Maybe the lighter bass leaves it quicker on its feet, but playing the Mutter/Previn/Vienna P.O. performance of the Tchaikovsky and Korngold Concertos (streamed via the Wadax Reference Server and DAC) there’s no missing the fluent phrasing and emotional reach of the performance, Wadax strengths for sure, but strengths that the Marquis is more than capable of exploiting. Mutter’s playing holds you captivated, despite (or more interestingly, perhaps because of) Previn’s measured opening tempo. More on this later, but one thing the Marquis rams home is just how crucial overall pacing is to musical performance – and how woefully inadequate most speakers are when it comes to capturing this on the macro, rather than the simple note to note scale.
This is a speaker that never fears the slower movements, that never makes the music lag, or drags it back. Its low frequency clarity combined with a natural pace and dynamic response means that sudden shifts in level or density still shock or surprise, even from familiar recordings. It’s a capability that brings a new subtlety and life to drumming, from Clem Burke’s beautifully shaped, propulsive patterns and dynamic control on Blondie’s ‘Look Good In Blue’ to Ed Thigpen’s crisp brushwork and staccato punctuation on ‘Jet Song’ (Oscar Peterson Trio, West Side StoryDCC GZS-1068). While Peterson’s piano and Ray Brown’s bass take centre stage, Thigpen’s understated drum work provides the perfect underpinning and nicely judged rhythmic accents – a nudge here, a small push there, the odd exclamation mark thrown in almost for fun. There’s a sparky, innately communicative quality to the performance that keeps you listening. Revisiting this disc to refresh my memory while writing, I found myself letting it play through to the final medley – despite needing to move on to other musical examples.
This fluid, un-obstructive presentation speaks well of the seamless continuity between the Göbel’s drivers but even better of its deftly executed crossover. The passive network is the rock upon which so many loudspeakers’ ambitions are dashed, but in this case it is the glue that binds the performance together. There’s none of the mechanistic hesitation, disrupted dynamics or fractured energy, disturbed dispersion or distorted perspectives by which most crossovers reveal their presence. As a result, there’s no diminution of the drama or tension in a performance, no halting missteps – unless they’re the missteps of the musicians themselves. Likewise, there’s no diminution of the differences between performances. Play Batiashvili’s Tchaikovsky (DGG 4796038) immediately after Mutter’s and the difference in tone between the soloists and the performances is stark. The tension and precision in Batiashvili’s lines, the power in their focussed intensity combined with the explosive orchestral accompaniment in this concert performance makes for a scintillatingly dramatic reading. In contrast, Mutter’s lines are initially softer and her tone less concentrated, the orchestral playing almost muted – but then Previn slowly but inexorably ramps up the pace and tightens the screw, while Mutter responds, drawing you in to the music, until they finally hit the tumultuous final notes of that long first movement over a minute before Batiashvili, Barenboim and the Staatskapelle Berlin. Each is in its own way equally impressive (although Batiashvili is the more immediately so), but what really impresses is just how clearly the Divin Marquis draws the musical distinctions and reveals the contrasting musical visions – and how much sense it makes of them.
The butt stops here…
As I’ve already alluded to, a great deal of what the Marquis delivers is down to the beautifully natural and effortlessly tuneful bottom end – and just how effectively that bottom-end underpins the musically all-important mid-bass, where so much musical drive, impact AND rhythmic subtlety is centred. The pile-driver drumming that brings such irresistible musical momentum to Lloyd Cole and the Commotions’ ‘Rich’ (from Easy Pieces,Polydor LCLP 2) is handled with an astonishing sense of concentrated energy and power. Yet the deftly shaped bass guitar line that underpins and sets the behind the beat pacing of Elvis Costello’s ‘Alison’ (My Aim Is True, Stiff Records SEEZ 3) is just as pitch perfect and unforced as it should be. It’s the sort of expressive range and flexibility more normally associated with the more articulate mid-band, where driver and cabinet artefacts are so much easier to avoid. This clarity and effortlessly expressive precision are qualities the Marquis definitely shares with its larger brethren. It suggests that Oliver Göbel’s thoughts regarding cabinet resonance, colouration and driver design are pretty much bang on the money. So perhaps it’s only logical that the rest of the range should dovetail so smoothly with the impressively natural bottom end.
