# Do You Hear Mistakes When Listening?



## haydnguy (Oct 13, 2008)

I have always wondered if people that "know" about such things ever hear mistakes made by the performer on CD's.

I have assumed that in competitions with as many performers that perform that there would be occasional mistakes (even though I wouldn't recognize them) but I've wondered if there are mistakes on recordings.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

haydnguy said:


> I have always wondered if people that "know" about such things ever hear mistakes made by the performer on CD's.
> 
> I have assumed that in competitions with as many performers that perform that there would be occasional mistakes (even though I wouldn't recognize them) but I've wondered if there are mistakes on recordings.


The sort of mistakes that most people would notice are virtually always edited out of recordings. It was always a challenge back in the days of tape, requiring cutting and splicing, but is relatively easy on digital recordings. I have done semi-professional level digital editing for years and can easily edit in a few notes to cover errors. However, you can still run across occasional errors that are less noticeable such as on keyboard rapid runs. (The poor brass never get away with even subtle mistakes.)


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## David Phillips (Jun 26, 2017)

If you want to hear pianistic mistakes you should seek out a late Horovitz live performance of Schuman's 'Carnival' - it's a horror show.


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

haydnguy said:


> I have always wondered if people that "know" about such things ever hear mistakes made by the performer on CD's.


I have some CDs with obvious mistakes (like Schnabel's Hammerklavier and that poor horn's flub in Furtwangler's 1955 recording of Beethoven's 9th). But I have a few where the editor missed them, and it makes me feel like I'm special for catching it.

Marcus Creed has a wonderful CD of Brahms' motets, and in one of them, a soprano comes in two beats early. However, it actually works; first there is one high note, then all the other sopranos join in, and the effect is like turning a light on in a dim room.


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## Vasks (Dec 9, 2013)

In the last movement of Rach's Piano Concerto #3 (Cliburn & Kondrashin) the trumpet splats (or cracks, if you prefer) a note big time, but hey, it was a live recording and and as a trumpeter I can testify that splats happen...LOL!!


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Vasks said:


> In the last movement of Rach's Piano Concerto #3 (Cliburn & Kondrashin) the trumpet splats (or cracks, if you prefer) a note big time, but hey, it was a live recording and and as a trumpeter I can testify that splats happen...LOL!!


It was a live performance of course


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## goatygoatygoatgoat (May 28, 2018)

I hear a mistake on an otherwise excellent Sammartini disc. I'm no musician, but I can tell that near the end of the piece the violins aren't quite together. It's like a few of them can't catch up to the pace. It's a slight thing and otherwise I love the performance, but I always notice it.


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## BiscuityBoyle (Feb 5, 2018)

David Phillips said:


> If you want to hear pianistic mistakes you should seek out a late Horovitz live performance of Schuman's 'Carnival' - it's a horror show.


Or Gilels's Hammerklavier a year before his death in Moscow, though interpretatively it's one of the greatest versions.

I guess if you played the piano for a very long time reaching a certain level, and like to follow music with the score, you're bound to catch most instances even in music you never played, though it's definitely easier in Haydn than Hindemith...

Although there are certain recordings that I've grown up with without ever stopping to think whether they contain mistakes or not, where I was surprised when someone pointed them out.


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## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

All the time. Even the big boys screw up from time to time. I used to keep a log of errors on recordings, but gave up -- there are so many. There are some works that have big errors in the orchestral parts and it's always fun to hear if the conductor or player corrected it. The percussion section in Gergiev's recording of the Borodin 2nd (Philips) is a case in point. Cymbal and Bass Drum a bar off in the finale - no one, not even the producer caught it. Score is correct, btw.

Mahler 6 from Horenstein, Mahler 2 from Klemperer - maybe they had the same bass player who erroneously enters solo. On LP it never would have been heard, what with surface noise and such. But that was one of the dangers of CD transfer - no more hiding. And missing trombones in Mahler 9 with Bernstein and Berlin!!!

Another fun thing to listen for is external noise - it usually requires headphones. But you can hear people walking across the soundstage, ambulances, helicopters and all sorts of noise on recordings made in big cities. London seems to be especially prone to this.


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## goatygoatygoatgoat (May 28, 2018)

mbhaub said:


> Another fun thing to listen for is external noise - it usually requires headphones. But you can hear people walking across the soundstage, ambulances, helicopters and all sorts of noise on recordings made in big cities. London seems to be especially prone to this.


I once heard a dog barking in the background of a recording. That was back in the days of cassette tape, but I still don't know how they missed that.


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## Vasks (Dec 9, 2013)

mbhaub said:


> Another fun thing to listen for is external noise - it usually requires headphones. But you can hear people walking across the soundstage, ambulances, helicopters and all sorts of noise on recordings made in big cities. London seems to be especially prone to this.


The Copland/Boston Symphony RCA LP of Appalachian Spring & Tender Land Suites has a lovely ambiance. When I bought the CD version, you can hear the subway underneath Symphony Hall.


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## SalieriIsInnocent (Feb 28, 2008)

Well to err is human, I suppose. I like subtle mistakes in live performances. A break in a singer's voice. A squeak of a clarinet. It reminds us that even the greatest are still mortal. What I'm getting at, it makes me feel less poor as a musician to hear someone like Horowitz or Heifetz making a mistake.


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

Occasionally. Those that don't get edited out, usually when a player comes in the wrong time, but catches himself after a quick note.


