Music Making On Modern Recordings
Posted by: u5227470736789439 on 07 February 2008
I sent an email recently, which touched on my perspectives concerning recordings. Here are two paragraphs worthy of some consideration perhaps:
It was my experience of listening to 78s that made me entirely tolerant of rough surfaces on records, and aware of the great musicians recording in the pre-LP era. I consider that perspective priceless even now. It gave me a particular interest in performance styles and how appropriate were the older styles of playing compared to much of what passes muster today - or for me actually all too often does not pass muster. Furtwangler had a wonderful phrase to describe the way performance was already going by the mid-fifties. "Treacherous [technical] perfection, and loveless [spiritual] mediocrity!"
Those old musicians were incredibly unselfconcious, and they did not regard recording a few mistakes as of any significance if the performance carried conviction. Hence my utter inability to cope with edited [perfected to death] recording where the swing, and flow, and power of music making are sacrificed on the alter of a note perfect representaion of the the score. Notice I do not call this a "performance." It is not, but merely the most clean [and concomitantly dull] parts of perhaps half a dozen performances! How can a performance with integrity and conviction be anything other than made as a continuous flowing inevitable whole? If it is too poor technically, then it should be scrapped, and a new effort made on a day when things were going better. There are some surprising performances on 78s and early LP recordings that were never issued because of technical flaws, and which could not be "fixed" by editing. Often these flaws seem rather insignifican if the recording is eventually issued!
It seems to me that the problems of modern recording have far more to do with editing, and musical integrity than what style of recording machines are used.
I wonder if anyone agrees with me, or not, and if you might like to comment on the perspective shown in those two paragraphs.
George
It was my experience of listening to 78s that made me entirely tolerant of rough surfaces on records, and aware of the great musicians recording in the pre-LP era. I consider that perspective priceless even now. It gave me a particular interest in performance styles and how appropriate were the older styles of playing compared to much of what passes muster today - or for me actually all too often does not pass muster. Furtwangler had a wonderful phrase to describe the way performance was already going by the mid-fifties. "Treacherous [technical] perfection, and loveless [spiritual] mediocrity!"
Those old musicians were incredibly unselfconcious, and they did not regard recording a few mistakes as of any significance if the performance carried conviction. Hence my utter inability to cope with edited [perfected to death] recording where the swing, and flow, and power of music making are sacrificed on the alter of a note perfect representaion of the the score. Notice I do not call this a "performance." It is not, but merely the most clean [and concomitantly dull] parts of perhaps half a dozen performances! How can a performance with integrity and conviction be anything other than made as a continuous flowing inevitable whole? If it is too poor technically, then it should be scrapped, and a new effort made on a day when things were going better. There are some surprising performances on 78s and early LP recordings that were never issued because of technical flaws, and which could not be "fixed" by editing. Often these flaws seem rather insignifican if the recording is eventually issued!
It seems to me that the problems of modern recording have far more to do with editing, and musical integrity than what style of recording machines are used.
I wonder if anyone agrees with me, or not, and if you might like to comment on the perspective shown in those two paragraphs.
George