Lurching to the opposite end of the orchestral scale, you’d think that the power and sweeping majesty of the Dvorak Cello Concerto would be beyond the scope of any speaker this size. To reproduce it, maybe? To convince? Not a chance… Don’t put money on it. Not until you’ve heard what the Haydns can do with this music. More impressive still, wait until you hear the way in which the speaker allows you to contrast the competing, heavyweight offerings of Piatigorsky on RCA and Starker on Mercury. But also, the way these recordings start to reveal just how the Haydn works its magic.
Play the RCA SACD (82876 66375 2) and you’ll be presented with the familiar rich tonality and extensive soundstage that characterise the Living Stereo recordings. The perspective and scale match the mid-hall balance almost perfectly, while the orchestra is beautifully layered and presented with real weight and presence. The ascending bass lines that drive the opening to the first movement are (surprisingly) rich, weighty and solid. The music swells and grows with a natural sense of drive, energy and power. When Piatigorsky makes his solo entry, it’s within the acoustic space, placed and scaled against the orchestra. His lines are smooth and articulate, his phrasing poised, although the distance means that his instrument does lack texture and immediacy.
Switch to the Mercury SACD (4745 6608 MSA) and it’s like jumping ten rows forward. The sound is closer, much more immediate and correspondingly bigger in terms of scale and presentation. There’s more intent in the playing, greater contrast in the tempo and density in the orchestra. Starker sits loud and proud, well to the fore, his instrument over-voiced and over-sized, full of vibrant texture and life, matching the energy and vigour in the playing: You could never mistake this for anything but a Mercury recording. This is all about immediacy and human agency, not just what the musicians are playing but why.
The fact that such a compact speaker can not only match the scale and dynamic contrasts demanded by this music, but can pick the very different recording styles and highlight their presentational distinctions is impressive in its own right. But in making this comparison, it’s also apparent that the Haydn’s actually slightly exaggerate the differences, pushing the Mercury’s life and energy forward, undermining the presence and dimensionality of the RCA. In turn that reflects the speaker’s carefully engineered bottom end. Despite the aural evidence to the contrary, the Haydn doesn’t go any lower than the numbers suggest. What it does do is go down at least that far, without fear or favour – and without relying on additional, additive padding. Which explains exactly what you’ll hear from these two discs. The RCA sits its expansive, all-embracing soundstage on the lowest of low-frequencies. Remove those and you do rob the sound of some of its life and energy. It’s still tonally rich and beautifully spacious, but it sounds a bit too distant and doesn’t reach forward to envelop the listener the way it can. You hear it most clearly in the solo part, where the grace and complexity of Piatigorsky’s playing and instrument depend on the presence and dimensionality delivered by that inclusive acoustic space.
