# Multi-tracking in Classical Recordings? Discuss.



## Guest (May 30, 2015)

I recently acquired this recording of Mendelssohn's Octet for double string quartet recorded by the Emerson Quartet:
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Upon my first listen I immediately knew it was the best recording of the piece I had heard so far, at least better than the 4 others that I have in my collection. I opening the liner notes expecting to see guest musicians but they weren't listed. Then further reading revealed that the Emerson Quartet had recorded both quartet parts through multi-tracking.

I am torn. I hesitate to put this recording at the top of my list because I feel that classical music is meant to be played in a live ensemble. If you take HIP to it's extreme, classical music should not be recorded at all. So on the other hand, if we take advantage of recording technology, which we all do, why not take advantage of all of it's capabilities?

I'm very interested in hearing TC Member's opinions on this subject. To clarify, I'm talking about pre-recording-era compositions. After Edison invented the phonograph, composer's mindset and intentions regarding performance changed.


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## Triplets (Sep 4, 2014)

I agree that the concept is troublesome. Heifetz did this 50 years ago playing both parts of a Bach Double Concerto. What joy is there duetting with yourself?


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

I think that's a bit of a swizz, personally - as that composition was specifically written for eight musicians then surely it's not asking too much for eight musicians to record it.


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## ptr (Jan 22, 2013)

Whatever makes a good recording is fine with me! Even if I usually prefer live recordings with as little editing as pos, gives the whole thing just a little bit more nerve!

/ptr


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## D Smith (Sep 13, 2014)

What would Mendelssohn have thought? Who knows, but if the recording is as good as you've said, he probably would have been pleased. Personally I much prefer live recordings as well as unedited ones. The Emerson's own Shostakovich cycle recorded live is among my very favourites. I will try and give this one a listen though.


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

What possible other musicians could be as en rapport as the three others one already plays with extensively? Of course it would sound great. What is the aversion to it? It wasn't written to be overdubbed, but I'd bet good money it wasn't written to be recorded at all.


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## brotagonist (Jul 11, 2013)

There are many recordings of Mendelssohn's Octet on the market. By doing what they did, the Emerson's have made theirs unique.


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## papsrus (Oct 7, 2014)

Jerome said:


> ... I hesitate to put this recording at the top of my list because I feel that classical music is meant to be played in a live ensemble. If you take HIP to it's extreme, classical music should not be recorded at all. So on the other hand, if we take advantage of recording technology, which we all do, why not take advantage of all of it's capabilities? ....


I would not regard the recording you have as a "performance" of the piece, because it isn't. It is a "recording" of the piece assembled in such a way as to simulate a performance. That's not to say it can't be pleasing to listen to. But in assessing whether it should be at the top of your list you need to first decide if you place more importance on "performance" (input) or "recording" (output).

Course, then we get into the somewhat fuzzier area of separate performances of the same piece being spliced together to assemble a single recording. These aren't single performances, but they aren't purposefully assembled in a way that is meant to "simulate" a single performance either. They're somewhere in between.

But this is why Celibidache rejected recordings. The performance was paramount to him. The recording was an inadequate facsimile of an actual musical event (the concert). Cage is at the other extreme, where splicing becomes an integral part of the performance.


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## Guest (Jun 1, 2015)

Weston said:


> It wasn't written to be overdubbed, but I'd bet good money it wasn't written to be recorded at all.


I think I already made that point. But you are right that the Emerson Quartet playing with themselves, so to speak, makes for excellent chemistry. What I think is best about this recording, in comparison to the others I have, is that all the parts seem to be so in sync and responsive to each other.


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## Albert7 (Nov 16, 2014)




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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Hmmm, nobody's mentioned the obvious. By doing it this way, the Emerson chaps get to split the take four ways, not eight.


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## isorhythm (Jan 2, 2015)

Interesting question. I want to say that whatever sounds good is fine, but it rubs me the wrong way, too, and I'm not sure why. I guess ideally ensemble music is supposed to be a live dialogue between separate personalities, even if it's recorded in a studio. I'm curious to hear this - I'll try to track it down.


