# Really weird question re: Beethoven's Op. 130 quartet.



## MarkW

For many years my favorite performance of Beethoven's late B-flat quartet, Op. 130 (with or without the fugue finale) has been that ca.1970 by the Quartetto Italiano on Philips. Although I have never listened to it closely enough to swear to it, my impression about their repeat of the very long first movement exposition is that it is identical enough to the first go-round that the engineers could have slipped it in twice and manufactured the entire repeat. Now, I don't know that is ever done or has ever been done (recording engineers can be crafty buggers), but this instance always, to me, prompts the question. Anyone with better ears than me know the recording well enough to assure me that because of ________ they are clearly circling through the section twice? And anyone know if something like that has ever been faked in the editing room?

cheers --


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## KenOC

An interesting question! I don't know if engineers have ever inserted expo repeats, but I have certainly edited them out! Though in Schubert, not Beethoven.


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## Vasks

KenOC said:


> but I have certainly edited them out! Though in Schubert


Finagling Franz ...FIE!


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## Guest

I think it is routine for the exposition repeat to be an editing job. I was listening to Karajan's Philharmonia Beethoven 5, and I thought I detected subtle signs of an edit in the exposition, and the same edit in the exposition repeat. I think most "studio" recordings are assembled from 'takes' that are a few minutes long, typically. Orchestral recording, especially, is very expensive and the producers will do whatever they can to get the music down in as little orchestra time as humanly possible.

I find this a disappointment, because playing a repeat there is an opportunity for the conductor to interpret the music differently. At least in baroque music, keyboard performers often take advantage of the repeat to vary ornamentation.


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## mikeh375

I actually have the wherewithal to determine if editing has taken place within my DAW. It'd be easy enough to record the 2 sections, line them up and listen to them together. Listening would immediately highlight subtle shifts in timing if there wasn't an edit. Conversely if the music was locked tight after a while and phasing, it would suggest the repeat was, well, audio wise, just that.

Whilst editing is a fact of recording life, musicians are intensely proud and are not terribly keen on the process - that is the ones I worked with - especially in classical music. Still, sometimes there's no option.


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## Open Book

I hate to think of studio recordings being done in takes though I know it happens. It seems like real fraud to re-insert the first section as a repeat.

I have an old LP of the Beethoven sonatas with Perlman and Ashkenzay in which the seams show at one point. There's a glitch where two sections they were trying to stitch together didn't quite meet up - I'm certain it wasn't a flaw in the vinyl. Unfortunately I still hear it that way in my head. I wonder if they ever fixed it in later editions.


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## Guest

Open Book said:


> I hate to think of studio recordings being done in takes though I know it happens. It seems like real fraud to re-insert the first section as a repeat.


Recordings are like sausage, best not to think too much about what goes into them...


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## millionrainbows

mikeh375 said:


> I actually have the wherewithal to determine if editing has taken place within my DAW. It'd be easy enough to record the 2 sections, line them up and listen to them together. Listening would immediately highlight subtle shifts in timing if there wasn't an edit. Conversely if the music was locked tight after a while and phasing, it would suggest the repeat was, well, audio wise, just that.


Do it! Do it!

I would, but I don't have the disc.


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## millionrainbows

Baron Scarpia said:


> Recordings are like sausage, best not to think too much about what goes into them...


I think that's a damn good philosophy, and I'm going to start applying it!


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## Quartetfore

MarkW said:


> For many years my favorite performance of Beethoven's late B-flat quartet, Op. 130 (with or without the fugue finale) has been that ca.1970 by the Quartetto Italiano on Philips. Although I have never listened to it closely enough to swear to it, my impression about their repeat of the very long first movement exposition is that it is identical enough to the first go-round that the engineers could have slipped it in twice and manufactured the entire repeat. Now, I don't know that is ever done or has ever been done (recording engineers can be crafty buggers), but this instance always, to me, prompts the question. Anyone with better ears than me know the recording well enough to assure me that because of ________ they are clearly circling through the section twice? And anyone know if something like that has ever been faked in the editing room?
> 
> cheers --


That it is an interesting question. I have two recordings of the work,the Quartetto Italiano and the Takacs Quartet. the Takacs is a bit longer but not by much. Why would the engineers do it, I can`t think of any reason to do so. If you look at the timings of other recordings, they all take just about the same time--42 min.


