Πόσο διαρκεί η Ενάτη;

nickel

Administrator
Staff member
Εσείς ξέρατε ότι η χωρητικότητα των σιντιών (των σύμπυκνων ψηφιακών δίσκων, τέλος πάντων) καθορίστηκε από τη διάρκεια της Ένατης Συμφωνίας του Μπετόβεν; Ίσως. Undetermined, λέει το αγαπημένο μου snopes.com, το οποίο και αντιγράφω:

Claim: When Philips and Sony developed the compact disc format in the late 1970s, they specifically set its maximum length at 74 minutes to ensure that a single disc could hold all of Beethoven's 9th Symphony.

Status: Undetermined.

Origins: When Philips and Sony began collaborating on the development of the compact disc, Philips produced an 11.5cm, 14-bit prototype that held 60 minutes' worth of music Sony president Norio Ohga, however, felt that this format was too limited and insisted on a 12cm, 16-bit format that offered 74 minutes' worth of music. Various reasons have been offered to explain why the 74-minute length was chosen, all of them involving Beethoven's 9th Symphony: that length was chosen because Beethoven's 9th was Ohga's favorite piece of music, because it was Sony chairman Akio Morita's wife's favorite piece of music, or because conductor Herbert von Karajan (who recorded for the PolyGram label, a subsidiary of Philips Electronics) "demanded" it. (Herbert von Karajan lent tremendous prestige to the CD by participating in the 1981 Vienna press conference held by Sony to announce the company's prototype, and his recording of the 9th with the Berlin Philharmonic is often claimed to be the reference recording that was used to determine what the CD's maximum length should be.)

The multiplicity of reasons given for the 74-minute choice should in itself be cause for skepticism. Ohga has indicated only that he felt Philips' original format was not ideal, and that a 74-minute CD "would be able to encompass an entire opera or all of Beethoven's 9th Symphony."

Since this accommodation could be accomplished by expanding the disc's size from 11.5cm to 12cm and still maintain Ohga's standard of "portability" (i.e., able to fit into a suit pocket), the change was made. There is no evidence to indicate what Ohga or Sony would have done had this expanded size still not been able to hold all of Beethoven's 9th. (Would they have gone with a 12cm, 14-bit disc instead, for example?)

The fact remains that nearly all modern-day recordings of Beethoven's 9th Symphony (including the von Karajan recording with the Berlin Philharmonic often cited as the reference recording) are several minutes shorter than the initial 74-minute maximum length of a CD. Whether Sony simply chose the longer of two discrete lengths (which, fortunately, was long enough to accommodate Beethoven's 9th) or whether they chose a specific length from a range of possibilities is unknown.

Sightings: This item turned up as a question on the 17 January 2001 episode of the game show Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?
http://www.snopes.com/music/media/cdlength.asp

Πόσο λοιπόν διαρκεί η Ενάτη;
The longest known performance lasted 74 minutes. This was a mono recording made during the Bayreuther Festspiele in 1951 and conducted by Wilhelm Furtwängler. This therefore became the playing time of a CD.
Έτσι λέει η Wikipedia.

Ευτυχώς που έχουν αλλάξει κάπως τα δεδομένα γιατί η εκτέλεση που άκουσα με τον Φουρτβένγκλερ να διευθύνει τη Φιλαρμονική της Βιέννης διαρκεί 74:50 (75:38 με ένα μέρος από το χειροκρότημα). Και το να μου έτρωγαν τα τελευταία 50 δευτερόλεπτα θα ισοδυναμούσε με έγκλημα καθοσιώσεως, σαν αυτό που συχνά διαπράττουν τα πετσοκομμένα γιουτιουμπάκια των 10 λεπτών. :D
 
... Φιρτβένγκλερ να διευθύνει τη Φιλαρμονική της Βιέννης...

Εντάξει η απλογράφηση, αλλά δεν υπάρχει λόγος να το παρακάνουμε! :) ["Φουρτ" πληζ!]
 

nickel

Administrator
Staff member
Διορθώθηκε αμέσως. Και δεν ξέρω και γιατί το έβαλα (εγώ μάλιστα τον λέω Φουρτβάνγκλερ, μήτσικα).
 

Zazula

Administrator
Staff member
Υπάρχει όμως και πληροφόρηση κατευθείαν "απ' το στόμα τού αλόγου", που λένε κι οι αγγλόφωνοι:

http://www.exp-math.uni-essen.de/~immink/pdf/cdstory.pdf

As it was, we made CD 0.5 cm larger yielding 12 cm. (There were all sorts of stories about it having something to do with the length of Beethoven's 9th Symphony and so on, but you should not believe them.)
 
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