# Are live concert recordings tolerable to you?



## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

I've been looking for newer composers in the hopes of finding some gem of 20th / 21st century music. I tried sampling a CD of symphonies by Mikis Theodorakis. He may be better known as a film composer, but like Rosza, Korngold and others, he wrote a lot of other perhaps more serious music as well. 

But I could barely make it through the samples. They are live recordings full of coughs, paper rustlings, mysterious thumps that clearly do not belong. I don't think I'll be getting that album, yet I haven't found any "studio" versions.

Does this bother you also? One could argue this is the more realistic natural setting for concert music, but I can barely stand it. Maybe we are spoiled with today's nearly perfect recordings.

On a side note I'm curious how the engineers keep this from happening in a non-live recording especially with an 80+ person orchestra. I guess there are several takes, but would sections of those takes be punched in to cover any dropped score pages? They always seem seamless.


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## Vaneyes (May 11, 2010)

Because of budgetery restraints, most symphonic recordings made these days are live. Exceptions could include period orchestras, since nobody would pay good money to see them live. Noooooooooo!!!! LOL Just kidding.

Recording processes are better today than they were decades ago. Also, people are healthier. So, you shouldn't hear any long hacking lung-bursting coughs from generations past. Edits usually come from two or three repeated performances within days of each other.

As always, it's best to do your due diligence when considering any purchase. Auditon if you can. Read reviews or email questions to appropriate related folk, if you can't.

Personally, I stay away from stuff that sounds like crap. Life is too short. And sooner or later, a good recording's likely to appear. Patience is indeed a virtue in collecting recordings. 

Hope this helps some. :tiphat:


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

The great majority of 'live' recordings I've heard don't have those distractions, except for an occasional cough. That statement excludes bootlegs, which are apt to contain all those noises you complain about - because the microphone is in the audience.


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## Vaneyes (May 11, 2010)

Hilltroll72 said:


> The great majority of 'live' recordings I've heard don't have those distractions, except for an occasional cough. That statement excludes bootlegs, which are apt to contain all those noises you complain about - because the microphone is in the audience.


You've never heard conductors stomping the podium? Exhorting the troops? Players knocking over music stands? Bronchial folk in the front row? Rapid transit? Airplanes?

You've missed a lot.


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## bigshot (Nov 22, 2011)

I actually prefer the energy in live recordings. I recently got the Abaddo symphony box and the live recordings there were more special than the studio ones.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

I don't mind the occasional cough or other audience noise in my recording, because I can easily separate it from my experience of the music (although at least once, I have been able to identify an unknown recording on Youtube by a cough in one particular gap).



Weston said:


> On a side note I'm curious how the engineers keep this from happening in a non-live recording especially with an 80+ person orchestra. I guess there are several takes, but would sections of those takes be punched in to cover any dropped score pages? They always seem seamless.


Listening to the Stravinsky set on Sony, I can hear the occasional page turn, and I'm sure if I paid more attention I'd hear similar things more often.


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## Ravndal (Jun 8, 2012)

I often prefer live recordings. Does something with the sound.


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## ptr (Jan 22, 2013)

Like Mr Bigshot I often prefer live recordings, they often feel much more alive in comparison with modern "studio" cuts, where the producers often just follow the painstaking task of getting every thing note perfect and give lesser thought to the over all structure and composure of the composition.

Audience sounds and or sounds from within the orchestra never bothered me, that is a part of the being "alive" thing I believe music should be all about! 

/ptr


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## apricissimus (May 15, 2013)

I agree with most of the people here -- live recordings often have a vitality that studio recordings with their slick sheen lack.

And if coughing and rustling of papers is tolerable when attending a concert, I don't see why it should be a big deal in a recording either.

In my non-classical listening, I almost always prefer live recordings.


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## Guest (Jun 24, 2013)

I prefer live recordings providing the balance is right what does annoy is when you pick up on a performer playing a wrong/bad note 'and it is not uncommon' but each time you play the CD you are expecting this and it can become exasperating.


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

I like live recordings for the reasons given above, though I don't like it if too much clapping is included between movements - it sort of breaks my concentration. I think the ideal live recording is of a concert one has been to oneself, and then one can relive a wonderful experience at will.


