KANTATA
︎live orchestra and choir recording
#field recording
#live
#classical
#Københavns Kantatekor
A couple of weeks ago I had the opportunity to make a recording of a full choir and orchestra in a church. A performance of Brahms’ Ein Deutsches Requiem by the Københavns Kantatekor at Helligåndskirken in Copenhagen. It was a possibility to gain some experience in a situation i don’t get to be in very often, so, hungry for new mistakes, I decided to do it.
Churches are well known for their acoustic properties. Being in most cases a space for introspection as well as meditative and religious practices, there is often a special energy and "presence" inside. Some of it is without doubt an acoustic effect, usually a consequence of hard walls and high ceilings which produce long reverberation times, but i believe part of it may be caused by what I like to think as the "memory of the place", the energy of the past printed in the matter around you, immediately forcing itself upon anyone that enters the space and is exposed to it, sometimes almost like a flash of vertigo. This happens even if you are in complete silence, but not so much in new or more recent buildings. I want to believe I think rationally but this feeling is hard to explain. Something to think about.
Having a full choir and orchestra in a space like this produces a sensorial experience which is not simple to translate into words. Senses are overloaded, the air moves, the floor vibrates, on the loudest passages a wall of emotion hits you directly in the soul. All this, amplified by the story these spaces carry creates an experience which not so long ago only the most privileged were allowed to witness and that hasn’t lost any of its power and relevance for a few hundreds of years. Closest-to-god-peak-culture. And I’m not even religious :)
Brahms’ German Requiem has a few passages which I specially like. Very charged emotionally, as any requiem, the music gains an almost ecstatic character when the dynamics rise. In times where we spend ridiculous amounts of time looking at minuscule screens we seem to be more and most disconnected from experiencing “real” emotions and from the communal spiritual “elevation” that some sound/space experiences allow. Impossible to reproduce in any recording, they can transport you to a place where words fail. And where we somehow get closer to our essence as human beings.
Churches are well known for their acoustic properties. Being in most cases a space for introspection as well as meditative and religious practices, there is often a special energy and "presence" inside. Some of it is without doubt an acoustic effect, usually a consequence of hard walls and high ceilings which produce long reverberation times, but i believe part of it may be caused by what I like to think as the "memory of the place", the energy of the past printed in the matter around you, immediately forcing itself upon anyone that enters the space and is exposed to it, sometimes almost like a flash of vertigo. This happens even if you are in complete silence, but not so much in new or more recent buildings. I want to believe I think rationally but this feeling is hard to explain. Something to think about.
Having a full choir and orchestra in a space like this produces a sensorial experience which is not simple to translate into words. Senses are overloaded, the air moves, the floor vibrates, on the loudest passages a wall of emotion hits you directly in the soul. All this, amplified by the story these spaces carry creates an experience which not so long ago only the most privileged were allowed to witness and that hasn’t lost any of its power and relevance for a few hundreds of years. Closest-to-god-peak-culture. And I’m not even religious :)
Brahms’ German Requiem has a few passages which I specially like. Very charged emotionally, as any requiem, the music gains an almost ecstatic character when the dynamics rise. In times where we spend ridiculous amounts of time looking at minuscule screens we seem to be more and most disconnected from experiencing “real” emotions and from the communal spiritual “elevation” that some sound/space experiences allow. Impossible to reproduce in any recording, they can transport you to a place where words fail. And where we somehow get closer to our essence as human beings.
Copenhagen, November 2017.
For the technically inclined: Gear was limited and the approach was to attempt the best with what was available. A pair of DPA omnis, a pair of Neumann KM184s and a pair of Sennheiser MK8040s. You can see the microphone pairs on the photo above. XY just above the conductors’ head and the ORTF higher, visible just below the chandelier. The first four signals were routed to a 4track recorder and a second 2track was used for the Sennheisers as spot mics on the soloists but due to digital clock drift between the two recorders the soloist tracks were not used. I didn't miss them much as the the DPAs were in a good position and the balance between the soloists, the orchestra and choir seemed tolerable. Apart from a few low end resonances which needed attention the mix was basically subtle eq and light compression. Given the limitations and my level of experience in this kind of recording I am not ashamed of the result. It is at least a nice memory. Have a listen to the excerpts below, and feel free to comment if you have any advice or knowledge to share.
Recorded and mixed by Ricardo Sousa.
Conductor: Torben H.S. Svendsen.
Sopran: Signe Sneh Schreiber
Baryton: Jens Søndergaard
Performed at Helligåndskirken, Copenhagen, Denmark, November 1st 2017.
The excepts hereby publicly shared are marked with a 1000Hz tone every 20 seconds for copyright protection purposes. All rights reserved. Unauthorized use strictly prohibited.
