Klarinet Archive - Posting 000196.txt from 1999/10

From: LeliaLoban@-----.com
Subj: [kl] Vienna Philharmonic at Carnegie Hall
Date: Thu, 7 Oct 1999 20:58:09 -0400

Ed Lacy wrote,
>The whole experience confirmed for me that I am justified in my fears that
music is about to be irreparably harmed by so-called "sound technicians."
[snip] We must not let them usurp our responsibilities and privileges as
musicians. It is the musical perception of musicians that must be the
arbiter of musical quality, not the uninformed decisions of non-musicians who
imagine themselves to be experts in all things musical.>

Hear, hear. Strange listening experiences abound, and not just on TV. Case
in point: Telarc's recording (CD-80274) of the Saint-Saens Symphony No. 3 in
C Minor, Op. 78, with Michael Murray at the organ and Christian Badea
conducting the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. I listened to this recording,
or I should say *these recordings*, for the first time without reading the
liner notes first. It seemed like an odd-sounding CD from the get-go.
Usually I visualize the musicians as I listen, but this time, I couldn't
picture them. They seemed sort of disembodied. Microphones here,
microphones there, microphones everywhere. Mix 'n' match. Then all of a
sudden an entire rank of organ pipes leaped across the room from the left
speaker into the right speaker. Whoa!

I got out the liner notes. Behold a miracle of modern engineering: Telarc
recorded the orchestra in Walthamstow Town Hall in London on July 4-5, 1990
and Murray at the organ in the Philharmonic Center for the Arts in Naples,
Florida, on May 13, 1991. Saint-Saens karaoke! When somebody suggested this
misbegotten idea, why didn't Badea or Murray or somebody just say no? Are
they really so much at the mercy of their recording contracts?

Of course, recording the soloist and the orchestra in different countries,
nearly a year apart, saves money, but hey, no need to stop there. With
digital sound, the engineers can speed up or slow down the tempo from one
measure to the next without changing the pitch, or sharpen or flatten the
pitch without changing the tempo. Wrong notes? Synthesize the right notes
and swap 'em. Video? No sweat: slow down or speed up the pictures, too.
Michael Murray, a brilliant organist IMHO, doesn't need this kind of "help"
from an engineer; but I sometimes suspect that certain other musicians never
do "live" what they seem to do on CDs. Milli Amadeus Vanilli, anyone? Give
me a fine old Mercury Living Presence stereo recording any day instead of
this over- engineered mish-mash that junks the relationship of soloist to
conductor and orchestra, let alone musicians to audience.

Lelia

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