Author: Philip Caron
Date: 2019-02-04 21:36
Hi Karl. "Do we know anything about the technical execution or error-proneness of top-tier players of any musical age before recordings? "
About pianists we certainly have many written accounts. Beethoven was one of the most highly regarded pianists of his day, but his biographers and other contemporary reviewers indicate his execution was often sloppy, yet it hardly seemed to matter given the intensity of feeling produced. While similar reports of other pianists were not universal - it wasn't always discussed - they were pretty common. I'm going by memory here, but could at need produce citations.
Still by memory, there are similar accounts of violinists, singers and orchestras. However, there are also, as Paul indicates, accounts of note-perfect performances as well. Indeed, from the early days of recording we have documents of musicians whose technical abilities stand comparisons with any since. As far as I can tell, they were well in the minority until around the 1920's, and even after that ongoing technical shortcomings of highly regarded musicians were often discussed - and, on balance, accepted.
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The Clarinet BBoard
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