. This company is a backbone member of the “tube” camp, and this disc is a hi-end vacuum-tube recording jewel painstakingly produced by that camp. Also known as “Dedicated to the electron tube (Tube Mic III).” In both instrumental presentation and musical interpretation, this album displays a smoothness and refinement that TACET has never before achieved. The CD sound is delicate, noble, and balanced; the tone is mellow and full, the sense of air is excellent, the music is very pleasing, and it also effectively preserves the performers’ most natural and authentic sound. This time TACET joined forces with the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra and recorded everything using a full set of vacuum-tube microphones.
This is an exceptional audiophile record made with top-grade vacuum-tube microphones, a vacuum-tube mixing console, a reel-to-reel vacuum-tube master tape recorder, together with extremely rigorous hand editing and the highest recording technology.
Two 1949 Neumann M49 (tube AC 701) vacuum-tube microphones were used for live dual-track direct pickup, then transferred through a 1950 vacuum-tube mixer, a Sound Mixer Console (V 72), onto a Telefunken M5 (Modified) reel-to-reel master tape recorder to make the master. Including the hand editing in post-production, everything was produced entirely with antique vacuum-tube equipment, and finally digitized with advanced A/D converters, preserving the original, unadulterated beautiful sound. Thus was this “antique tube-mic string Baroque” achieved—an audiophile album with every detail vividly expressive, rich in “tube flavor,” and uniquely imbued with the spirit of classical art!

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Boccherini (Luigi Boccherini 1743~1805)’s representative string quartet work, “The Street of Madrid Serenade,” is light, graceful, lyrical, rich in harmony, and varied in dynamics; the drum-like opening contrasts sharply with the later gentle, rounded melody. Boccherini was an outstanding Italian cellist. Although only a small portion of his works are still performed today, his name is extraordinarily important in the history of music. He clearly established the form of the string quartet and wrote 91 string quartets. He was among the first to use thumb position and double stop technique on the cello. His influence on the cello in the latter half of the eighteenth century was very profound, and he had already written string quartets that caused a sensation before J. Haydn did. Although during his lifetime and after his death his fame was always overshadowed by Haydn, and his works were far less widely circulated and performed than Haydn’s, the delicacy, elegance, lightness, agility, and rare originality in his works still shine brilliantly.