Musicians' heavy breathing and sniffing...

[Lento]

"Yuja Wang -----heavy breathing": am tempted to have a Petrenko moment, but will resist.

Have always found Peter Cropper's breathing a real pain, though forgive him everything for his artistry and humanity. I wonder if "son of Cropper" has inherited the same, having not heard him yet!

[Ariosto]

DON'T LOOK AT ME, LOOK AT MY BEAT!

Arthur Nikisch was famous for using his eyes when conducting to cue entrances and to indicate tempi changes. All the more strange then to read of this incident.
(Nottingham Evening Post 19.06.1906)

MUSICAL CONDUCTOR’S NERVES
Herr Nikisch caused a sensation he other night at Leipzig whilst directing a performance of Bruckner’s “Ninth Symphony.” Suddenly rising from his seat [!], he angrily faced the fashionable audience, and sharply upbraided the ladies for staring at him through their opera-glasses. “Your conduct,” he exclaimed, “makes me so nervous that I cannot continue conducting.” Some of the newspapers declare that Herr Nikisch is trying to imitate Hans von Bulow, Wagner’s famous conductor, who was noted for his eccentricities.

[von Bulow tried to make his Meningen Court Orchestra play whole programmes from memory because he couldn’t stand the rustle of page-turning. When that failed, he banned paper programmes, ordering card replacements. They were worse- “Swish, Swish,” they went as the ladies fanned themselves. Von Bulow wasn’t beaten: individual programmes being replaced by large-print versions on cards stuck on the walls of the Hall.]

Most musicians are crazy and particularly conductors (if you class them as musos).

I don't mind noises at all. When you have to worry though, is when you can hear farts ...

[pastoralguy]

When you have to worry though, is when you can hear farts ...

Many years ago, as a young teenager, I went to hear the SNO in the Usher Hall. In those days, I used to sit in the organ gallery behind the French horns. Well, one Friday night they started with a 'modern' piece that was quite odd. At the end, there was a long silence punctured by the 3 Horn players farting in perfect unison!

[pastoralguy]

I suppose my question is that, with modern recording techniques, should these extraneous noises be edited out? Normally, it doesn't bother me but this is REALLY intrusive!

Many thanks for the responses, everyone. However, may I ask my original question again? For example, if Glen Gould's Bach discs were re-issued with a sticker saying that all Mr. Gould's vocalisations had been re- mastered out!

[MrGongGong]

I suppose my question is that, with modern recording techniques, should these extraneous noises be edited out? Normally, it doesn't bother me but this is REALLY intrusive!

Can or should ?
And the answers are probably

Maybe and No

When I hear a recording of classical guitar music the squeaks of the fingers on the strings are part of it.
Yes, one CAN get rid of all these things if one has the skill and enough time (after all it's only a string of numbers so all you need to do is to find the operation that changes them from the one you don't want to the one you do ....... good luck with that !) but ? ?

It's not as if other versions aren't available ?

[amateur51]

I only saw Claudio Arrau once - RFH in the 1970s, I think - and have a strong recollection even many years later of some vitruoso pianism but also quite noisy heavy breathing and sniffing.

We might have been at the same concert gurney. I was sitting way up in the balcony & marvelled at the projected quality of his sniffs..

His playing wasn't bad either

Rudolf Serkin and Clifford Curzon were great stampers and I recall once seeing that a rubber mat had been placed on the floor where Sir Clifford might reasonably be expected to stamp

[johnb]

They say you can hear Sir Colin Davis and Sir john Barbirolli singing along to the music but confess I've never noticed it.

Barbirolli did not sing as much as grunt. His 1967 recording of Schonberg's Pelleas represents possibly the most obvious example of this art, though Sibelius' Swan of Tuonela has to be a close second.
A recent magazine review chided him for this as an affectation, though I doubt this assertion. I am sure it occured as subconsciously as Bruno Walter's foot stamping in the landler of Mahler 9.

I rarely notice Barbiriolli's grunts on recordings but they were extremely obvious in the performances I attended at the Free Trade Hall in the late 60s. ("Extremely obvious" is something of an understatement!) Eventually I found it rather endearing.

Some years ago there was an interview with a music producer about his experiences when recording JB. He explained how he once mentioned JB's "singing" to him - JB replied "I don't sing"....

[MrGongGong]

I guess you wont like this then

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KPgEoDt_Duc

[Serial_Apologist]

I record (once a year, thankfully) for a producer who edits out the sound of the singers' breaths because he doesn't like the sound. I won't type the word that describes what I think of him.

Suffocating!

[Ferretfancy]

Or indeed fried bread without marmalade. That very fine pianist Jonathan Powell in not averse to singing along either. One comes to accept it as being as much of the performance as the incidental sound of the keys, dampers, pedals and creaks of the piano stool.

That reminds me Bryn, fried bread and marmalade for me this weekend! It's an unappreciated culinary delight.

[LeMartinPecheur]

At the end, there was a long silence punctured by the 3 Horn players farting in perfect unison!

I presume you just mean 'together in time'? If they actually managed to pitch the same note I'm really impressed

[pastoralguy]

I presume you just mean 'together in time'? If they actually managed to pitch the same note I'm really impressed

Well, the preceding piece was so atonal that my sense of harmony was distorted somewhat. But, yes, it was perfectly together!

[teamsaint]

That reminds me Bryn, fried bread and marmalade for me this weekend! It's an unappreciated culinary delight.

weetabix with butter and marmalade is excellent too.

[Barbirollians]

Just listening to the lovely Beethoven 1 Toscanini made with the BBC SO - some singalong going on here from Arturo or someone !