Today, I'm proud to announce my rendition of the first and second movement of Dimitrij Schostakowitsch's Chamber Symphony for String Orchestra Op. 110a (an adaption by Rudolf Barshai).
Why do I call it a hybrid project? I was looking for a way to realize my musical ideas with this piece on one hand and to overcome my weak piano skills for the recording of the MIDI tracks on the other hand, which led to an experiment that might well be called “unusual”, so I thought I´d include the creation process with the presentation of the musical result:
In a first step I formed a small string orchestra of eight musicians - four violines, two violas and two cellos - and rehearsed with them. Additionally, Martin Payr, one of Vienna's best keyboard players, joined us as well. He played the first cello voice in the first movement and the first violin voice in the second movement.
After the rehearsals we had the recording sessions and finally we've got eight audio tracks and one MIDI track, performed and recorded by all nine musicians together.
The following recording sessions were done with Martin alone, completing the missing Midi tracks for all voices of this piece, one by one. We decided to record these MIDI tracks using just one patch, different for each movement, only using real-time controllers for Velocity X-Fade, Slot X-Fade and Master Volume.
We've made this decision for performing reasons: The keyboard player shouldn't be irritated by controlling too many different parameters or key-switches. He should be able to focus on the music itself, the same way the string players did (for them, switching between articulations is implemented in their interpretation of sheet music - quite different from the options a pianist has at his disposal, it´s really a different approach).
The second step in this project was to optimize the MIDI file, adding all necessary patches and patch combinations and to adjust the final controller editing.
And the last step was placing the Vienna Dimension Strings players on the virtual stage of the "Großer Konzerthaus Saal" of Vienna MIR PRO.
Schostakowitsch's Chamber Symphony has been one of my favorite pieces when I played in an orchestra and I want to say "Thank You" to all the wonderful people helping me to get this result:
Bernd Mazagg - Mixing and Setup
Markus Wallner - Recording
Martin Payr - Keyboard
Claudia Hula - Helping Hands and Catering
Florian Eggner for calling the fantastic musicians of the RSO Vienna, Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra and Volksoper Vienna.
Here are three different renditions:
-Liveplayers
I hope you'll enjoy listening!
Michael Hula,
Recording Director Vienna Symphonic Library
