Now, perhaps this is common and perhaps not, but I already knew the Beethoven very well, as my love of classical music came from through listening to recordings. I suspect nowadays most people hear classical music for the first time as a record. When I was a junior high and high school student, I had a set of complete Beethoven symphonies which I listened to over and over again. But what a difference a live performance made!

I thought about these things as I read this article in today’s New York Times about the low quality of playback evident in the MP3 players that everyone now owns.

But iPods and compressed computer files–the most popular vehicles for audio today–are “sucking the life out of music”

states an audio engineer in the article.

True?

In fact, there is a long tradition of worry and hand-wringing over the advance of recorded technology infringing on live performance. Does a player piano, for instance, have the musical soul of a live performer? Does a record? This was one of the big concerns of Theodor Adorno, who cautioned about the commodification of  music through easy reproduction.

I won’t offer any polemics here in favor (or not) of Adorno’s argument. After all, Beethoven was exposed to me via record because, as a youngster, I did not live near a symphony orchestra. In other words, without technology, I might have missed out on classical music all together.

But I will quickly add that nothing can replace the experience of a live performance, so while you may spend lots of time listening to radio, TV, internet streaming, or whatever, be sure to get yourself to a live performance every now and then. You might be surprised!

The post On Audio Fidelity appeared first on Richard D. Russell.

I thought, “Who are these people sitting here waiting for food? Who would ever want to eat in this restaurant??” Certainly we would not sit still in a restaurant that couldn’t get its act together. We would move on to some different dining establishment.

Yet, classical music audiences are expected to sit still through all manner of swill. And audiences have become fed up with it and moved on. You’ve certainly been to a restaurant where the food was bad, or the service was bad, and you left vowing never to eat there again. This has certainly happened in classical music.

Of course, taste is in the mouth of the beholder–or the ears of the listener. Yet we must acknowledge there’s a reason why chocolate cake is more popular than broccoli.

“Ah,” the avant-garde will say, “but broccoli is good for you! Cake is nothing more than sweet, empty calories; we can’t live on only chocolate.” True. But the finer dining options out there –the Michelin three-star restaurants– are able to serve up complex menu items that are good for you and appeal to an audience. There’s a difference between The Four Seasons and Burger King.

The philosopher Theodor Adorno stipulated that composers are free to compose with no need to satisfy an audience’s hunger. That’s okay as far as it goes, but I, for one, do want my music to be consumed by audiences. So I aim to create in that same arena that a chef does: Something enjoyably nutritious and palatable, but complex, too.

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