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Reviews
SYMPHONY
Eloquence, New and Familiar
By Michelle Dulak
San Francisco Symphony
Sakari Oramo
Geraldine Walther
(11/20/03)
EARLY MUSIC
Metamorphoses
By Anna Carol Dudley
Musica Antiqua Köln
Nancy Argenta
Nathalie Stutzmann
(11/22/03)
SYMPHONY
Moving Right Along
By Scott MacClelland
Symphony Silicon Valley
Theo Alcantara
Lara St. John
(11/22/03)
CHAMBER MUSIC
All Among Friends
By Heuwell Tircuit
Noe Valley Chamber Music
(11/23/03)
TRIBUTE
In Memoriam Silvio Dante Claudio
By Robert Commanday
QUESTION OF THE WEEK
Responses to Our 11/18/03 Question of the Week
MUSIC NEWS
New Grant for Old Orchestra
By Janos Gereben
Robert Commanday, Senior Editor
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You attend an opera or a concert that catches fire, and you want to hold on to the experience, repeat it, have it.
Oh, joy! As you leave the event, you can buy a CD of the performance you have just heard.
Science fiction? Not at all. The technology is there, along with demand and the motivation for supply ($$$), so surely it's just a matter of time. In fact, instant gratification of CD-craving is already available at numerous rock concerts, and — with a slight delay — from classical concerts in London. In the world of pop, Dave Matthews Band and Pearl Jam have been offering "official bootleg." Clear Channel's "Instant Live" program produces live recordings for Moe, the Allman Brothers Band, and 13 other acts, the music available within minutes of the shows' end. The cost: about $20 for a CD. One estimate for Moe's gross from instant CDs during the band's 11-show tour: $38,500.
Given the already ubiquitous presence of Minidiscs whirring away at concerts, making amateurish souvenir recordings, how can anyone deny that there is a definite demand for instant CDs? Add to this the problems of declining record sales and increasing music piracy — both individual and institutional — and it becomes clear that artists and producers should be able to cash in on this secondary market by providing instant high-quality recordings. "It's the future of the touring merchandise business," Eagles manager Irving Azoff has said.
However, equally obvious are legal and business questions, which prompt some observers to remain in denial about the demand for instant CDs and even the existence of the current, near-universal practice of "private" recordings. Mike Richter, one of the pioneers of MP3 compression of classical music, archiving otherwise unavailable performances, and enabling non-profit distribution of classical music (www.mrichter.com), has struggled with these legal, moral and quality problems for years, and yet he is optimistic, disputing that "nothing can be done."
"I believe that arts institutions can thrive in the real world by facing reality. In this case, reality now means that any substantial performance will be recorded from the audience; that such a recording, regardless of quality, will find its way into distribution; and that no one worthy of concern will gain from those facts," Richter told Classical Voice. "Those enthralled by a performance will seek mementos and there are few more appealing than a recording of the event, an audible aide de memoire. The way to persuade them to leave their Minidiscs at home and to shun those who peddle noisy, distorted, unbalanced piracies is to offer them that memento as they leave — under terms which reward not only the audience but the artists and the company."
The live-CD boom began with Pearl Jam's pioneering series of 72 CDs that documented every show from their 2000 tour. String Cheese Incident and other jam bands followed. Then last year, through Music.com, The Who jumped on the idea and wound up grossing $1.2 million on live CDs from their 2002 tour. Early this year, Phish made every 2003 show available within forty-eight hours, selling more than 150,000 of the recordings and earning more than $2 million.
On the classical front, there is a deadly rigidity, which (in San Francisco and elsewhere) prevents broadcasts, and virtually forces "unofficial bootlegs," depriving organizations of income and the chance to make the genre more popular. How familiar this is from the last century — NFL bigwigs screaming that televising football will bankrupt them. Also, the current private/illegal recording environment is most unfair to the performing artists (who, supposedly, are protected by management) — forcing a uniformly inferior quality on everything that will preserve the memory of performances.
Richter states what is obvious to anyone except musical organizations and unions: "With few exceptions, recordings from the hall are vastly inferior to the house tapes . . . and those poor audio recordings will circulate. The house cannot stop them. They will not do justice to orchestra or stage, but that's how people who were not there will know the performance.
