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Comments, feedback, alternative opinions welcome. See link below.
- SA-CD.net review of reperformance of Glenn Gould's 1955 recording of Goldberg Variations (Open in New Window)
Follow Ups:
Very informative and well done indeed!And in a way very timely. As I read your review I was/am listening to some CDs of original recordings of concerts from 1938 and 1939. The 3 CD set is called "From Spirituals to Swing" on Vanguard Records and is composed largely of recordings of Count Basie, Benny Goodman and other greats from the late 30s. As I read your comments on the Glenn Gould 1955 recording and the process that has given its rebirth I can't help wonder how this process could give new life to this old classic recordings.
Although I must say these old tinny recordings after a few cuts of acclimation can be almost addictive "as is". I can *almost* (not quite) understand how listeners 70 years ago of these old recordings became "transported" to the concert hall as has been documented. And actually some instruments such as the sax, clarinet, and some aspects of the human voice are not *that* far off. Although I must say that the piano in these old recordings needs some serious help.
I'm definitely in favor of this "reperformance" process being expanded to other historical recordings.
Are there any "player saxes, clarinets, brass, drums, bass?" I can see that piano recordings could be re-created, but small groups or big bands? Referrence Recordings did at least a couple of Dick Hymen solo albums with digital re-creations of his performances, though I don't know WHY they did it.
I think he's thinking along similar lines. Zenph is currently working on recreating Art Tatum's performances.
That cat could play. His version of Love For Sale would be worth the price of admission. His playing be a most humbling release for all current players.
Well written. Christine.A suggestion?
Instead of "if he is still alive today." perhaps, "if he was still alive today."
"were still alive today."
Very thoughful review of a very ambitious project. It was a challenge to digitize as eccentric a performer as Gould. Do you sense the presence of a soul in the machine or a top-notch typist? I suppose it would be possible for a computer to scan a Pollack drip painting and replicate the exact order and velocity of strokes to produce an action painting virtually identical to the original. But in the end who really cares? I like Gould's point about teaching the camera to lie. But doesn't this imply the presence of an artist behind the camera? Is it Gould or Geppetto?
*** Do you sense the presence of a soul in the machine or a top-notch typist? ***Good question. There's no question the performance is expressive and not at all "robotic."
But is it really Gould? We know that pianists adjust their playing depending on the "touch" or tone of the piano. Would Glenn have altered his playing on a Disklavier resulting in a substantially different performance?
And if he does, would that diminish the value of this recording (ostensibly, a "perfect" recreation of a previous performance)?
I suspect the real artist in this recording is Zenph Studios, in the sense that it takes skill and even art to mimic someone else.
But some other points for you to ponder:
- the "International Piano e-Competition" features judges listening to piano performances recorded using a Disklavier, and then the data is sent across the Internet and played on a different Disklavier. The whole premise of the competition is that this is a valid way to judge a pianist.
- you may be interested in watching a Japanese anime movie called "Ghost in the Shell", which explores similar questions in the context of a science fiction thriller. In a world where it is possible to transcribe a person's entire brain onto an android body, does the soul get transcribed as well? In a future where humans have implants connecting their brains to cyberspace, what happens to a person's soul when someone else "hacks" into their brain and starts altering their memories to create a different "past"?
- Finally, try and read some of the writings of Jorge Luis Borges or Stanislaw Lem. They also ask very similar questions.Anyway, I find it easier to avoid being philosophical and just listen to music. :-)
You might try not taking your science fiction quite so literally. The alternate reality of science fiction is often presented as a mirror. The question posed by science fiction is not so much whether the soul can be transmitted into an actual robot, but rather what survives of the soul in an increasingly dehumanized society in which people become more like robots-- and there are fewer and fewer Goulds among us. The Disklavier, with its familiar analog exterior, is a comforting palliative on this slippery slope. It belongs in the home alongside a Sony Aibo dog. I'll pass.
*** You might try not taking your science fiction quite so literally. ***Hmm, I suspect you haven't really bothered following up my references. Otherwise, you wouldn't be painting such a black and white picture. I would actually argue the opposite - that in fact there are more and more Goulds amongst us, though you may perhaps not recognise them as such. What you perceive as a slippery slope may in fact be a path.
But, as I've said before, it's easy to get mired in philosophical musings. Me, I prefer to enjoy the music and not worry too much whether there's a soul behind it (actually, there is, even when the music is composed and performed entirely by a computer - just look in a mirror one day and you'll find that soul).
I like Baudrillard, Borges, and perhaps Philip Dick on this subject more than Japanese anime-- which generally has mixed agendas polluted by commercialism. Some will struggle for release from simulation & simulacra. Others do not recognize the difference or care. Holographic pornography, anyone? But I concede that the Hi-Rez Forum is an interesting venue for discussion about the Disklavier. On this forum we usually speak of the absolute sound in terms faithfulness to the original performance. We accept as mediators recording technology, analog and digital circuits, and paper cones in boxes. But in the case of the Disklavier, we are asked to accept a "recreated" performance-- absent Glenn Gould's fingers on the keys. I would submit that the need for such a device says less about the limitations of traditional recording techology, than it does about our craving for simulation. The question is not whether there are future Gould's among us, but rather whether we as a society no longer require them. And what is the cost of this obsession with simulation? Well go read Baudrillard & by all means enjoy the music.
*** Japanese anime-- which generally has mixed agendas polluted by commercialism. ***Hmm, really? I doubt many would agree with your rather blunt stereotyping. And in any case, I was referring to a specific film, not a genre, which it seems you have not experienced, so the point I was trying to make is probably lost.
*** On this forum we usually speak of the absolute sound in terms faithfulness to the original performance. ***
Really? I think many on this forum do not want accuracy, what they are really looking for is euphony.
*** But in the case of the Disklavier, we are asked to accept a "recreated" performance ***
*Every* recording is a recreated performance. The Disklavier is simply another means of doing so. An arguably a Disklavier replaying a "performance" is far more faithful than a recording.
Furthermore (and you may realise this if you read the full article by Gould that I quoted from) a recording may in fact be a recreation of an synthetic or imaginary performance, through the magic of splicing and editing.
In fact, as Gould postulated, you could create a "performance" simply by assembling from a vast library of tape loops (each containing one note from one instrument) and then splicing and mixing everything together. And the result may well be more "musical" (or contain more "soul" if you like) than a human doing a bad rendition of Fur Elise on a Steinway.
That was the reason why Gould retired from the concert stage. He wanted to move to a different paradigm for making music, and he wanted to be free of the artificial "point in time" limitations imposed on him by a live performance, and the "pressure" of an audience (in his mind) waiting like vultures for him to make a mistake.
*** I would submit that the need for such a device says less about the limitations of traditional recording techology, than it does about our craving for simulation. ***
Again, I would not agree with you. Is it really simulation we are craving, or stimulation?
And I think you are continue to miss the rather subtle point I was trying to make in previous posts. The "soul" of music resides not in the performer (or even the composer) but in the listener. The whole evolution of music in the last century or so has been recognising and exploiting this: atonality, serialism, minimalism, process orientation, etc. etc. John Cage's 4'33" was the ultimate example that proved the point: in the absence of any specific influence from the composer or performer, *we* create the music from the background.
*** The question is not whether there are future Gould's among us, but rather whether we as a society no longer require them. ***
Again, I think you miss the point. As I've pointed out, there are lots of Goulds, and I dare say "society" as such probably appreciates their value to a greater extent, but you may not recognise them as such.
Notwithstanding John Cage's 4'33", Gould's original intention, Heisenberg, and the whole history of modern music-- which trends toward a definition of "performance" to be pretty much whatever we subjectively observe-- I would narrow the discussion.The Diskclavier is qualitatively different from an audio system. It is a robotic device designed to recreate the action of a human performer on a real musical instrument. In this sense it is recreation, not reproduction.
Recording a Diskclavier to SACD is reproducing a recreation--a nested Chinese box-- and one step further into a synthetic environment. It is your business whether you accept this kind of regression into your listening experience. But I think you are pushing the point by suggesting that many who post to the Hi-Rez forum are subjectivists uninterested in the faithfulness of their audio systems to the original performance.
The experience of hearing a Disklavier on SACD is different from listening to one in the home, a piano bar, or an e-piano competition. I have seen these things unemploy actual pianists in the lobbies of exclusive metro bank branches. One less pianist = one less Gould. To my taste these Disklaviers in public places are part of the seductive tapestry that marches modern experience toward simulacra in the Baudrillardian sense. It's probably a losing battle to resist, but lost causes are usually worthwhile.
You *do* understand, don't you, that when you listen to a piano recording at home on your system, there is no pianist hitting any keys either, and in fact what you are hearing is not even a piano?What's more, what you are hearing does not even bear any resemblance to what a human would hear at the venue?
Consider this. The sound vibrations generated by the strings is captured and converted into an electrical signal. Overlayed with the actual sound however are multiple relections generated by the venue itself.
When you play this recording on your system, the electrical signal gets translated into sound vibrations through a set of speakers. Overlayed on this sound are additional reflections generated by your room.
Your speakers are unlikely to be positioned in the same relative locations as the microphones so the reflected sound you hear captured in the recording are being played back in the wrong context. In addition, you are hearing two rooms superimposed on one another - a sound that never happens in reality.
And that's if you are listening to a straight capture of a live recording. If you are listening to a studio multi-track recording, then there is no such thing as the "original performance" - it's a synthetic creation.
Basically what you are listening to is a (relatively poor) simulation, a "recreation" or even reinterpretation of what may or may not have been an actual performance. And what you are listening to are not real musical instruments, they are sound waves created by speaker drivers, which do not disperse them in the same pattern as a real musical instrument.
Compared to this, when someone plays back a performance on a Disklavier, at least we get to hear a *real* piano, in a *real* acoustic space. Is it really "one step further into a synthetic environment" or is it in fact much closer to what a musical performance should really sound like?
As for Disklaviers displacing human performers, you realise that every time we listen to a recording instead of a live performance, we are "unemploying" far more pianists than a Disklavier would? Especially if we listen to the same recording over and over again.
If you are really interested in lost causes, sell your system and recordings. Subscribe to your local symphony orchestra and listen to as many live performances as you can.
nt
Very nice and thorough review, Christine! A couple of corrections, though:-I think you meant to say that it's been more than 50 years, not 60, since the original recording.
-It was the 1981 recording, not the 1955, that was initially issued by Sony on SACD.Can't wait until the new SACD is released here in the US!
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