Christine Labroche wrote:

>I had just massacred Liszt's "Consolation" (one seeks consolation where one
>can ;-) on my piano and I was beginning to think that the world of music
>was excluding me ... Then, hey, presto! ...

If I had the high expectations for myself that I have for pianists
whose concerts cost me lots of money, I would live a very unhappy life.
I massacre often but I also manage to hear what was intended rather than
what I'm producing:-)

>I am an intense listener, not at all of the thumbs-up-thumbs-down,
>analytical type, rather of the shot-through variety.  Although I am
>capable of attempts at analysis, my 'absolute' listening is pure joy
>even when sorrowful.

For some of us, especially when sorrowful.  I happen to have a leaning
toward laments, plaintes and slow movements in general.

>Another touch of blue - I don't make music with other people - but would
>it be a similar "3-dimensional sense" which makes me sometimes prefer a
>performance to a recording even when the second is superior to the first?

To me it is, if you're not too far back.  There's an element of surprise
you won't get from recordings after the first couple of listens too..
Also, you don't have to run up to turn the sound up or go do something to
get it turn it back down afterward.  The dynamics are wider in real life
but the quieter sections are fuller, the louder ones creating a sound
that's more spacious usually.

>I certainly place myself in the three dimensions, the spatial, when I
>listen to a recording - not through superior technical devices, but
>automatically, through my sensorial imagination, I think ...

I have very good speakers and amps/preamps but I tend to prefer live
concerts.  I even tend to prefer live concerts for my recorded versions,
even if there's more audience noise and the sound quality is not as good
overall.

>Composers also undoubtedly.  Does this mean I need no longer sorrow so
>because Martinu never heard a performance of his second Cello Concerto,
>or because many of Langgaard and Merikanto's compositions were sadly
>set aside during their life-times? Does perfect pitch include perfect
>(orchestral) textures and colours?

A pale version.  I'm sure there's nothing that quite matches the delight of
hearing the baby born/delivered, wailing and all.  All the harmonies are
heard though, of course.

>Could Beethoven have been musically happier if, outside himself, he had
>perfectly heard his ninth symphony - or Faure (I think so) his second piano
>quintet, for example?

I imagine composers are sometimes displeased with the actual sound and go
about revising for that reason?

Andrys in Berkeley
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