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## senza sordino (Oct 20, 2013)

I'm not sure I can hear well played wrong notes, I don't know every piece note for note. But I can hear poorly played correct notes. A splat, buzz, plunk etc. I can hear poor intonation. And I can hear poorly articulated notes, bowing and fingering get a little muddled on the violin, as it's my instrument. And I can tell tell when someone comes in at the wrong time. 

At a concert a few years ago I think the trumpet player came in a bar early during Lt Kije by Prokofiev. But instead of stopping he played repeated quarter notes and then his tune started. At least that's what I think happened, I don't know the trumpet part note for note. To the untrained ear what he did went unnoticed, that's a professional recovery.


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

mbhaub said:


> Another fun thing to listen for is external noise - it usually requires headphones. But you can hear people walking across the soundstage, ambulances, helicopters and all sorts of noise on recordings made in big cities. London seems to be especially prone to this.


This is an interesting quote from James Buckhouse: In 1940, Wanda Landowski began to record a new set of Scarlatti sonatas in Paris. The Nazis invaded, but she did not move. Even as the bombs fell and the anti-aircraft artillery fire boomed through the streets, she did not break from her song. In an astonishing show of grit, you can hear the war break out in the background.

Listen to her play. She does not cower or demure. Not only does she refuse to flinch, she hits her notes delicately as the guns crack and then follows the line with a defiant punch towards resistance.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

I hear horn flubs a lot, and string intonation problems. Usually it's tuning problems I hear, notes being sharp or flat.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Yes. In addition to the late Horowitz recordings, noted above, there is Glenn Gould leaving out melody notes in Prokofiev's Sonata no. 7; probably just didn't bother to memorize it correctly. And I grew up in Pittsburgh, where at that time one could always count on the symphony's horn players to frak a few really exposed notes.


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

millionrainbows said:


> . Usually it's tuning problems I hear, notes being sharp or flat.


That's what bothers me about the brass in several of Jochum's Bruckner recordings with the Dresden Staatskapelle. The Dresden forces don't have that same problem with Kempe's Strauss recordings or the Beethoven cycle with Blomstedt.


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## Gosza2 (Jun 10, 2018)

It depends on the manner of making a mistake.

If a pianist is gifted enough, he can get away with mistakes, especially if the repertoire is unknown. But some performers get nervous while making mistakes, they stop playing and start searching for another fragment of the piece that they know better etc. In that case, mistakes are pretty obvious.


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## Merl (Jul 28, 2016)

I rarely notice them much. The most glaring thing I notice is usually tuning issues but if the performance is good otherwise I can overlook it to some extent.


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## David Phillips (Jun 26, 2017)

SalieriIsInnocent said:


> Well to err is human, I suppose. I like subtle mistakes in live performances. A break in a singer's voice. A squeak of a clarinet. It reminds us that even the greatest are still mortal. What I'm getting at, it makes me feel less poor as a musician to hear someone like Horowitz or Heifetz making a mistake.


Heifetz made a mistake????????????????


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## Gordontrek (Jun 22, 2012)

I do notice them, but I usually ignore them unless they're glaring. They're easier to notice with solo instruments like piano and violin; with those I start to pay more attention if the performer makes a lot of them. For orchestral recordings I actively pay attention to intonation, so that's what I'm most sensitive to. But even then, it takes City of Prague Philharmonic-caliber badness to turn me off of a recording.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

There are mistakes in the trumpets in Karajan's BPO recording of Strauss' Domestic Symphony. They were pointed out to HvK at the time but he didn't do any retakes as he thought the performance was fine as it was.


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## Heck148 (Oct 27, 2016)

haydnguy said:


> I have always wondered if people that "know" about such things ever hear mistakes made by the performer on CD's.
> I have assumed that in competitions with as many performers that perform that there would be occasional mistakes (even though I wouldn't recognize them) but I've wondered if there are mistakes on recordings.


Yes, all the time...I'm sure one can find mistakes on every recording, if that's what one is concentrating on....most of these will be very minor, and not at all obvious...
I've spent much of my musical career listening to orchestra auditions, solo competitions, All- state tryouts, etc, etc...in that role, you are always listening for mistakes or inaccuracies...
for professionally released recordings, these may be section entrances not quite together, slight errors in intonation that are quickly corrected, a balance problem, etc...sometimes time simply runs out in the recording studio, and it is not possible to address every little blemish....


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## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

Gordontrek said:


> But even then, it takes City of Prague Philharmonic-caliber badness to turn me off of a recording.


So true. I have a lot of movie soundtracks they recorded and the sloppiness and lack of ensemble is remarkable. Ok, so they probably didn't have a lot of rehearsal time and made these recordings on the cheap, but yikes!


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## Pat Fairlea (Dec 9, 2015)

I notice the occasional minor mistake and generally ignore them if the performance is otherwise good. Similarly, I enjoy listening to Jeno Jando playing Beethoven Sonatas without being put off by his often-audible humming.

BUT!! On the car radio yesterday I heard a performance of a well-known piece in which the trumpets were bubbling and splatting almost from the opening bar. That would have been bad in any work. But it was Copeland's Fanfare for the Common Man!


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Ooh, I just heard one! In this performance, at :54, Valentina Lisitsa plays C# (5th finger LH) instead of C natural. It is clearly intentional as she does this in the repeat and in the recap (F# instead of F natural). The C# is perfectly plausible and not theoretically wrong in any way, but since I can't find an edition that has this variant I'm calling it a mistake. Am I missing something?


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