"The only people who benefit from the house's unwillingness/inability to release the recordings are the pirates. I know that it's not trivial to include permissions even in new contracts, but something needs to be done. The ostrich does not stick his head in the sand; there isn't room when the whole desert is full of starving musical organizations with their derrieres reaching for the stars."
London's South Bank Centre has been delivering CDs within an hour of the last note being played. The project started at a Queen Elizabeth Hall concert in March, 2000, part of the "Celebrating Pierre" series in honor of Pierre Boulez's 75th birthday. The work was "Notes for Pierre," a variation on Boulez's own "12 Notations for Piano," from a dozen composers, including Luciano Berio, Harrison Birtwistle, Elliott Carter and György Kurtág. The cost of the CD was included in the ticket price.
SBC chief executive Karsten Witt said on the occasion: "For me, classical music is about repeated listening. It's very hard to understand anything if you only hear it once. This project not only opens up the opportunity to listen to this music again, it also provides the concertgoer with a document of something that is essentially transient." The project was the brainchild of Nigel March, South Bank's head of production, who talked the organization into spending $109,000 on the equipment. His main argument: "Some fantastic music is played in these halls that may never be played again and is subsequently lost for ever."
March called the investment "not high-risk in relation to the potential rewards it might reap," but acknowledged the initially "application of the new technology looks likely to be restrained by issues of repertoire, royalties and unions. For example, you need the consent of every member of an orchestra before proceeding with recordings of this kind. Eventually, though, the technology will push these arrangements to their limits." Present and near-future technology will also raise the possibility of widespread downloading of live Internet broadcasts of concerts, with digital radio coming up soon, eliminating current quality problems in downloading.
Locally, David v.R. Bowles, of Swineshead Productions (www.swineshead.com), recording engineer for Philharmonia Baroque and for the California Symphony, already produces "near-instant" CDs. He records two performances of each program, editing out "major mistakes, audience coughs, sirens, and mobile phones," then making the result available for distribution to players, donors, educational institutions, and broadcasts.
"Many people have asked me if 'this concert would be available as a CD,' so the interest is definitely there. More and more'pay-to-download' services are popping up as well," Bowles says. But he thinks the demand for instant CDs may be tempered by audience preference for "an edited CD with walk-on, tuning, long pauses between movements and most applause eliminated. What that means for opera houses in particular is that the quality of engineering really needs to improve; most of these people are 'sound designers' who use microphones for sound reinforcement without regard to proper placement."
Tony Faulkner, chief recording engineer for the London Symphony Orchestra, told Classical Voice he's been producing the "LSO Live" series for four years now, using high-density digital technology, recording the dress rehearsal and two concerts. "Usually the best performance of the three is the second night, which we edit in and out of in case of major bloopers. I have a CEDAR ReTouch software plug-in for eliminating, or at least suppressing major extraneous noises."
"The LSO's home (The Barbican) is a bit of a dry acoustic, but the performances are electric, and the tighter for it. Listen to Sir Colin Davis' Damnation of Faust or Harold in Italy, Rostropovich's Shostakovich Symphony No. 11, Jansons' Mahler Symphony No. 6. Sales have been much better than anticipated. I have done many, many CDs of classical sessions — but there are some pieces which work better in concert, unless the conductor and producer are of one single determined mind not to shred the music into play-safe takes of a few pages or bars at a time in the studio. There is nothing to beat a great concert."
Especially if you can listen to it again, as soon as possible.
(Janos Gereben, a regular contributor to www.sfcv.org, is arts editor of the Post Newspaper Group. His e-mail address is janos451@earthlink.net.)
©2003 Janos Gereben, all rights reserved
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From September 1, 1998 to October 7, 2003, we have published, in addition to the Music News, feature pieces and weekly editorials 1586 reviews of Bay Area performances by: 47 symphony orchestras (333 reviews), 72 chamber groups (171), 33 new music ensembles and programs (177), 34 opera companies (226), 26 choral groups (97), 15 music festivals (70), 32 early music ensembles (107), 21 chamber orchestras (72), 5 musical theater groups (13), world music (14), recitals (286), youth music (10), Other (10).
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