Ian Crisp <[log in to unmask]> wrote: >Perhaps we can agree to the proposition that recordings and live >performance are two very different modes of presenting and experiencing >music, and each has its own positive and negative features. Yes, this is certainly true, no disagreements. >Each of us is somewhere on a scale from one to the other, and I seem to >have settled to a position pretty near to one end...In the later years, >I've come to find the best live performances so much more meaningful to me >than even the best recordings that I've stripped my record / CD collection >down to little more than a tenth of its former glory ... I can understand the way you feel about live performance, what I disagree with is how you feel about recordings. I think you're not giving them enough credit. My problems with concerts are a combination of circumstances pretty much of my own doing: my size (I am 6'4") makes it uncomfortable for me to fit in seats designed for pre-WWII generation audiences, freedom to move and hum (in Glenn Gouldian tuning) are important to me while listening to much of the music I love, add to that my phobia of disturbing others, and I find the typical concert atmosphere pretty stuffy and stifling. The way most people dress up and act as if they are in a place of worship doesn't help while I'm normally in shorts and sneakers. My best concert-going experiences have always been those in informal settings: rehearsals, summer festivals (Ravinia was outstanding while I lived in Chicago), informal chamber-music concerts in Europe and elsewhere (mostly with not-so-famous groups, so only people who truly cared about the music would be there), etc. >Don Satz gave an eloquent description of some of the drawbacks of the >concert hall, and I have to agree with him. I'm far from being the >sociable type and I dislike crowds as much as anyone. It's just that the >"highs" I get from good live performances are, to me, worth the things I >have to go through to get them. Yes, it's all a matter of tradeoffs. Sounds like concerts cost me a bit more than they do the average listener, maybe. Ulvi [log in to unmask]