Recording Imprinting

[kea]

I've been very lucky over the years with the first recordings of works I've purchased or had as presents in that many of them have been, often without my knowledge, very highly recommended versions.

Indeed. Some gifts from my parents—not particularly musically inclined—around the age of ~10-11 include Tákacs Quartet playing Bartók, Herbert Blomstedt and the San Francisco Symphony playing Nielsen (on EMI), András Schiff's first Well-Tempered Clavier, Schnabel playing the last 3 Schubert sonatas etc...

One recording I 'imprinted' on quite early which seems to be rarely talked about is Eugen Jochum's EMI recording of the Brahms symphonies, with the London Philharmonic. Age 10-ish again: those performances caused me to fall for Jochum (and Brahms) immediately and, more than a decade later, I still regard them as among the best.

[richardfinegold]

Indeed. Some gifts from my parents—not particularly musically inclined—around the age of ~10-11 include Tákacs Quartet playing Bartók, Herbert Blomstedt and the San Francisco Symphony playing Nielsen (on EMI), András Schiff's first Well-Tempered Clavier, Schnabel playing the last 3 Schubert sonatas etc...

One recording I 'imprinted' on quite early which seems to be rarely talked about is Eugen Jochum's EMI recording of the Brahms symphonies, with the London Philharmonic. Age 10-ish again: those performances caused me to fall for Jochum (and Brahms) immediately and, more than a decade later, I still regard them as among the best.

I had added those Jochum Brahms performances as mp3s several months ago and they are quite good. My first exposure to most of the Brahms Symphonies were in more forgettable performances,with so at least I didn't have a chance to be imprinted there. the first fully satisfactory brahms cycle I discovered was Sanderling/Dresden, and later I discovered klemperer/Philharmonia.

[Bryn]

... Herbert Blomstedt and the San Francisco Symphony playing Nielsen (on EMI), ...

Decca, surely. The EMI recordings were of the Danish RSO.

[kea]

Decca, surely. The EMI recordings were of the Danish RSO.

I was sure it was EMI, but you're right, Decca. Going a bit senile in my old age I think.

[kernelbogey]

Not to diverge too much, because this is a fascinating thread, but imprinting applies to other favourites as well. I find that very old films that I first saw when a child at the cinema with my parents, return with the same effect when they turn up on TV. Generally, the ones I remember being excited by at the time are still good when seen today.
Just glancing at a nearby shelf I find LPs which have been burned in, Annie Fisher's Beethoven 3 on Heliodor, Lionel Rogg's Bach, the above mentioned Tibor Varga, Leslie Jones and The Little Orchestra of London in Haydn ( He only recorded a few ) etc. etc.

Indeed a fascinating thread!

Rather than focusing on who it was we heard, I wonder if the key here is something to do with learning? The first time we learn how to do something is a powerful 'imprinting': i.e. 'this is the right way to do this'.

Doesn't that apply to Richard's question? We hear a piece of music for the first time in a powerful performance, so this is the 'right way' to play it, the 'right way' to listen to it.

[Tony Halstead]

I was sure it was EMI, but you're right, Decca. Going a bit senile in my old age I think.

There was indeed an EMI set by Blomstedt with the Danish RSO, including perhaps the finest recording of the Flute Concerto ever committed to disc.

[Barbirollians]

Does when we learn the works also affect it and surely our incomes ? The recordings that are most imprinted for me are the earliest I bought and when I could not afford to buy duplicate records and when there was a mass of repertoire I did not know .

Hence , Barenboim/Klemperer's Piano Concerto No 5 is very much imprinted . It took about 15 years and the discovery of the Fischer/Furtwangler to open my ears to any other .

PS I think the Mutter Dvorak is one of her very best recordings for years - not the slightest trace of mannered playing and indeed a close attention to the rhythms in particular that make it the closest in atmosphere to the Suk/Ancerl of any I have heard .

[richardfinegold]

Does when we learn the works also affect it and surely our incomes ? The recordings that are most imprinted for me are the earliest I bought and when I could not afford to buy duplicate records and when there was a mass of repertoire I did not know .

Hence , Barenboim/Klemperer's Piano Concerto No 5 is very much imprinted . It took about 15 years and the discovery of the Fischer/Furtwangler to open my ears to any other .

PS I think the Mutter Dvorak is one of her very best recordings for years - not the slightest trace of mannered playing and indeed a close attention to the rhythms in particular that make it the closest in atmosphere to the Suk/Ancerl of any I have heard .

I discovered Classical Music in my mid teens, and I have heard some Psychologists say that the enthusiasms that are developed during adolescence are the ones that stay witih us with the greatest intensity. However, I have seen many people become enthusiasts at a much later stage (my wife in her 40s, for example) so I don't know.
I do think that there is something to Col. Bogey's point that if we first hear a piece in a superlative performance, then our perception of how that piece should sound will forever be shaped by that performance.

[mikealdren]

PS I think the Mutter Dvorak is one of her very best recordings for years - not the slightest trace of mannered playing and indeed a close attention to the rhythms in particular that make it the closest in atmosphere to the Suk/Ancerl of any I have heard .

My comment and my apologies if that's the case, I've only heard extracts. However I have heard her recording of the Romance and that is very mannered with lots of her trademark swooping and heavy rubato.

Mike

[kea]

Does when we learn the works also affect it and surely our incomes ? The recordings that are most imprinted for me are the earliest I bought and when I could not afford to buy duplicate records and when there was a mass of repertoire I did not know .

