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In the Forum: Musical Discussions
In the Thread: It looks like a simple question
Post Subject: The value add of a performancePosted by rowuk on: 1/31/2026
Many years ago I got as a Christmas present, tickets for a new years concert with "The 5 Tenors". The program announcement had a bunch of pieces suitable for 1 to 5 tenors so we went. After 20 minutes into the concert, I told my wife that I can not sit through 5 "screaming" tenors and a Yamaha keyboard (not even a real piano). It was a waste of time and money. We left and got something good to eat. Now my family asks before giving us tickets...
With my playback however, I generally listen with purpose and that makes "lesser" performances more tolerable. I may get the score and go in "analytical" mode to get something from the composition itself. It is also possible that I tune out the ensemble and listen to the trumpet player just to see what they did with it. I do not think that I have any recordings that fail across all categories (composition/interpretation/intonation, quality and precision of play/plausibility of the recording: timbre, space, proportion. That being said, I do not have much random listening at home, so I usually do not struggle once the music is playing.
To talk about practical value to us, finding out what is missing - or too much, is a great emotional challenge. I have to be in the mood for challenges like this. My mood changes my tolerance level. If I have had my "hot shower" before listening and am relaxed, I am far more tolerant. If my wife comes in and wants me to turn it down, I lose interest quickly. If I have the score open, I am least critical of the auditory experience because what I read has priority over what I hear.
The critical reactions experienced (not in any order): experience is not worthy of my time, performance or composition is too "busy" making concentration difficult, performer/conductor needs to spend some time learning the piece, recording engineer was a deaf rock and roll survivor, is the play excessively "spectacular" or depressively uninformed? The most critical reaction is being "at home" completely comfortable with what is happening. This makes me think about if I am just missing something or if the performance is truly so memorable.
More positive is when I ask myself WHY the performance is this way. A good example is a "way too slow" Bruckner adagio. Is the tempo due to the live acoustics of the performance venue? Recordings from large churches generally have the microphones much closer to the instruments, enhancing intelligibility but losing the effects of the large room. Many times something in D-Major will sound way too dark or too bright (for my expectations). This can be due to "historic intonation" being a half step lower or higher. This has been a huge effect from the Historically Informed Performance movement since the 1950s. Not only do we have zealots trying to purge everything romantic or classical from renaissance or baroque music, we also have a huge amount of well founded research documenting probable playing technique and musical interpretation and a large group of performers that have specialized in this. Listening to works played on historic instruments requires that we be more tolerant of playing demands and spend more time with intonation that is not evenly tempered. A big advantage is the playing being much closer to singing than with modern play.
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