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## Open Book

Quartetfore said:


> That it is an interesting question. I have two recordings of the work,the Quartetto Italiano and the Takacs Quartet. the Takacs is a bit longer but not by much. Why would the engineers do it, I can`t think of any reason to do so. If you look at the timings of other recordings, they all take just about the same time--42 min.


You do realize that the repeat is standard? It's not having the repeat that's in question, it's that the engineers literally repeated it - they used the first take of that passage and spliced it in as the repeat rather than have the quartet record that music a second time. This is quite artificial and if the listener is astute enough to notice it, it's bothersome.

What has timing got to do with anything? Different groups play at different tempos and total performance time can vary considerably.


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## Larkenfield

“Although I have never listened to it closely enough to swear to it, my impression about their repeat of the very long first movement exposition is that it is identical enough to the first go-round that the engineers could have slipped it in twice and manufactured the entire repeat.”

OK, but there may still be doubt and you may still be guessing that it’s an exact repeat. I’ve never heard it done on any recording that I could tell. The only thing that would interest me is hearing the original recording that you’re referring to and listening for myself. If the exact same repeat is used it begs the question of why the original repeat was not included in the first place, and it would seem to me that a quality recording would never attempt to get by with such a deception of splicing in an exact repeat, plus sometimes editing of a tape splice can be noticeable in recordings of that era.


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## Quartetfore

Open Book said:


> You do realize that the repeat is standard? It's not having the repeat that's in question, it's that the engineers literally repeated it - they used the first take of that passage and spliced it in as the repeat rather than have the quartet record that music a second time. This is quite artificial and if the listener is astute enough to notice it, it's bothersome.
> 
> What has timing got to do with anything? Different groups play at different tempos and total performance time can vary considerably.


Thank you for for the the interesting information, I will try to remember it.


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## MarkW

Possible reasons: Again, I'm not arguing that it happened, but I can think of quasi-legitimate circumstances under which such a thing could happen, other than just laziness. Like the Quartet could have played it through straight, but later, as the producer and engineers were preparing the master tape, they became aware of an all but unnoticeable flaw in the performance that only perfectionist listeners would note (and, once noted, never miss), and somehow the Quartet passed over as unimportant, but now they were on tour in Bratislava, so the engineers faked a solution, assuming that no one would notice.


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## Open Book

MarkW said:


> Like the Quartet could have played it through straight, but later, as the producer and engineers were preparing the master tape, they became aware of an all but unnoticeable flaw in the performance that only perfectionist listeners would note (and, once noted, never miss)


Not that you are wrong, but such a perfectionist listener would likely also note an exact duplicate of a passage. Which is worse?


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## Guest

It is apparent that many listeners live in a fantasy world where a Beethoven Symphony, Piano Concerto, Piano Sonata, movement is recorded in one continuous "take." That doesn't happen. Any modern recording is assembled from many different takes.

Here's a story I read about a recording of Mozart Concerto No 23 by Abbado/Grimaud. Grimaud prepared for the recording using the Busoni cadenza. They recorded it that way. At the end of the session Abbado insisted that the Mozart cadenza is superior. He bullied her into _trying_ it even though she had not prepared it. She went to her dressing room to practice it and came out and did two run throughs. Unknown to her the engineers had the microphones on. She left with the agreement that the Busoni cadenza should be used. Later, Abbado contacted DG and instructed them to produce the final master with the Busoni cadenza (without Grimaud's knowledge). Only after they had done this did Grimaud find out, and she vetoed the release of the recording and canceled all future collaboration with Abbado.

Two lessons:

1) Abbado, in addition to being talentless, was a sociopathic piece of trash.
2) Modern classical recordings are assembled on a digital editing console like a jigsaw puzzle.

https://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/31/...aud-and-claudio-abbado-part-ways.html?_r=1&hp


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## MarkW

Open Book said:


> Not that you are wrong, but such a perfectionist listener would likely also note an exact duplicate of a passage. Which is worse?


Depends upon whether it was my wife or not.


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## Reichstag aus LICHT

MarkW said:


> ...the Quartet could have played it through straight, but later, as the producer and engineers were preparing the master tape, they became aware of an all but unnoticeable flaw in the performance...[and] faked a solution


Or a recording glitch/damage to the tape, perhaps? Seems feasible to me.

(I've done something similar with a recording of one of Handel's Organ Concertos, where there was a glitch in the orchestral introduction, so I patched it with a copy of a repeat.)


