 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: David Peacham
Date: 2005-06-01 11:09
Very interesting indeed. I shall reread it at greater leisure.
I like the suggestion that continuous string vibrato - which we were discussing a few weeks back - was a change brought in by recording.
What is incontrovertible is that the existence of recording has driven musicians to put accuracy above all else. Recordings can be edited to produce a perfectly accurate performance, so audiences accustomed to listening to recorded music expect perfect accuracy in live performances too.
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If there are so many people on this board unwilling or unable to have a civil and balanced discussion about important issues, then I shan't bother to post here any more.
To the great relief of many of you, no doubt.
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Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2005-06-01 15:02
There are two fascinating books by Robert Philip, expanding on his Ph.D. dissertation on the evolution of performance style as captured on recording from the earliest days until today. He discusses hundreds of recordings and comments on what the recordings reveal and how recording has affected performance.
The first book is Early Recordings and Musical Style: Changing Tastes in Instrumental Performanc, 1900-1950, Cambridge U. Press, 1992). http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0521607442/qid=1117637112/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl14/002-6319698-7556058?v=glance&s=books&n=507846
The second is Performing Music in the Age of Recording, Yale U.P., 2004. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0300102461/qid=1117637201/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl14/002-6319698-7556058?v=glance&s=books&n=507846
I'm 1/3 of the way through the second book now, and it's absolutely fascinating. Philip really knows his stuff and has listened carefully to everything. I bought this instead of the first volume because some reviews said it superseded the first, but it's clear from Philip's comments that there is little overlap, so I'm certainly going to get the first volume.
I listen more than most people to recordings made before the mid-1950s. First, these are the recordings my parents had, and which I learned from. Second, these recordings predate rock music, which, it seems to me, made a big change in even classical performance style. And third, modern recording has homogenized performance style. I'm willing to listen through performances that are not note-perfect to get the greater variety of earlier performers.
I can't say I would choose to play like, say, Jiri Stingl (an eastern European player whose tone was, to say the least, an acquired taste), but the early recordings of the Czech Philharmonic playing Czech music reveal a clarinet tone that is very different from the modern world-tone, and, I think, more appropriate to the music.
Ken Shaw
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