Ray Osnato wrote:

>I think the idea that technical the perfection of studio recordings has
>hurt the concert industry is a myth started by second-rate musicians
>whose technique or performing ensembles were lacking in their own
>technique.  A simple case of making recordings look bad so their own,
>rather lacklustre performances, look better.

Well, I tend to think otherwise.  True, no recording can duplicate the
concert hall, but then the concert hall is not always the ideal place
to listen...those candy wrappers drive me crazy.

>There was a time in my life where I may have agreed with Mr. Sutton,
>but with age comes new insights and now i would have to say that recordings
>have not really hurt the concert scene.  I think Mr. Sutton is correct
>in saying that a recording is always (I would change the adjective to
>'usually') note-perfect but to say that a listener would perfer the
>recording to the live experience does not exactly hold true from where
>I sit.

I guess it depends on exactly what you mean by "hurt." If we did not
have recordings at all, would more people attend concerts?  Have recordings
changed the way many of us listen to music?  I would prefer a live
performance provided the musicians are not concerned about making it
sound like the record.  Indeed, I do prefer the excitement of a live
performance...and...performance recordings.

>Anyone who has heard a live performance of a work they have on records
>can tell the difference.

Well, yes and no. It depends on the hall, the individuality in the
performance, how carefully one listens, etc.

>Orchestras and instrumentalists today have a technical virtuosity
>unparalleled in the history of music and, barring some normal mishaps
>-- horn cracks, oboe squeaks -- a concert performance can be as well
>executed as a recording.  What a recording lacks, however, is the sense
>of spontaneity of a live performance.

I believe that most musicians are more versed in a variety of gestures
they will encounter in music, but I can listen to recordings of some of
the musicians of the past and find great virtuosity.

>I have collected live performances for quite some time and would take
>a live performance tape over a commercially produced studio performance
>nearly any day of the week.  Take Bernstein, for example: In the studio
>he could sometimes sounds self-conscious, like he was trying too hard
>to make his point.

I would agree, but for me, it was only in his late years that he became
so subjective...and while I did not always agree with his approach, I
appreciated that.

>Attendance is not down at concerts, at least not in the Metro New York
>area of the East Coast, where I reside.  Halls are pretty much full and
>people are very forgiving of any concert flubs.

Having grown up in the New York area...and living now in the South...New
York is not typical...

>They feel the tension, the sense the risk-taking that one gets only in
>live performances and they feel priviledged to have been at a special
>event, rather than being reduced to just another person listening to a
>record in their bath robe and bunny-slippers.

So, to your ears, who are the real risk takers and how do they compare
with artists of the past like a Stokowski, Koussevitzky, Kapell (ah that
wonderful slow movement of the Brahms he did with Mitropoulos) de Pachman,
Morini, et al.

>Sergiu Celibidache summed it up rather well when he said, "Listening to
>a recording of a work is like going to bed with a picture of Bridgette
>Bardot."

And, for me, in an interesting way...Playboy does sell and it sells many
a fantasy that they try to make into a reality.

>So, if by 'perfection' Mr. Sutton means 'note-perfect execution' I
>agree with him whole heartedly.  But I also put forward, in my own humble
>professional opinion, that a live concert gives a far 'more perfect'
>rendering of a wok, flubs and all, than any recording can.  I also think
>that audiences, by and large, know this and that concert attendance is
>not hurt by the recording industry.

I will do some reading, but I would guess, that when New York had perhaps
a population of a million they had how many orchestras...and with how
many million now, how many orchestras do they have...

Karl