Mimi Ezust ([log in to unmask]) wrote:

>...  my husband and I would be listening to a favorite composition (like,
>perhaps, Klemperer conducting the Mozart Symphonia Concertante) and we'd
>have to pull over to the side of the road till it was over, for fear of
>missing parts of it.  Did it have concert hall fidelity? Of course not.
>But it was the best game in town.

I know just what you mean.  I still on occasion sit in the garage after
arriving home in order to hear the end of a piece, particularly if I want
to know who the performers are.

It must have been nearly 15 year ago that I was going into town to the
shops when the BBC's new release programme played the closing few minutes
of Rattle's Mahler 2.  I sat in the parking lot until it was over, despite
the fact that I was listening over a single-speaker AM car radio, there was
a lump in my throat.

>Sometimes when we listen to music through interference, we hear even more
>of it than if we were listening under perfect conditions, because we strain
>to hear it and concentrate on it more.  It's that way with conversation in
>a crowded room, too.  It isn't better, but it is a different listening
>experience.

And sometimes, I venture to suggest, the composer actually makes us work
hard to "fill in the picture" - Bach's cello suites spring immediatley to
mind.

Deryk Barker
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