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Chapter 1: What recording techniques does Peter McGrath advocate for?
Tetragrammaton.
Given the nature of how I record, more so perhaps than most, because, Rick, I have always believed in minimal micing, which means that I'm sort of using the sound by positioning instruments relative to each other, by position, to try and get a balance with a pair or maybe four mics or whatever, but as minimal as possible.
So therefore, how they're interacting with each other and the room becomes an incredibly important component. A lot of times with multi-miking, you can minimize the effect of the room. You just go in close and, God forbid, even add a room to it later, vis-a-vis whatever DSP you want. But my approach is born out of maybe ignorance or simplicity, but it's what I've always done.
If musicians are used to playing in a certain position, but the recording would benefit from them being in a different position, how do you approach that?
If it's in a concert situation, I try not to mess with it, because the primary purpose of their doing what they're doing is for them to be comfortable in the concert setting, and I don't want to get in the way of their doing what they do. So I have to make decisions about altering my technique of what mic to use or where to put them. I just did a recording of the Jerusalem Street Quartet.
Normally I would do things with a pair of spaced Omnis, because they give me a beautiful sense of air, but they were really, really, really tight. And the room was not a good room. And so I went in, Rick, with an AKG C24, which is a classic blue-blind mic, and I almost put it inside of them. And when you hear the playback, it's like they're right here.
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Chapter 2: How does Peter McGrath ensure sound quality in recordings?
Yeah.
There was no room to begin with. The room wasn't additive in that case.
Yeah, exactly. It was not additive and, frankly, in some ways, best ignored to minimize the effect of it. And that's a totally different sound of a string quartet than typically I would capture in a great room. And sometimes they sit a little bit too close of an arc. I might ask them to expand the arc if they are comfortable. And if not, I'm fine with that.
I'll deal with it because they're not there to serve my recording. They're there to perform. In a recording session, however, we could spend hours moving people around because I'm chief.
Yeah.
You know, you're going to have to figure out how to do this because I need you there.
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Chapter 3: What challenges does Peter face in recording live performances?
And typically, that's how we did it. I mean, we did a messiah, Handel messiah, Robina Young, my producer from Harmonia Mundi, with the Philharmonia Baroque from Berklee and chorus and organ and soloist with two mics. You would never guess that it was done that way. But it was a question of doing it, you know, making it work.
And I think it today singularly remains one of the most beautiful Messiahs. It's on Harmonia Mundi, and it featured a wonderful soprano by the name of Lorraine Hunt, now known as Lorraine Hunt Lieberson. And years ago, I don't remember how many, we were doing a project with the Philharmonia Baroque with the conductor Nick McGeegan, who is now their conductor emeritus.
That's how far back this was. But he brought along this beautiful woman who wanted to be auditioned by Robina Young, my producer from Harmonia Mundi. And she was a former violist, but she also happened to have a talent for singing. Little did we know the level of that talent. And Nick, the conductor, brought us and said, we finished our session. We were at Lucas Skywalker.
We finished our session.
Chapter 4: How has Peter's career evolved over the decades?
We had a few hours left. And Nick said, do you mind, Rubina? I'll play the harpsichord and just let her sing. We'll sing a few hand-held pieces. And Peter, make sure you let the tape roll, you know, because I was doing analog tape back then. And I did. And she came out and started singing. And Robina's partner, Rene, you know, he's very typically French.
No, no, Peter, we have a dinner reservation at Chez Panisse. We don't have time for this. And Robina says, no, no, no. Nick brought her here. We're going to listen to her. And I sort of said, I'd love to hear her, too, because she was, frankly, stunningly beautiful. So I was influenced.
Chapter 5: What is the significance of the Jerusalem Street Quartet recording?
And she started singing. And all I remember, Rick, was about a minute and a half in, I had to restrain from leaning over the tape recorder so that my tears would not fall on the tape path. Then I look over at Rene. His eyes are streaming with tears. And Robina has this incredible smile of discovery on her face. It was just the three of us in the back there. And that was Lorraine Hunt-Lieberson.
And she went on to become one of the greatest singers of our time. We lost her too early. Then she went on way beyond us. She was singing for everybody. She married the son of Goddard Lieberson, and she put out an album of songs by Neruda. She was breathtaking, and people who know of her consider her one of the greatest. And then we did The Handled Messiah with her.
And it was a challenge, only that we didn't know if we could actually make it work with just this purist approach, but we were able to do it.
Chapter 6: How does Peter describe the impact of technology on music recording?
And she just drives this thing to the highest possible level. And that's one of the great, great experiences of my life, recording an artist of that level. Can we listen to that? Yeah. Okay. I found this. This is the Messiah. Lorraine Hunt. This voice. Forgive me if I start crying when I hear it. Two bikes.
Despised and rejected. Rejected amen. A man of sorrows and acquainted with him. He was despised
Chapter 7: What insights does Peter share about the future of high-fidelity sound?
Was that recorded in front of an audience? Yeah. And then I have the commercial one, which was not, but we did a concert and then we did the record. Is it ever a problem with an audience in terms of the sound? It depends sometimes, but it's part of the real thing. It's part of the real thing. Actually, my recollection with Lorraine, we took that whole aria in one take. Yeah.
And the reality is that when I started my record label in 1979, my partner in that label was a gentleman by the name of Julian Krieger. And I had the pleasure of recording people like Leonard Schur, Ivan Davis, Earl Wilde. The last recordings that Earl Wilde did was one of the greatest pianists of the 20th century.
And the reality was that Julian and I came from the approach that we're dealing with masters. We're not asking them to record something they probably haven't performed 200 times in their lifetime. We would rather that they not rely on editing.
Obviously, if something had to be cut, we would cut, and we were doing this on tape, you know, scissors and splicing and actually cutting the master, 30 IPS master and taping it together, not, you know, some edit point on a computer.
Chapter 8: What personal stories does Peter share about notable musicians?
And so we encourage them and discourage them from doing a lot of retakes. Or we would do like a whole movement, right? and pick the best of the three whole movements that we did because we felt that it was more musically legitimate. And the ones that we worked with came to rely on that. It was not easier for them, it was better for them.
And I think that resulted in recordings that more realistically approached a musical event, rather than something that's pastiche and put together that would never have been able to exist in real life. And that was the approach that Julian had, and I couldn't have agreed more with it.
Now, sometimes some of our actual commercial recordings might have an occasional slip or a wrong note, and we left it in because to go in and correct it, Julian and the artist would agree. that that would destroy that kind of spirit, the momentum that was already happening. And the humanity in the recording.
It's a human playing an instrument. It's real.
And if a piano bench made a noise, so be it. It was OK. And our recordings, the label is still in existence. Unfortunately, we lost Julian last year. I had a partnership with him for 40 years. He was my closest friend. He married Elizabeth and me. His wife is a judge. She actually performed the ceremony. So it's how far we go back, you know.
His organization, Friends of Chamber Music, that organization still continues in Miami and I'm now helping with his sons to continue to drive it. I'll be recording all their recordings as long as I physically can. This is the thing I referenced where I put the bike inside of the Jerusalem Street Quartet. Again, they were fairly tight in a circle.
This is not a great hall, but tell me if you don't think that they're here.
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