Klarinet Archive - Posting 000482.txt from 2005/06

From: David Niethamer <niethamer@-----.com>
Subj: Re: [kl] good in concert, bad in recording?
Date: Fri, 24 Jun 2005 22:52:22 -0400


On Jun 24, 2005, at 5:52 PM, Rien Stein wrote:

> The discussion around Morales raised a question for me:
>
> In football (for the American list members: soccer) a very strange
> phenomenon occurs: it often happens that a player belongs to the
> worlds absolute top, yet fails when he has to play in the national
> team (in the Netherlands we have many examples of this).
>
> Does this phenomenon also exist with musicians? i.e. they play so
> beautifully the angels come down from heaven to hear him or her, but
> when they make a recording they are at most mediocre? and if this
> phenomenon exists, is it because they miss the audience in the studio
> (live recordings might be a solution), or any other reason one can
> think of (microphones, the need to rerecord passages where an error
> occurred, the need to be perfect, ...)?
>
I can think of a big name clarinet soloist who works this way for me.
I'd much rather hear him live than on a recording. I had an interesting
experience in this vein, with this clarinetist. I went to hear him play
K. 622, and enjoyed the performance very much. Later, I heard a radio
broadcast of the very concert I had attended, and found it flat.
Certain technical details in the playing, without the visual
distractions of the live concert, were very disconcerting with only the
aural aspect of the performance.

Charles Neidich I'd rather hear on recordings. I can think of a few of
his recordings that I really like, but whenever I hear him live, it
seems a bit over the top to me, like he feels he has to "make something
happen with the music". Very distracting.

Morales plays beautifully live. His recording of the French repertoire
for Boston records is also really fine. His Archduke Rudolph Sonata
recording is fine playing, but the piece is a real snooze.IMO, the
Archduke shouldn't quit his day job!

Cheers!

David

David B. Niethamer
dnietham@-----.edu
http://members.aol.com/dbnclar1/index.html

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