Search - Frederick Swann :: The Riverside Years, Vol. 2

A good memento of a time and place

Arthur R. Krieck | New York, NY USA | 09/21/2005

(3 out of 5 stars)

"As a young singer I participated in most of these recordings, so it's a bit hard to be objective. The most successful segments are those on the "Lessons and Carols" disc, recorded in May of 1981. John Walker's organ accompaniments are subtle and beautifully voiced; as a result the choral singing they accompany is consistent, beautifully blended and in tune. The readings, particularly the reading and prayer from William Sloane Coffin, are wonderful to hear again.



The rest, recorded in 1978 and 1979, are much less successful. There is much oversinging, even screaming, in the louder choral passages, the choral sound in general is "woofy", not very in tune and unblended, in the fashion of much choral singing of the time, and the organ playing of Swann and McDonald as accompaniment is consistently too loud, even ugly in tone. The only articulate and beautiful playing on these earlier recordings is that of the late organist and harpsichordist Jerry Brainard, and he participates in only two selections! These recordings were made with three microphones, a stereo pair at the front and one at the back for ambience, in the dry acoustic Riverside had at the time (it has since been "corrected" to a soupy overreverberance), so microphoning was not the problem. This is a good represntation of the way this sounded at the time, according to listeners in the congregation.



Also, as was true of the original LP releases, the stereo image on the earlier recordings is reversed: left is right and right is left. I'm surprised that this error was not caught and corrected in the digital transfer. Much of the analog tape noise has been eliminated, but there is still quite a bit of audio distortion in the louder portions. On my copy, the CD's had some trackinig difficulties, even on a new player."