Impressing a novice is usually easy. It’s much harder to impress the experts in one’s field of study or work. Mahler’s Third and the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Jascha Horenstein are enough to make most aficionados listen, but this recording is special on another level. It’s one of those rare recordings that entices casual classical fans into a “beginning to end” listening session.
Why is this recording so special? The answer can’t be narrowed down to a single reason, as there were so many talented professionals involved (musicians, composer, conductor, recording engineer, editor, and restoration professionals, etc…), recording engineer Jerry Bruck played an outsized role in enabling us to enjoy this magnificent music 53 years after the original performance in Croydon, London on July 27, 28 and 29, 1970 at Fairfield Concert Hall.
The liner notes of this album offer more information: There were two different recordings of this performance using different systems and engineers. The really fascinating part revolves around Jerry Bruck’s recording techniques. Jerry was so ahead of his time that he recorded for immersive audio 50 years before it became accepted as the norm.
The way Bruck recorded this Mahler piece, and the way Peter McGrath still records to this day, makes the two channel stereo version fantastic while the four channel version ads concert hall information making it even better. Stereo listeners don’t miss out on anything “placed” in the other channels. In fact, I can listen to the four channel version with the rear channels muted, and the sound is 100% identical to the stereo version. Un-muting the rear channels is amazing because it opens the space of the concert hall in one’s listening room better than any other playback adjustment or format.
The stereo and four channel versions of this recording are now available through High Definition Tape Transfers
From the liner notes:
“Bruck used a unique mic set-up that captured the sessions with remarkably well-focused clarity… This experimental array was situated relatively near the orchestra, with the two front mics recording the left and right channels, another one facing the rear wall of the hall in the same plane, and the fourth pointed straight up at the ceiling. Unlike some recording set-ups that place mics in the rear of the space to capture ambient signals, Bruck captured the ambient hall sound as reflected back to the nominal listener’s ears from the hall’s rear walls and ceiling, with that nominal listener seated roughly in the center of the mic array. The intent was to capture a hemisphere of sound where the nominal listener was situated, with the “up” and rear channels consisting entirely of reflected sound (an exception is the flugelhorn solos in the third movement; that instrument was situated in the back of the hall).
Bruck recorded Mahler’s Third in an immersive way, capturing height information and enabling listeners with immersive audio systems to reproduce the performance extremely close to how it was captured.
The pertinent part of the liner notes for attempting to play the rear and height channels as they were captured, is: “route the right rear channel to an overhead speaker and the left rear channel to a center rear speaker.”
The covers of the reissued album
Last edited:
