I mean, mathematical modelling is nice… but how about doing some actual…. you know…. science, instead?? :-)

“We’ve gotten used to hearing this stuff performed in big open churches, with that long reverberation time … But that’s probably not how the music was intended to sound… ”

Well, in the case of the sort of music under discussion, that’s precisely the environment for which it was written.

“… tend to think of it as a signature of early music. It’s what makes it sound “old,” right?”

Well … no in both cases. If your view of “early music” is Gabrieli in San Marco with lots of reverb, you have a lot waiting for you to discover. And I have no idea what you mean by “sound old,” I’m afraid. To my ears, one of the delights of much Renaissance music is how “new” and refreshing it sounds. Well, no accounting for taste.

“…, given the intricacy of Renaissance polyphony. When you have that many notes, changing that quickly, clarity is important, at least from the composer and performer’s point of view.”

Two points – your comment describes only a subset of Renaissance music. And as I said, I hear no lack of clarity in the 40+ year old recordings referenced.

I simply think that the article referenced was not particularly well thought out, and that neither it nor the post here quoting it are particularly supportable, given my admittedly amateur knowledge of the music being discussed.

But I’m now up on you 2 comments to 1, and there’s little sense in going on indefinitely. So … I suggest 1 more from you (if you like) and then we’re done!

First of all, just on the topic of how “good” this music sounds in modern recordings in churches, I think that the average listener is more likely to enjoy the effects of reverb than a hardcore audiophile is (I definitely like a little myself). We’ve gotten used to hearing this stuff performed in big open churches, with that long reverberation time, and tend to think of it as a signature of early music. It’s what makes it sound “old,” right? But that’s probably not how the music was intended to sound, given the intricacy of Renaissance polyphony. When you have that many notes, changing that quickly, clarity is important, at least from the composer and performer’s point of view.

Secondly, if you’ve ever recorded a concert in a church (I used to perform regularly in a chapel that had so much reverb we called it “the bathtub”), you know that where you put the mics makes a big difference. In the case of the recordings from the 60s, I would guess that whomever set up the recording equipment put it in the chancel, where the Doge’s throne would have been, and where the researchers found that even without the draperies and such, the reverb was cut to about 4 seconds.

Our sense of many types of music is influenced by how they are micced–take the Chinese guqin zither, for instance, which, unamplified, is so quiet as to be inaudible to people sitting more than a few feet away. Yet it is always super-loud on recordings, because the mic is placed right under the strings.

Thanks for the food for thought, and kudos to you for digging out the LPs!

“.. when his nephew Giovanni joined him as organist in 1584, the music of Venice had not only lost its Flemish polyphonic character but had taken on a more vertical chordal style that was very emphatic in its voice leading in order to meet the need for clarity in the reverberant acoustics of the building.”

A trip to the basement produced 2 late 60′s/early 70′s Columbia LP’s – Vol. 1 & 2 of “The Glory of Gabrieli – Music for Multiple Choirs, Brass, and Organ,” featuring E. Power Biggs and a host of others.

First, they sound fine to my ears, and one can find reviews on-line complimenting the sound and making no references to “muddiness.”

Second, the liner notes make no mention of serious acoustical problems when recording.

Third, no mention is made of restoring heavy hanging draperies or simulating a full audience (and I doubt whether that could have been afforded).

And fourth, the ablility to adjust sound was certainly crude in 1967 by today’s standards, and no mention is made of post-production twiddling.

It’s an interesting article with an unsurprising conclusion, but I sense a strawman of some stature here …