I'm not sure. I 'discovered' classical music roughly at the beginning of my life, and the pieces & recordings that have stuck with me the most are those I discovered during important turning points in my life (adolescence of course, but also other, more intangible identity shifts). At the same time I've never had the financial opportunity to buy lots of duplicate records and even now still get most of my music from streaming and interlibrary loan and other such free(-ish) channels, which would not have been possible a few years ago, yet that increased availability has not stopped me from imprinting on particular performances. (a notable recent one being the Arcanto Quartet's recording of the Schubert String Quintet, which I still don't actually own... and the Quintet is a piece I've known all my life... go figure)

BTW: Just realised that the Suk/Ančerl recording of Dvořák's violin concerto is also the one I got to know the piece from, and I've never felt the need for another. I wonder if wide availability is another contributing factor—a particular recording is critically praised, people are curious and buy the recording, more copies must be printed, the recording receives wider exposure and thus a greater likelihood of more praise, causing more purchasing, etc. Then of course those who don't like the recording give it away to secondhand shops and people coming to classical music for the first time and without extensive financial resources buy it, etc, etc.

Certainly the recording may be very good, but a reputation for being the "best" seems to have something to do with distribution as well.

[kernelbogey]

I would cite in support of my theory (that imprinting is to do with learning) the phenomenon which others know of an extraneous noise (e.g. music stand falling over) in a recording you got to know first (when such noises were sometimes left in) and you anticipate it in every subsequent listening to any recording. I can think of several such instances. Also the 'turnover' break on an LP: this is still with me every time I hear Symphonie Fantastique - the turnover was in the middle of the 'dance' movement.

So something here about that first experience of the music (with noises off) really going into the memory in a deep way.

[richardfinegold]

I would cite in support of my theory (that imprinting is to do with learning) the phenomenon which others know of an extraneous noise (e.g. music stand falling over) in a recording you got to know first (when such noises were sometimes left in) and you anticipate it in every subsequent listening to any recording. I can think of several such instances. Also the 'turnover' break on an LP: this is still with me every time I hear Symphonie Fantastique - the turnover was in the middle of the 'dance' movement.

So something here about that first experience of the music (with noises off) really going into the memory in a deep way.

My first exposure to Beethoven's Eroica was a Furtwangler recording, a live performance from Vienna in 1944. My sister had bought the lp for $1 in the mid 1970s on a budget label that disguised the fact that it was a historical recording. the sheer intensity of the performance imprinted me--no other Eroica has ever sounded 'right' to me--but I also thought that i could hear bombs exploding in the background. This impression may have been created when I read that in the waning days of WWII concerts in the Third Reich were frequently interrupted by air raids.
Later I acquired a digital restoration of the same performance, and after listening carefully I can't be sure that I hear any bombs. Perhaps they were edited out, or perhaps I had imagined them in the first place and they were the artifacts of a noisy lp played on a cheap turntable. At any rate ,in my mind I still hear the distant sounds of muffled explosions at the same point of the Funeral Marche whenever I hear the Eroica.

[Ariosto]

This surely works in two ways? Works I first heard (if I can remember when I first heard them) may remain - even after years of not hearing those performances - the best and most profound. But I also first heard works and performances that I did not like at the time, and mostly (but not always) that has remained the same. Some however, I may not have liked originally, but I have come to love them since. An example: I did not like the late Beethoven quartets during my first hearings. They were of the Quartetto Italiano. Later, I really got to love those QI performances, and the works grew on me month by month.

So I do not really hold with this imprinting. What if you first heard say, Lang Lang playing Chopin. Later you may hear one or more (example, Rubinstein) great players, performing the same works. Are you going to say "Lang Lang" was wonderful? Come on, I doubt it!

Another example: Beethoven VC played at the Edinburgh Festival in about 1953 (on TV, live) - performed by Isaac Stern. OK, but not for me profound. Next Fritz Kreisler on record (78's). B****y hell, suddenly it all made sense. Stern was out and Fritz in.

Also Heifetz. I did not like some of his performances of classical works (Beethoven, Mozart, Bach, Brahms etc) for many years - but now I adore them.

[mikealdren]

Arisosto,
Interesting points, I guess your talking about imprinting by great performances.

The interesting thing about imprinting of the first performances we hear is that there is no previous impression to override. Also, I suspect that many people like me, listened to new discoveries endlessly. A combination of being hugely impressed by a new masterpiece and having relatively few other recordings to listen to.

It is interesting how we have all talked about imprinting with performances we still love, did anyone get an imprint from a performance that they now find poor or even intolerable?

Mike

[richardfinegold]

Arisosto,
Interesting points, I guess your talking about imprinting by great performances.

The interesting thing about imprinting of the first performances we hear is that there is no previous impression to override. Also, I suspect that many people like me, listened to new discoveries endlessly. A combination of being hugely impressed by a new masterpiece and having relatively few other recordings to listen to.

It is interesting how we have all talked about imprinting with performances we still love, did anyone get an imprint from a performance that they now find poor or even intolerable?

Mike

I can't say that I ever did a complete 180 degree turn and found an imprinting performance intolerable. I have found many of them surpassed in my affections. The Grieg PC and the Mendelsohn VC were both budget lps for me that I played to death by performers that were considered 3rd rate back in the day and have been utterly forgotten by time. I fell in love with the music but quickly grasped alternative recordings as being preferable, but recently my mother was moving and we were cleaning out her stuff and I came across the old, horribly damaged lps which I played on her ultra budget 50 year old turntable. They still sound (through all the sonic gunk!) like credible performances.