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## isorhythm

If it's to cover some flaw in the repeat they played, why wouldn't they just splice over the part with the flaw, not the whole thing?

It makes no sense to me that anyone would do this, as exposition repeats are optional - if including the repeat were an artistic choice, then the artists would play it.


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## MarkW

isorhythm said:


> If it's to cover some flaw in the repeat they played, why wouldn't they just splice over the part with the flaw, not the whole thing?
> 
> It makes no sense to me that anyone would do this, as exposition repeats are optional - if including the repeat were an artistic choice, then the artists would play it.


'Again, I'm not advocating that this is what happened. Only that to my ear the two sections are note-wise, phrase-wise, balance-wise, and interpretivley identical. Which may be no problem to a good professional ensemble, but it did beg the question. No harm in asking.


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## Open Book

When you traverse a passage repeatedly, it makes artistic sense to want to have subtle differences between the instances. Not the exact same thing each time. A sense of "Yes, we've been here before, but now I/we see it slightly differently".

But I can picture engineers inserting an exact repeat to meet a schedule because time matters, time is money.


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## Triplets

Baron Scarpia said:


> It is apparent that many listeners live in a fantasy world where a Beethoven Symphony, Piano Concerto, Piano Sonata, movement is recorded in one continuous "take." That doesn't happen. Any modern recording is assembled from many different takes.
> 
> Here's a story I read about a recording of Mozart Concerto No 23 by Abbado/Grimaud. Grimaud prepared for the recording using the Busoni cadenza. They recorded it that way. At the end of the session Abbado insisted that the Mozart cadenza is superior. He bullied her into _trying_ it even though she had not prepared it. She went to her dressing room to practice it and came out and did two run throughs. Unknown to her the engineers had the microphones on. She left with the agreement that the Busoni cadenza should be used. Later, Abbado contacted DG and instructed them to produce the final master with the Busoni cadenza (without Grimaud's knowledge). Only after they had done this did Grimaud find out, and she vetoed the release of the recording and canceled all future collaboration with Abbado.
> 
> Two lessons:
> 
> 1) Abbado, in addition to being talentless, was a sociopathic piece of trash.
> 2) Modern classical recordings are assembled on a digital editing console like a jigsaw puzzle.
> 
> https://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/31/...aud-and-claudio-abbado-part-ways.html?_r=1&hp


Abbado was certainly a control freak, and there are many stories about this. However, I certainly wouldn't describe him as "talentless ".


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## Triplets

During the era of 78 r.p.m. recordings each side of a shellac disc could only approximate about four minutes of music, and purchased recordings could be quite bulky for the consumer as well as as nerve wracking for musicians to record in short intervals. It was therefore common to not record the repeats, but instead the notes for the purchaser would instruct them to play a previous side before moving on. Modern digital restorations of these recordings usually add the side so that the listener doesn’t have to


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## Heck148

MarkW said:


> .....Now, I don't know that is ever done or has ever been done (recording engineers can be crafty buggers), but this instance always, to me, prompts the question. Anyone with better ears than me know the recording well enough to assure me that because of ________ they are clearly circling through the section twice? And anyone know if something like that has ever been faked in the editing room?


They used to do this in the 78 rpm days - esp with ABA form scherzi....play A section, then the B Trio section, then put on the A disc again for the A section repeat!!...


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## Heck148

Open Book said:


> I hate to think of studio recordings being done in takes though I know it happens. It seems like real fraud to re-insert the first section as a repeat.


Some conductors and performers do all short takes and paste it together....Ormandy was famous for this...his musicians hated it, but they liked the $$ for royalties!! "10 measures and stop, 10 measures and stop" ad nauseam....then they'd paste the whole thing together....advantage is that most little blurps and flaws can be eliminated, the downside, you don't get the musical flow, the ongoing drama and current of the performance...
other conductors - ie - Toscanini, Reiner - liked to record in whole chunks, big sections...let it flow, and get it recorded...
there are some famous Reiner single take recordings - his 1960 Don Juan [Chicago], '56 Till Eulenspiegel [VPO], and the final mvts of Scheherazade and Pines of Rome [CSO]


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## Open Book

What's disturbing about short takes is that the musicians have to turn their feelings on and off on cue. How can they build up to anything that way? Somehow they usually manage. They're pros.


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