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## Vaneyes (May 11, 2010)

Ingenue said:


> I like live recordings for the reasons given above, though I don't like it if too much clapping is included between movements - it sort of breaks my concentration. I think the ideal live recording is of a concert one has been to oneself, and then one can relive a wonderful experience at will.


I was at this 1, but I wouldn't buy it. 

View attachment 20104


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## moody (Nov 5, 2011)

Vaneyes said:


> You've never heard conductors stomping the podium? Exhorting the troops? Players knocking over music stands? Bronchial folk in the front row? Rapid transit? Airplanes?
> 
> You've missed a lot.


They had this airplane in the Albert Hall but somebody opened the back door and it escaped.


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## brotagonist (Jul 11, 2013)

I dislike distracting and unnecessary noises. I own a few glorious live recordings that are not marred, but I also have a few atrocious live coughing sessions held in subway stations or airports with furniture movers in attendance. There ought to be more quality control before releasing a performance to disc.

When I buy a CD, I am one of countless concert-goers who listen at home. We deserve a performance for us, just as those who go out to hear a concert enjoy. Collectively, buyers of recordings have paid for it. Our attendance is vastly more populous than that at any live concert, live listeners amounting to a negligible fraction of the total listenership.

Also, a recording should be viewed by artists as a record of their achievements that will last forever. We are appalled when great paintings or statues are defaced. Should not recordings of great music be accorded the same stature?


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## realdealblues (Mar 3, 2010)

While live recordings often are more inspired, and while I do have a few live recordings that sound good, with no crowd noise, coughing, sniffing, etc. But in general, I avoid them because it does seem on all of the ones I either want or hear, that they were recorded at the height of cold and flu season. 

On a car stereo with the noise from the wind, etc. it is less noticeable but with headphones on or listening very closely at home I can't take it. All that phlegm makes me feel sick.


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## moody (Nov 5, 2011)

brotagonist said:


> I dislike distracting and unnecessary noises. I own a few glorious live recordings that are not marred, but I also have a few atrocious live coughing sessions held in subway stations or airports with furniture movers in attendance. There ought to be more quality control before releasing a performance to disc.
> 
> When I buy a CD, I am one of countless concert-goers who listen at home. We deserve a performance for us, just as those who go out to hear a concert enjoy. Collectively, buyers of recordings have paid for it. Our attendance is vastly more populous than that at any live concert, live listeners amounting to a negligible fraction of the total listenership.
> 
> Also, a recording should be viewed by artists as a record of their achievements that will last forever. We are appalled when great paintings or statues are defaced. Should not recordings of great music be accorded the same stature?


An unnecessary fuss,if you don't like live recordings don't buy them. 
Your comment about quality control was most amusing I thought.


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## brotagonist (Jul 11, 2013)

moody said:


> ...if you don't like live recordings don't buy them.


What a savvy idea! I'll keep it in mind.


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## Vaneyes (May 11, 2010)

Some live are good, some live are bad. I'll pick and choose, thank you.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Orchestral playing standards are so high today that live performances are almost indistinguishable from studio recorded ones, to my ears, at least. One thing I do think though is that recorded live performances should not be charged at premium prices, simply because they are incidental to a concert performance. One thing you didn't get with a live performance is the added frisson and danger on occasions. You do of course also get wrong notes but usually they are not enough to be distracting.
One problem can be coughs, as on the live Richter / Schreier Winterreise. This is surely one of the greatest performances ever put on disk of this work. Unfortunately it appears that several members of the audience and galloping bronchitis on that day. They should have given up cough sweets before the performance began.


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## Vaneyes (May 11, 2010)

I've never bought the premise that live recordings are inherently better than studio recs. I've listened to too many to agree to anything like that. 

I think we're more likely to get bad performances when they are recording live. One, players are certainly more nervous. Two, most conductors would like a correct performance, rather than a chance-taking performance, significantly reducing train-wreck scenario. This can result in cautious performances.

In spite of what Classics Today 10/10s say, great recordings are few and far between...whether live or studio. If a performance is great, it's great under almost any circumstances, and I'm glad to have them. Just so happens, significantly more are studio recs.

At one time, it was said that live recordings were pure and unadulterated product, in a sense that there was no editing. No more. 

Also thrown about, awful performances with abysmal sound and hacking being regularly touted because it happened live under so and so. Thankfully, live edits, and studio recs. came to the rescue.


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