Bernard Chasan <[log in to unmask]> replied to:

>Ian Crisp:
>
>>Since then my attitude to recorded music has changed, and I now place a
>>much higher priority on live music than on recordings, which I think are
>>rather like stuffed animals in natural history museums - useful for study
>>and as a reminder of the real living things, but very very different from
>>them in most of the ways that matter.
>
>A provocative point of view which I cannot share, because you don't get a
>chance to hear more than a very small fraction of the range of available
>music live.

Not only that, but all these: What if I want to listen to music at 8:42PM
instead of 8:00PM.  What if I want to do something else on Monday night.
What if I feel like listening to Bruckner instead of Shostakovich.  What
if I want to skip the first movement of that symphony and go straight to
the adagio, then repeat it, then play the scherzo and skip the finale
altogether.  What if I want to listen to chamber music right after my
symphonic clips, followed by a couple of lieder.  What if I want to compare
that sonata played by Brendel to what I remember it sounded like played by
Gould, so might as well skip the recapitulation and the rest of the
movements by Brendel and go directly to Gould instead.  What if...

Concerts as the main avenue to listen to music is too much of a
straight-jacket for me to fit into.  And, by the way, a "stuffed animal in
a natural history museum" is how I often feel like sitting in the concert
hall, squeezed between other stuffed specimens.

Ulvi
[log in to unmask]