COLORADO QUARTET RECORDINGS Beethoven | Cowell Brahms | Contemporary Winner of the 2001 Chamber Music America/WQXR Record Award SCHUBERT "Death & the Maiden" Quartet MENDELSSOHN F minor Quartet, Op. 80 Parnassus Records PACD 96024 Recorded in 1997, State University of NY at Purchase The Rave Reviews American Record Guide | Fanfare Magazine We had a very good time making this Schubert and Mendelssohn disc, which was recorded in the concert hall at the State University of New York at Purchase. The marvelous task-master Judith Sherman was our engineer, and although this was the first time we had worked with her, we totally trusted her right from the start. The engineer is the 'invisible partner' in any fine recording. Good recording engineers perform several jobs: setting up the room, getting a sound and editing the takes after the session, as well as doing the actual recording. (And if you're lucky, they also bring you snacks!) But for us, outside of the obvious role of making a pleasing sound appear on a disc, the most important function the engineer performs is keeping track of what we've missed. A highly skilled engineer keeps a running log of what we've played and how good or bad it sounded. For instance, we might have a big section of a piece that sounds great, but one bar keeps eluding us. Judy would see to it that we cover that bar and then she'd keep track of which take contains the good version so that during the editing process she can easily find the best rendition. During these particular sessions we had a lot of problems with the cello, which suddenly and mysteriously started buzzing. Sometimes a take would be unusable because the cello was making weird noises, which is incredibly frustrating if you've played your best. We tried stuffing things in various places of the cello to make it shut up - charming, really - but in the end managed to get what we needed. For the most part, we try not to keep track of whether we've played every note well, although occasionally one or the other of us will call out, "Use that take of my big solo!" when we have felt particularly inspired. Aside from those few instances, though, the trust factor is very important in recording: when we know that our engineer is an excellent musician who is listening to everything we're doing, then we can relax and play. We look forward to our next recording with Judy.