“Roman Handel” recording blog

This mini blog chronicles the process of recording our newest CD. The recording sessions are taking place at Church of the Redeemer in Chestnut Hill, a beautiful Gothic style church with resonant acoustics, providing a suitable soundscape for this Italian Baroque repertoire.

May 23, 2011 - Day 1: Setup, sound check, and start of recording
 

The goals for our first day are to get a sound check for all of the ensemble configurations on the CD. Our recording engineer Christopher Greenleaf set up a pair of omnidirectional microphones centered in front of the ensemble and it was our task to position ourselves in such ways as is to get the optimal sound for each piece.

This is a painstaking process requiring much listening and evaluation. We were able to nail down most of these configurations in a couple of hours.

We took a break for dinner and turned our attention to recording the Bononcini and Lulier cantatas. Our producer Pamela Dellal joined us for this segment. We are very happy to have her on board for this project - we have a long working relationship with her and trust her keen ear and fine musical sense. For both compositions our strategy was to get a few nearly complete takes, then to hone in on areas that we wanted to improve. It was an exhausting process that took us until nearly 11 o'clock to complete. However, we felt it was well worth it because we feel we are able to take our interpretations to higher levels by working in such an intensive way. 

Our sessions continue on Wednesday and Thursday. Stay tuned!

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

May 25, 2011 - Day 2

By yesterday, the weather had fluctuated dramatically twice since our first session on Monday - from cool and overcast to hot and muggy, to sunny, clear, and warm. Of course this affects resonance and the pitch of the instruments, so we were curious to discover what the inside climate of the church's sanctuary would be like on this sunny day.

When we arrived at 2:30, we pleasantly discovered that the sanctuary was cooler than the outside temperature, but warmer than it had been on Monday when the musicians dressed in layers. Although the sanctuary still retained a lot of the humidity from the day before, it was much reduced, so the sound would be slightly crisper.

Michael immediately launched into the seemingly endless job of tuning the harpsichord, while

Sarah and Jesse warmed up in the basement.

First on deck was the Corelli trio sonata. We conducted another sound check, realizing it would be helpful to the clarity of the cello for it to be positioned on a small riser.

We did the Gasparini flute concerto next. This work, along with the Bononcini and Lulier cantatas that we recorded on Monday, will be a debut recording.

To close out our evening session, we'd turn next to the Handel cantata "Tu fedel." But someone suddenly figured out that the parts we had created for performance had no measure numbers which would really slow down the process for producer Pam Dellal in working with the group, so we quickly lined up in a pew with our parts and pencils to address this!

With a good chunk of the cantata down, we ended the evening at 10:00 pm.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

May 26, 2011 - Day 3

We're done! Recording finished at 9:55 pm, just in time for the end of our church rental period.

We started the session at 3:00 with the Sinfonia and remaining arias for Handel's "Tu fedel."

We finished the piece on schedule, and Kristen was very happy to be done!

We took a dinner break and continued with sound checks and recording of the Handel quartet. Pam and Christopher had great focus and concentration throughout the whole process.

For the first two days of recording, we had the delightful and unobtrusive presence of a filmmaker, Bob Giordani. Bob has taken an interest in the group and has been fascinated by the music, instruments, and the whole recording process. He's working on a piece about the group. Stay tuned!

]