Klarinet Archive - Posting 000552.txt from 1998/11

From: "Ed Maurey" <edsshop@-----.ca>
Subj: Re: [kl] Oh frabjous day!!
Date: Mon, 16 Nov 1998 07:39:36 -0500

Over the last couple of decades there has been an enormous change in the
sound of "original equipment" recordings. Twenty years ago they sounded
dreadful. The strings were wrestling with those big floppy, flacid bows
and creating an aural mess. God, how they missed vibrato, too! The
brasses were a complete crap shoot. The woodwinds' intonation and tone
were like a young pitcher--- all over the place.

Today orchestral recordings of original instruments are so slick that it's
often a real challenge to distinguish them from "modern" ones. Which begs
the question: why bother with the enormous effort to master original
instruments when the result, at least in the setting of orchestal recorded
music, is so nearly modern?

Ed Maurey
> From: Dan Leeson: LEESON@-----.edu>
> To: klarinet@-----.org
> Subject: Re: [kl] Oh frabjous day!!
> Date: Sunday, November 15, 1998 11:06 PM
>
> > From: MX%"klarinet@-----.36
> > Subj: Re: [kl] Oh frabjous day!!
>
> > Sorry, Dan, I sent this post in response to an earlier post of yours
and then
> > you talked about the straight string pianos vs. modern pianos.
> >
> > I never thought of that.
> >
> > thanks for the info -- even though my husband is a music major, music
history
> > is not his strong point, and I am a liberal arts major. Much of that
is
> > stuff I am not readily exposed to .
> >
> > Roger -- about the Schubert, etc... is it better on period instuments
for the
> > same reasons?
>
> Although you asked Roger this question, may I comment on the nature of
your
> inquriy? I don't think that Roger said (and I know I did not say) that
one
> way was better while the other was, by definition, worse.
>
> I tried very hard to use the term "different" rather than qualify it with
> matters of taste. And that the two are different is measurable and thus,
> accurate.
>
> One problem with the original instrument movement is that they keep
saying
> that what they do is better. Well that may be for you or me or them, but
> it is not necessarily true for the whole world, and what is worse, it
> offends many people when this suggestion is offered as if it is true.
>
> It is at the same level of irritation as when I read on this list
> that a Buffet is better (or worse) than a Selmer or LeBlanc or anything
> else. For what such a statement is is only an expression of an opinion
> not a matter of technical fact. It may be true for the person who says
> it but it is not a technical truth that applies to everyone.
>
>
> >
> >
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> >
> =======================================
> Dan Leeson, Los Altos, California
> leeson@-----.edu
> =======================================
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------

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