Klarinet Archive - Posting 000446.txt from 2005/05

From: "Patricia A. Smith" <arlyss1@-----.net>
Subj: Re: [kl] The New Yorker on recording
Date: Tue, 31 May 2005 09:54:13 -0400

David Niethamer wrote:

> http://www.newyorker.com/critics/atlarge/
>
> The link above leads to the complete article, but below are some
> paragraphs that relate to past discussions here. The entire article,
> IMO, is wporth the time it takes to read it. No registration necessary
> to read the article on line.
>
>> Robert Philip, in "Performing Music in the Age of Recording," points out
>> that the vaunted transparency of classical recording is often a
>> micromanaged illusion, and then goes further; he suggests that
>> technology fundamentally altered the tradition that it was intended to
>> preserve.
>
This passage, along with the rest of the article, does NOT suggest that
technology is inherently good, or evil. Alternatively, it DOES suggest
that human beings do need to realize that we ourselves need to
re-evaluate our own habits and realize that we are the ones making
choices: We are the ones choosing to be passive receivers of music,
rather than creators, rather than makers. Live music depends upon a
certain interchange between performer and listener, an interchange that
is not present when a person listens to a recording. When we create
music for our own enjoyment, or to relieve stress, we are still
creating, from within ourselves, to satisfy a measure of our own
personal humanity, rather than having it given to us by others.

I cannot help but reference this to a comment made by Tony Pay in
another thread, when I was asking about some musicians I'd heard in
Stockholm at a concert by the Radio Symphony Orchestra of Sweden. Tony
posted this:

>I used to have a tape of a radio broadcast of the Nielsen concerto by Kjell-Inge that was the best performance of the piece I'd ever heard. Forget Drucker and all of that.
>
What is most interesting is that the recording of Kjell-Inge Tony
mentioned in his post was a recording of a live broadcast. I will leave
any further comments concerning this particular recording to Tony, as I
have not heard it. I am simply mentioning it, because it is a recording
of a live performance of the Nielsen, as opposed to a studio-produced
recording.
I for one, prefer to listen to recordings, even, of live performances.
Even in such second-hand perceptions of live performance, there is
something added, something "more" than there is, in studio recordings.

Just an observation, and YMMV.

Patricia Smith

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