If you are tired of too much Chopin lately :-)
Here is a tiny bit of Rachmaninoff - his #2 of Moments Musicaux (I am going to perform a complete set in Montreal for Pro Musica this March 7th by the way).
No fancy camera work here -- just one (first note to the last) take from the real recording session. Just one of many takes, not necessarily the one that will end up on Rachmaninoff solo works CD (with First Sonata and miscellany of Preludes etc).
See, nowadays recording process is about basically making sure that every note is played, at least once. It can easily lead to making hundreds or even thousands of little "takes." If one person is apt to make a mistake here and there- multiply it by orchestra members - and you arrive into 1000+ takes. Everybody who tried to take a photo of a group with iPhone can relate to it. How many times have you have to take a picture to NOT get somebody with eyes shut or mouth open :-)
The difference between a live performance and a recording is just as vast as the difference between watching a play in a theater and a movie. All of it of course thanks to modern recording and editing equipment (in movies just as in music). It used to be different and great musicians of old times would come to studio, play just as they would for the audience (the only difference being, they could do another try if things didn't quite work on the first take) and go away with a magnificent recording. We can complain all we want about old recordings as being sloppy and full of wrong notes, messed passagework. We just have to remember that those are honest, unadulterated, unaided performances and I challenge any modern pianist who dares to laugh about old-timers to try to match the recordings of golden era without faking it with editing. We are all good singers in a shower - but if you face a set of microphones staring at you from a complete silence ,and then the little light goes off - and you are about to face your posterity without a safety net of "oh, we will clean it up later"- and every little note that you miss , and every phrase that you don't play beautifully is going to live forever as your damnation-it can unnerve the strongest and most confident. Being a musician is fun!!!!!

свернуть