Magazine HÖRERLEBNIS 80

The Test-CD For High-End-Lovers!

After his masterpiece “Sound Images 1” Martin Vatter, a pianist who is well-known and highly appreciated in the high-end scene has now presented his current maxi CD “Sound Images 2”. The magician on the keys again relies on well-established partners: the Franz Marc museum and mbl chief developer Jürgen Reis who produced the recording. Martin Vatter sets four paintings by Franz Marc to music: “Jumping Horse”, “Red Deers II”, Woman in the Wind by the Sea” and “Small Composition IV”. In Martin Vatter´s eyes the painter, who already died in 1916, ranks among the most brilliant artists. The Concert Grand used for the audiophile recording was a Steinway & Sons Mod. D, which is very rich is timbres. Its sound is light, soft and tends to be warm and friendly. Martin Vatter, who himself listens to music using high-quality equipment, and sound technician Jürgen Reis support the idea of using as little recording equipment as possible in their audiophile productions. As it had already been the case with the re-mastered maxi CD “Sound Images 1”, Jürgen Reis did not use any limiters and compressors (“Against Loudness War”). Thus Jürgen Reis could reach a fabulous range of dynamics of 13 dB.
Martin Vatter proves his qualities as a pianist by playing all the pieces of music without any cuts and in one go (“Live To Track Recording”). Not many can do that and therefore it is not surprising that “Sound Images 2” conveys to the listener a maximum of authenticity and emotions. You can also see in the booklet how much love was put into all the details of this album. These 20 pages contain the most important information about the two artists (the painter and the musician) as well as the paintings that were set to music. Before you listen to the music I would recommend that you have a close look at the paintings and read the accompanying texts in which Martin Vatter puts his inspiring thoughts and emotions into writing. This helps the listener to get deeper into the compositions and thus into the music itself and to be able to comprehend the pianist´s inspiring way of playing.
As far as the music and the recording are concerned, this CD really stands out against the mass and also against a lot of supposedly audiophile CDs. The CD deserves the title “masterpiece” in every respect and it will certainly be among the test repertory of numerous high-end music lovers.



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