Re: [ARSCLIST] Dynamic-frequency Range

[Mike Richter <mrichter@xxxxxxx>]

Steven C. Barr(x) wrote:

> As far as the early recordings...well, fans of classical music
> can often find current recordings of many, if not most, of the
> pieces in the repertoire. The only reason they have to listen to
> vintage recordings is to hear performers who have long since died
> (Caruso, Rachmaninoff, usw.) and aren't accessible in any other
> way!

There is another factor, often of more importance than the particular 
performers: performance practice. To hear composers conducting and 
performing their own works provides insight into their intent, but they 
might be considered "performers". However, listening to early music 
before HIP (Historically Informed Performance) is a very different 
experience from listening to any modern performance.

There is a homogenization of classical music performance today which had 
no counterpart fifty or a hundred years ago. Landowska's harpsichord for 
Bach had little resemblance to the keyboard instruments Bach used, but 
it did introduce the world to something closer to his music than playing 
his works on a Steinway. By the same token, Glenn Gould's piano 
performances of Bach's music are revelatory in their way, but that is 
not accepted as the composer's way.

There was also the phenomenon of Toscanini in opera. He defined the 
"right" way to perform many operas, but that has become in many cases 
the only way. To hear alternative approaches, one turns to recordings 
before his standard became the uniquely accetable interpretation. In one 
case in my experience, having access to a 1915 recording of "La 
traviata" led to a production quite different in one area from any 
recorded in the past eighty years.

Mike
--
mrichter@xxxxxxx
http://www.mrichter.com/