Classical Convert

More Pros and Cons of Recordings

There were some excellent comments on my last post about one of the benefits of recordings, as compared to live music – namely that you can listen to recordings over and over again.

While I find CD’s extremely valuable for “learning” a piece before hearing an actual performance, JF now finds it better the other way around:

I *want* to hear a piece for the first time in live performance, to make whatever impression on me that it may. Then I decide whether I want to hear the music again and again, and if so buy a record. If indeed it’s been recorded; often enough it hasn’t.

First impressions matter, and I’ve found that music makes a stronger first impression on me if I’ve invested the time and trouble to go out and hear it. There are no interruptions, unless someone’s cell phone goes off; my attention is more focused; I get the full dynamic range of the music, including huge climaxes that recordings can’t deal with.

Whereas Andy argues for recordings, and giving several practical reasons:

1. Cost – the cheapest tickets are usually $20-25. If I take my wife, it costs $40-50, plus another $25 or so for a baby sitter. For that cost, I can buy 5 CDs which I can listen to repeatedly at my leisure.

2. Time – It’s a 30 min. drive each way from my house to the concert hall. Plus, you need to make sure you are early so you can get to your seat on time, and there will be an intermission. Probably 3 hrs for an hour and a half of music.

3. My wife – she doesn’t like symphony concerts. She’ll go to an opera because it has the added visual drama. But we have small children and since we rarely have a chance to get away, a concert is low on the list of things to do together.

JonJ brought up something that I have often wondered about:

I think the interesting thing is that, before recordings, people couldn’t bone up like this before hearing a complicated piece. They had to get it the first time, and in many cases it would be the only time they heard it in their lives, so in a sense we are probably much lazier today in our listening habits. Of course, they had their aids to comprehension too: there were piano reductions of orchestral works that could be played at home (a lot more people could play piano in the old days than now, of course), and they could study printed scores (ditto for the number of people who could read scores in the old days compared to now).

Perhaps that’s one of the reasons that classical concerts aren’t as popular in the current age as they once were. We are sort of spoiled for sound now. A century ago the only way to experience a really massive, powerful auditory experience would be in the concert hall. Now people can amaze themselves (or not, since fantastic sound has become so completely mundane) in their living room by popping in a CD. I think I’ll write more on this in a bit.

Lastly, James Cook provided a great quote:

“I can’t believe that people really prefer to go to the concert hall under intellectually trying, socially trying, physically trying conditions, unable to repeat something they have missed, when they can sit at home under the most comfortable and stimulating circumstances and hear it as they want to hear it. I can’t imagine what would happen to literature today if one were obliged to congregate in an unpleasant hall and read novels projected on a screen.” – Milton Babbitt

And commented that:

Why should music be a “one-shot-deal” any more than any other form of art? Indeed, this attitude may have a lot to do with the “difficulties” of twentieth-century music. People have this idea that if they don’t “get” a piece of music the first time they hear it, then it must not be good music. But that’s just silly.

I definitely feel that is the case with classical, as opposed to most other genres. It’s much harder to get after a single listen, and it seems that most non-classical listeners aren’t used to this, and will give up far too early because they don’t immediately get it.

Incidentally, yesterday was the 25th anniversary of the CD.