Chris and me four hands: Dvorak, Slavonic Dances, 4, 10, 12

I have met my friend Chris during my vacations in the Netherlands. We had only 2 days for recording and practising. It was such a great pleasure to do this. On our first meeting on 29.7.09 I have forgotten to switch on the built-in microphones of my Zoom H4, so we decided to repeat all of our recordings again on 10.8.09. I didn´t take my Neumann microphones with me during my vacations, so that the sound-quality is not so good as usual in these recordings and there also are some little slips. We would like to consider these recordings more as a pleasure of holidays than as very serious CD-recordings. :wink:
BTW, we played on Chris´ nice old grand-piano by Gaveau, which has been built in the 1920th, if I do remember it correctly. I like this old French brand, because these instruments still have a great individual character, I would like to say "personality".

Btw, we didn´t only piano-recordings, but also some common wind-surfing on one day, which was a great fun! (I´m glad, Chris rediscovered this nice kind of sport. ) (If you would like to see pictures of our meeting and a hot surfing-video, please, see the thread "A PS meeting" in the General-Forum.)

We have recorded three Slavonic Dances of Antonin Dvorak for piano four hands:
op. 46, no. 4, Tempo di Menuetto, f-major
op. 72, no. 2, Allegretto grazioso, e-minor
op. 72, no. 4, Allegretto grazioso, d-flat-major

We also have recorded the complete Mozart-Sonata, KV 497, f-major for piano four hands. I will post all three movements as soon as I will have edited all the videos (phew, it´s a lot of work :wink: ).

We have made videos of all the three Slavonic Dances, too.
Here are links to our hot videos :wink: :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6Z5WXDR ... annel_page (op. 46, no. 4)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ab8JrjYX ... annel_page (op. 72, no. 2)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FiZtfgtx ... annel_page (op. 72, no. 4)

Below there are the audio-tracks of these videos for this site. They are all recorded with my Zoom H4 (just with the built-in mics) and I have done the following editings with WaveLab 6.0:
pan-normalization, limiter, expander, gate, Reverb (I took a bit more reverberation than I usually do to my home-recordings), equalizer, compilation. Listen to the bass of Chris´ Gaveau, which is really amazing!

Dvorak - Slavonic Dances Op.46 - 4: Tempo di minuetto ( 05:40 )
Dvorak - Slavonic Dances Op.72 - 2: Allegretto grazioso ( 04:58 )
Dvorak - Slavonic Dances Op.72 - 4: Allegretto grazioso ( 04:25 )

 

Sounds nice, guys. Thank you for posting.

 

Pianolady wrote:

Thanks for your kind comment, Monica.

Rachfan wrote:

Thank you for your encouraging comment, David. Yes, somehow I like also op. 72, no. 2 especially, though they are all so beautiful. I really would like do a CS with Chris. Yes, there are a lot of complexities in the e-minor-dance, but the others have also some of them. I couldn´t say, which has more complexity, they all are demanding and very soulful.

Thank you also very much, Didier and Stan. I´m very happy you like it. I like the personal and individual sound of the old Gaveau. Such instruments should really be kept alive. They belong to another epoque (the epoque of 19th century) and they mirror the mind of these epoque. So, it´s ideal for romantic music (but also the other music sounds very well on it).

 

Techneut wrote:

Yes, brighter is right IMO. And I could improve the dynamic range by my several acts of editing a bit, I believe.

It was a true pleasure to play with you together and also the video/audio processing is such for me. I´m also an absolute fan of op. 72, no. 2, but I agree, that they all are beautiful. When I think, that we only recorded them last monday, then I´m yearning back to this nice day at your home in the beautiful Netherlands!

I really will listen to these recordings, because I´m very interested to compare them now with our ones. I will do it as soon as I find some time for it.

 

Hyenal wrote:

I think, this must be my editing. 8) (You see, I never do self-praises. :lol: )
I just tried to bring out with my editing-acts the true sound of Chris´ Gaveau, which I like really very much, because of it´s individual sound-personality. It mirrors the mind of the 19th century epoque.So, I think, every instrument of this area, like Gaveau and also Pleyel, is very valuable and should be conserved, especially in the times of today. (Chopin prefered Pleyel to Gaveau, btw, but I don´t know why.)
I did some equalizer settings, which point out a bit the bass as well as the treble. But I also applicated expander, limiter, gate, which gives an enormous improvement of the dynamic range.

 

Didier wrote:

I have read the biography of Bernhard Gavotty many years ago and I believe to remember, that the author mentions this somewhere in that book. I would have to look for to make it absolute sure, I have to admit.

 

Techneut wrote:

I do give you the exact reverberation-setting and eq-settings. For expander. limiter, gate I use a preset in WaveLab 6.0. I don´t know how to do this with other programs.
I also changed my reverberation-settings for our recordings on your piano a bit. You can compare Andreas special reverb-setting with Chris-setting.
See the screenshots below, please.

I have to say, with the new possibilities Didier gave to us (see his topic of Hungarian Melody for this), it´s fantastic. That´s a whole new world of reverberation- and ambience-settings. I´m so inspired! May be I will put up some alternatives of reverberation-settings of some of our four-hands-recordings (if I will find the time for it).