THE SOUND OF MUSIC

RICHARD FIDLER discusses seeing and hearing at concerts

For years I have enjoyed attending concerts, both chamber and orchestral. Often as I walked up the stairs into Philadelphia's Academy of Music I would hear someone say: 'I hope we have good seats and can see'. I have always found this statement bewildering. Why should a person worry about seeing when attending a concert? If attending a ballet or opera, I could understand a preference for a good sightline; and maybe if you were interested in the virtuoso mannerisms of a concert soloist the same would apply. Then, too, I have been told that certain conductors do so much jumping around that it becomes distracting. Others have told me that expressions on the faces of performers can also be distracting.

Only once have I been audibly distracted at a concert. Riccardo Muti's habit of jumping just before the orchestra is to hit a loud entrance, and the subsequent thud of his landing on the rostrum just before the note is disconcerting.

I go to a concert to 'hear' music. What is the sound of music to each of us? Is it that which we hear in a particular hall and in a particular seat? Are the sound frequencies picked up by our ears supplemented by memories of the music, or the expectation of particular sounds within which are the ambient sounds of our surroundings?

Then, too, what is the sound of music when I listen to a recording, be it an LP, tape, or CD? What relationship should exist between the sound coming from a recording and the sound which is reportably being replicated? I have read many articles about the sound of music, and about the sound of a particular performing space, and about particular recording techniques.

Most of the articles suggested that the sound of music heard in a recording should be as a perfect replication of the sound produced in the performing space. But where is that performing space – first row balcony, first row orchestra pit, centre hall, or what? I know I hear different sounds dependant upon my positioning in the Academy or in other halls. What sound should be captured in a recording?

Last week I received and listened to two recent recordings by the Philadelphia Orchestra, each proclaiming that they had captured the 'true' sound of the orchestra. One recording was made in the Academy using Vacuum technology; the other was made with 24/96 technology. To my ears each had a particular ambience. The vacuum technology recording was recognisable as having been made in the Academy but, at least to these ears, did not quite capture the sound which I have heard often in the first row balcony, centre section, or in the orchestra pit.

The 24/96 technology sound was most vivid, precise, and with a definite stereo image, yet it did not match the sound I recognise in the concert hall.

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