Rerurn to Romy the Cat's Site
In the Forum: Playback Listening
In the Thread: Closer to the musicians - closer to the music?
Post Subject: Heisenberg's Sense of PerfectionPosted by Paul S on: 10/5/2008
Ollie, this sounds like a rather extreme rant I indulged in myself, not long ago.
To put it more succinctly this time, the problem for me is when the end "product" winds up being a signature piece from someone (or - worse - everyone) in the "support group" (such as the "producer" and/or the engineers) rather than the artistic expression/example of the composer and/or the musicians.
Conversely, I would regard as a "well-engineered" recording one that indeed reflected as much as possible of what the composer and the musician(s) had in mind, where I am given enough of the right information to decide this for myself.
Odd perhaps, but I have had great musical experiences via "problematic" recordings that were multi-mic'd, poorly mixed and generally overcooked, and I have wound up sitting there feeling empty after listening to any number of "purist" recordings.
No doubt there are certain maneuvers that will certainly sink a recording. But as I shuffle through my mental inventory I wonder how many tecnnically "perfect" "purist" recordings I have that really move me musically. The Mercury Rigoletto is pretty freaking good from a technical standpoint, and the performance is very good. Of course, the opera itself is as good as it gets. However, this performance still suffers, IMO, in as much as it is not live, but it was done in sessions.
Then we have the "live recording" of the 1942 Furtwangler Beethoven 9, which is IMO about as "perfect" as recordings of works like this get; yet...
Best regards,
Paul SRerurn to Romy the Cat's Site