Satoshi Akima responds 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.
>
>Indeed if it were not for recordings I doubt we would even be discussing
>Klemperer at all.

Satoshi has a good point.  For the majority of listeners, recordings
are how they arrive at their opinions of the relative worth of performing
artists.  Is this viable? Of course.  For some reason, there are folks
like Mr. Lebrecht who want to emphasize the superiority of listening to
performers in person as opposed to on recordings.  I have no idea why they
do this or what their point is.  There are listeners who prefer the concert
hall and those who prefer recordings; many like both.  Why dump on one
venue at the expense of the other? This reminds me of the never ceasing
atonal-tonal arguments.  There's no reason for those either.

I'll continue arriving at opinions of performing artists based on their
recordings.  It's 100% valid for my purposes and listening experiences.  As
for the notion that some performers do much better in concert than in the
recording studio, I do not dispute that assumption.  However, I would say
that performers in that category need to work on improving their art in the
studio.  I assume they can overcome whatever "block" is retarding them in
that venue.  If not, they should stay away from the studio.

Don Satz
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