BaL 22.04.17 - Mahler: Symphony no. 2

[LaurieWatt]

This is generally how I feel about Rattle's recordings however few or many edits there are. But I should add that recordings ofter contain far more edits than people might think, since the advent of digital recording and editing, where it's very easy to edit in a completely undetectable way, if you have the time and patience. "200 takes" doesn't necessarily mean that the music was recorded discontinuously in small chunks, which might end up sounding artificial, although again it might be very hard to tell; it's much more likely to mean 200 alternations between a handful of takes of a complete or almost complete movement.

Agreed, absolutely correct, but you still end up with a beautiful patchwork quilt as opposed to the original beautiful bedspread.

[Richard Barrett]

Perhaps because it shatters the illusion -- probably unjustified, as we all know about studio versus live -- of a real (actual) 'performance'?

There's nothing "natural" about a live recording either - recording engineers have made very many crucial decisions about how it's going to sound: microphone placement, balance, and indeed very often editing between the concert recording and the dress rehearsal, or even within the concert recording, to tighten up a unison attack or shorten/lengthen a pause. These are ways of giving a different kind of immediacy to a recording from that which you'll naturally have when attending a live performance. You can't hear the edits, and you can't hear a difference in sound between one take and another. Doesn't that mean that indeed you are getting a sense of performance, despite what you might or might not know about how it was made? If you can't hear the difference between the "patchwork quilt" and the "bedspread", then in a real sense there isn't one. Vague impressions about the performance not sounding convincing could just as easily arise from some other aspect of what you hear.

[Ein Heldenleben]

Co-incidentally wasn't it Klemperer who described tape editing as "Ein Schwindel " and compared listening to an edited recording as " like going to bed with a photo of Marilyn Monroe" ?
Just listening to the CBSO / Rattle - If there are 200 edits in the first movt of that then I salute the editor as I couldn't hear one. Lovely stereo image - maybe the harp a bit forward in places and the woodwind did seem to move around a tad but overall a tremendous sound. The string pizzicato section in the slow movt did sound acoustically different to the subsequent arco - but this is nit - picking .
Not believing the amount of editing that goes on I did a bit of US edit forum hopping - it was partly made up of complaints by editors themselves of the amount they have to do and it's impact on the notion of a performance . 200 in one long movement based on what they say sounds par for the course.
Maybe that's why I buy now so few CD 's and listen to R3 relays and live perfs these days . Equally maybe that's why recordings now sound unreal to me . Doesn't a Mahler performance need a bit of strain and imperfection ?

[Pulcinella]

There's nothing "natural" about a live recording either - recording engineers have made very many crucial decisions about how it's going to sound: microphone placement, balance, and indeed very often editing between the concert recording and the dress rehearsal, or even within the concert recording, to tighten up a unison attack or shorten/lengthen a pause. These are ways of giving a different kind of immediacy to a recording from that which you'll naturally have when attending a live performance. You can't hear the edits, and you can't hear a difference in sound between one take and another. Doesn't that mean that indeed you are getting a sense of performance, despite what you might or might not know about how it was made? If you can't hear the difference between the "patchwork quilt" and the "bedspread", then in a real sense there isn't one. Vague impressions about the performance not sounding convincing could just as easily arise from some other aspect of what you hear.

True.
I've sometimes wondered about those who buy a CD of a concert they've been at, for the very reasons you mention that I hadn't considered in my earlier posting!
Yes, it's a memento of the event, but it's unlikely to be what they heard.

[BBMmk2]

Information for people who haven't been involved in CD recording. You play a track right through(or that's what my old brass band did, then at various points in the music, we'd be asked to play certain phrases, or bars again. All were quite bemused by this procedure, but hey ho, we did as asked. And this was done, so on and so forth, till the disc was completed.