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## Heliogabo (Dec 29, 2014)

Albert7 said:


>


Yes, Bill Evans, did it here. One of Glenn Gould´s favorite recordings, by the way. Who was never afraid of multi-trackings affaires...


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## mtmailey (Oct 21, 2011)

I think because the studios are out just to make money so they do multi track recordings.


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## DebussyDoesDallas (Jan 11, 2014)

As someone who listens some rock, prog, and metal music that's recorded and multi-tracked painstakingly--one could say artificially--to achieve sonic and technical perfection (arguably at the expense of live performance energy, feel, and authenticity)...I'm similarly torn. 

The art of studio recording is to trick the listener into believing that the musicians are all in one room performing together when they're not. It's a suspension of disbelief, faking the experience of the ideal live performance meticulously captured. But it's largely smoke and mirrors. Even before auto-tune and Pro Tools, engineers could splice tape and performers could sit alone for hours re-playing parts. And then the engineer adds, effect, EQ, etc. to the final mix. It feels weird to apply this modern pop music technology to 16-19th century concert music. Not to be purist or dogmatic, but ro me there's something intrinsic to the chamber music aesthetic that calls for live performance, interplay, and spontaneity.

But imagine: You could record a string quartet with each player coming to the studio on a different day to record each part and never meeting each other. (Let's say they rehearsed intensively beforehand to agree on the interpretation and dynamics). After the individual recording sessions, the engineer could slice and dice the best bits into the perfect individual take of each part, and then mix it meticulous, and then lather on studio magic (reverb, auto-tune, cut and paste slightly off beat attacks, tweak a pp here, compress a ff there). All of this under the supervision of the quartet to meet their exact specifications, over the course of weeks. Totally **** to the max to make it PERFECT.

It would be interesting if such a recorded existed, whether a listener could hear the difference in a blind listening test--or be able to spot the imposter, so to speak? Would the result fool the sensitive listener into believing it the ultimate live performance?


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## Nereffid (Feb 6, 2013)

Multi-tracking doesn't bother me.
As the OP says, "If you take HIP to it's extreme, classical music should not be recorded at all."
The "step too far" for some seems to be multi-tracking, but AFAIC once you've accepted the notion of a recording as a valid way to listen to a piece of music, you've already crossed the most significant line. 
If one were to somehow tell Mendelssohn that people could now sit alone in a room and listen to a performance that had taken place decades previously, I don't think the additional fact that the octet could be played by just 4 people would be the most surprising thing.
So I'm OK with embracing further artificiality - especially given that the OP acknowledges that the results (in this case) are superior.


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## papsrus (Oct 7, 2014)

Nereffid said:


> ... If one were to somehow tell Mendelssohn that people could now sit alone in a room and listen to a performance that had taken place decades previously, I don't think the additional fact that the octet could be played by just 4 people would be the most surprising thing. ...


Hah, yeah, you're right, I'm sure. But what if you took it a step further and told Mendelssohn you could listen to an octet played by just one (very talented) person? Or another step further and told Mendelssohn you could listen to a full orchestral piece played by just one violinist (dubbed over and over to simulate a full violin section), one viola, one cello, one horn, etc? All recorded and layered over top of one another at different times and in places? Or further still and told him the entire piece could be electronically reproduced with no musicians involved at all?

He'd probably be blown away by the possibilities of technology. But I wonder if he'd view the recordings as faithful to the intentions of the composer.

What the Emerson Quartet did with this recording is I'm sure a pleasure to listen to. But surely something is lost by abridging or altering the actual performance of it. If, for instance, there's a call and response thing going on, only half of that process is really happening. The other half is a static recorded track. And that's where something may be lost here.


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## GreenMamba (Oct 14, 2012)

papsrus said:


> What the Emerson Quartet did with this recording is I'm sure a pleasure to listen to. But surely something is lost by abridging or altering the actual performance of it. If, for instance, there's a call and response thing going on, only half of that process is really happening. The other half is a static recorded track. And that's where something may be lost here.


