Wikipedia:Featured sound candidates/Morte d'Otello

Morte d'Otello

This is probably Otello's best-known aria, sung by the creator of the role. While the recording quality isn't perfect, it is pretty good for 1903, and, hey, it's the original performer! Isn't that worth a little hit to sound quality?

By the way, I've reduced the hiss as much as I could, but preserving Tamagno's performance had to be the first priority, even if that meant leaving some hiss in. However, this restoration was particularly difficult, so here's the original for comparison, because I think that, with a recording like this - with flaws but historical importance that makes up for them - transparency is particularly necessary.

• Nominate and support. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 04:45, 31 October 2008 (UTC)
• Strong support and I prefer the original. As a Verdi lover (especially Otello), I believe this file is worthy to be kept as featured sound. --Caspian blue 06:19, 31 October 2008 (UTC)
• Oppose Weak support This is the famous G&T (matrix 269FT cat 052068). Very important. My reservation is over the quality of the recordings here (of which the unrestored one is the better). My own Nimbus CD version sounds far better (though of course not available to us). Also can we get rid of the pretentious Italian title ('Morte d'Otello') and just call it 'Niun mi tema'? Thank you. --Kleinzach 08:50, 31 October 2008 (UTC) P.S. It's also been issued by Historic Masters [1] and [2]. They will have been working for a master not a 78. --Kleinzach 09:06, 31 October 2008 (UTC) I've changed my response to 'oppose' because of the poor quality of the so-called 'original' here. I think it should be possible to find one less metallic sounding. --Kleinzach 10:17, 2 November 2008 (UTC)
  • Weel, obviously I can only work with what I have access to. If someone can get me a better-quality copy of it, I can probably do more. As it is, I'm trying to remover hiss at the same pitch s Tamagno's voice, whch leads to compromise and difficulty. =) Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 16:09, 31 October 2008 (UTC)
  • Kleinzach, if you can provide the mentioned sound files here, it would be great to understand your opinion. Honestly, I'm bemused to read your point-out on the well-known alternative name of the aria, "Morte d'Otello".--Caspian blue 00:20, 1 November 2008 (UTC)
    • Please listen to this [3]. (As for "Morte d'Otello", I think this should be in English according to the usual WP guidelines, while the actual title "Niun mi tema" stays in Italian.) --Kleinzach 01:51, 1 November 2008 (UTC)
      • The Youtube file is not in PD and the quality is not much better than the current nominated file. (I already heard it yesterday)--Caspian blue 02:01, 1 November 2008 (UTC)
        • The difference is like night and day on my headphones. The metallic slicing sound disappears. (The Youtube file is presumably an mp3 of the master transfer.) My point, however, is that we should be using a better 'original' than the substandard one presented here. Also there isn't much reason to make a poor-quality file available here, when there is a much better one already available on the net which we can link to because it's out of copyright anyway. --Kleinzach 03:12, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
          • Well, that is not what I meant for saying "provide files" to you. We're judging on whether presented limited resources here are qualified for featured contents or not. I'd say my best Otello would be not obtainable as a PD file in my life. If you can provide "better original files" by yourself, I'm happy for that.--Caspian blue 17:39, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

Support The sound quality of the restored version is not so bad. Especially, when we take into consideration abslute notability - the premiere performer of the famous opera. --Vejvančický (talk) 23:10, 6 November 2008 (UTC)
Promoted Giuseppe Verdi, Francesco_Tamagno,_Morte_d'Otello_(Niun_mi_tema).ogg --Xclamation point 03:54, 6 January 2009 (UTC)