Steve Schwartz replies to Norman Lebrecht:

>>To judge a conductor's work on the basis of studio recordings is about as
>>useful a measure of artistic merit as comparing one picture postcard with
>>another.
>
>Again, that's true only of some conductors.  There are conductors
>who do better in the studio - who, indeed, become more "themselves"
>in the studio.  It's two different venues and two different processes.
>I wouldn't presume to rank these processes in terms of artistic merit,
>and therefore I find subsequent ranking of conductors based on a
>preference for one venue or another as tenuous as a house of cards
>built on top of a vaudevillian's spinning plates.

That's very true.  Remember also that the same conductor can sound
completely different depending on which orchestra is playing.  Some
conductors merely sound different in the studio compared to the concert
hall.  Not necessarily better or worse, just different.  I can also imagine
the same conductor sounding different depending on the acoustics of the
venue, even if the orchestra were kept the same.  The question can even
be asked if the same conductor can ever be compared with themselves - let
alone with each other - given that from one performance to the next so much
changes.  I mean this irrespective of whether we are dealing with recorded
or live music.  It is also of course not just true of conductors.

Satoshi Akima
Sydney, Australia
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