Actually, I don’t think this is Teldec’s doing. When Kurt Masur arrived, in what I believe was his attempt to show he was boss, the low bras especially the tuba got the MAJOR hand. As the relationship wore on, the leash was gradually extended, but they were rarely allowed to play with the kind of volume they did under Mehta. There are actually some really beautiful things in that Bruckner 7, which was the inaugural concert for Masur. Low brass presence is NOT one of them. This is even more so for the Franck D Minor recording. I went to one of those performances and was so disappointed that the the maestro basically all but removed the tuba presence in the balance.doublebuzzing wrote:One recording to skip is the Bruckner 7 with Masur. The engineers did something to the low brass so that you can hardly hear them. I was so disappointed. I remember studying Bruckner 7th and being very excited to hear Warren's playing on that recording. Alas, Teldec really screwed up if you were excited to hear this low brass section.
Indeed, I was a student at Manhattan School of Music when Masur had his very first rehearsals with the NY Phil. Through some scheduling snafu, Avery Fisher Hall was not available to then, so they rehearsed at MSM! They were rehearsing Mendelssohn’s Midsummer Night’s Dream. I remember how upset Warren was about getting the hand constantly.
So in this case, can’t blame the engineers.