[cloughie]

There's nothing "natural" about a live recording either - recording engineers have made very many crucial decisions about how it's going to sound: microphone placement, balance, and indeed very often editing between the concert recording and the dress rehearsal, or even within the concert recording, to tighten up a unison attack or shorten/lengthen a pause. These are ways of giving a different kind of immediacy to a recording from that which you'll naturally have when attending a live performance. You can't hear the edits, and you can't hear a difference in sound between one take and another. Doesn't that mean that indeed you are getting a sense of performance, despite what you might or might not know about how it was made? If you can't hear the difference between the "patchwork quilt" and the "bedspread", then in a real sense there isn't one. Vague impressions about the performance not sounding convincing could just as easily arise from some other aspect of what you hear.

It also could be that Rattle being a perfectionist who can probably hear things that you or I wouldn't necessarily. Surely 200 undetectable edits are better than the one blooper that is noticed on every listening. Was there not a missed entry in Barbirolli's Mahler 5 that was corrected for a CD remastering some 20 years after JB's death. Also digital tinkering and pitch changing is common in recording of pop singers and I guess that some classical singers merit the same treatment.

[BBMmk2]

Information for people who haven't been involved in CD recording. You play a track right through(or that's what my old brass band did, then at various points in the music, we'd be asked to play certain phrases, or bars again. All were quite bemused by this procedure, but hey ho, we did as asked. And this was done, so on and so forth, till the disc was completed.

Hope this proves useful! :)

[Mal]

Agreed, absolutely correct, but you still end up with a beautiful patchwork quilt as opposed to the original beautiful bedspread.

OK, it gets much better after the first movement, that's the big bland patch in the otherwise beautiful patchwork quilt.

[Richard Barrett]

You play a track right through(or that's what my old brass band did, then at various points in the music, we'd be asked to play certain phrases, or bars again.

That is one way of doing it. But you wouldn't record an opera like that, or longer pieces in general, sometimes for practical/economic reasons. Recording a set of Bach cantatas, for example, will generally involve recording all the choral material for several cantatas in one session, and the solo vocal material in another, so as not to have the chorus sitting around doing nothing for long periods. (Ton Koopman's Bach cantata series was done like this to my certain knowledge but I'm sure others also were.) So it might be that the choral singers and the soloists have never even been in the same room as one another during the sessions. And yet (as JEG points out in his Bach book) each cantata is supposed to have a clear dramaturgical form.

[Richard Barrett]

It also could be that Rattle being a perfectionist who can probably hear things that you or I wouldn't necessarily.

You can certainly hear many things in the pristine environment of the studio control room (let alone standing right in front of an orchestra) that you're probably never going to hear again once the recording is released. I do think it's important to use the available resources to try and achieve the best experience for the eventual listener that you can - but bear in mind that perfectionism in this kind of area is largely a question of the recording budget. You can get a lot more things exactly the way you want them in 5 days than in 3 hours. The same applies to post-production work.

[Pulcinella]

And yet (as JEG points out in his Bach book) each cantata is supposed to have a clear dramaturgical form.

Which is presumably what he hoped to achieve in his Choral Pilgrimage set on SDG.

[BBMmk2]

That's such a wonderful recording, Pulcie!

[Richard Barrett]

Which is presumably what he hoped to achieve in his Choral Pilgrimage set on SDG.

And which he indeed does achieve IMO! This is one of the most attractive things about those recordings as far as I'm concerned, even if some of them have their rough edges.

[Bryn]

The best version of the Mahler 2 and possibly the 1st, as well, imo. EA.

I still recall with awe going round to a friend's house to hear that recording around the time of its release on LPs. The friend's father had a fine Hi-Fi system with Lowther horn loaded speakers. Whether that early experience of the work coloured my preference for Solti's LSO over his later CSO recording, it remains one of my favourites. The 2007 96/24 remastering "The Originals" version is the one I have recourse to these days. I see there is a new(?) "import" version listed on amazon.co.uk, due for release in June.

[Pulcinella]

That's such a wonderful recording, Pulcie!

Not sure which recording of what that you're talking about, Bbm, but I'm pretty sure that I'll agree with you.
It's easier that way!