Lost in a sea of recording -- Movement and Moment

When young I had no choice but to listen to classical, orchestral music via the recordings – in my case, on 8-track tapes from the auto department of a K-mart 120 miles from home.

Wilhelm Furtwangler (d. 1954) was one conductor in the olden days, and Sergiu Celibidache more recently (d. 1996) that heard and felt the flattening effect of recorded orchestral music, and strenuously objected to it. At a first hearing, Furtwangler insisted that the audio technicians had made the recorded piece unrecognizable.

Recorded music helps point the intellect in the direction of how the piece goes, but, it sacrifices the moment that the music produces in terms of space and movement and placement. These very real aspects of music are compacted and delivered in a recycled, mangled cube of sound in much the same way that automobiles are crushed and returned to the smelters – the subtleties of their design and their very purpose for existing is lost to that father of mediocrity – convenience.

For example, how can it be that the back row filled with trombones, trumpets and horns can pronounce a fanfare, and be answered by the strings with no loss of volume or power? This is a trick of the mixing booth or of the synthesizer. In the auditorium, the strings have their own strength and tension, but it is not to the equal volume, and not the same kind of strength that the brass can put forth. We are accustomed to this now, so in real life, after our impression has been mashed together by recording norms, the strings tend to fail us.

We can't really believe that a solo clarinet on stage, situated in the midst of other winds and surrounded by a sea of strings would sound as though the bell of the horn is 18 inches from our face. Celibidache compared this compacting effect to a photograph, and asked, who would prefer to look at a photo album of the Alps for three days rather then spend three days in the mountains?

I tend to congratulate the audiences of the Cloud Peak Symphony for coming to an actual performance that is not as convenient as flipping on a player at home. “Thank you for joining us in this conspiracy to commit music,” I have said in opening remarks.

In the concert hall, the word “movement” is not only a technical term for a division or section of music, but also a word that describes the experience of living the sound.