What is lost? You say call and response, but that's still there. The performers are hearing the first track when they record the second. And it's not like they're supposed to be ad-libbing.

The test case is this: could you tell the recording was multi-tracked without being told? For the OP in this instance, the answer seems to be no.

If the answer is no, then does it matter?


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## Nereffid (Feb 6, 2013)

papsrus said:


> He'd probably be blown away by the possibilities of technology. But I wonder if he'd view the recordings as faithful to the intentions of the composer.


The technology is so alien to Mendelssohn's time that we can't realistically speculate how it squares with the composer's intentions. One could equally argue that the possibility of constructing a performance note-by-note to produce an ideal one would be a level of control that a composer might welcome.


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## papsrus (Oct 7, 2014)

GreenMamba said:


> What is lost? You say call and response, but that's still there. The performers are hearing the first track when they record the second. And it's not like they're supposed to be ad-libbing.


I suppose my own view is that (non-solo) music is a dynamic interaction between, or among, two or more musicians. They are responding to one another in real time. It may be a distinction without a difference in the end. Or it may not be. One thing that is certain is that this is not a complete performance of the piece but rather a facsimile of a performance that has been pieced together.

This is not a judgment of the recording, which I'm sure is wonderful.



GreenMamba said:


> The test case is this: could you tell the recording was multi-tracked without being told? For the OP in this instance, the answer seems to be no.
> 
> If the answer is no, then does it matter?


I'm not sure that if the answer is "no" then it does not matter. But it's a good question. I can only repeat that if the entire recording was produced -- perfectly -- using no musicians at all but rather electronic simulation of the sound of violins, cellos, etc., would it matter?


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## papsrus (Oct 7, 2014)

Nereffid said:


> The technology is so alien to Mendelssohn's time that we can't realistically speculate how it squares with the composer's intentions. *One could equally argue that the possibility of constructing a performance note-by-note to produce an ideal one would be a level of control that a composer might welcome.*


That may be. He may like the possibilities very much.

But there's no question that digitally recreating a piece of music note by note would differ greatly from the composer's original intent as we know it, because Mendelssohn couldn't conceive of modern technology. So, all we have to go by is the score, which doesn't say, "record this part, then play it back and dub over the other part."

Anyways, it's interesting theoretically, and I'm not all evangelical about it, because in the end it's perhaps not that important to the listener. But there is at least a possibility that something is lost in such a recording. Course, something might be gained, too.


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## michaels (Oct 3, 2014)

I find it curious that the OP feels almost guilty for liking what he likes. 

I have no problem with multi-track or studio ensemble recordings for smaller ensembles at all, in fact I think the OP has shown that they can be superior when done right and there's nothing to be ashamed of whatsoever. 

That said, I too prefer a "live recording" with coughs, chairs moving and all because it puts me "there" when I close my eyes, but I also know of people (here on TC!) who have never seen & heard classical music performed live: their *only* experience with the love of classical music is recorded! A certain kind of blasphemy IMHO, but they clearly love and enjoy it through speakers (although I long to get them in front of the actual artists and change their world!)


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## GreenMamba (Oct 14, 2012)

papsrus said:


> 'm not sure that if the answer is "no" then it does not matter. But it's a good question. I can only repeat that if the entire recording was produced -- perfectly -- using no musicians at all but rather electronic simulation of the sound of violins, cellos, etc., would it matter?


I think this goes back to a point Nefferid made about Mendelssohn not being able to conceive of the technology.

Even today, we struggle to believe that they could really produce a purely electronic recording that sounded like live instruments, so it's hard for us to say, yes, that would be acceptable.

Anyway, I think no recordings sound as good as live, and the gap between live and recorded is larger than the gap between "true" recordings and multi-tracked, edited, etc. ones.


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## Guest (Jun 4, 2015)

DebussyDoesDallas said:


> As someone who listens some rock, prog, and metal music that's recorded and multi-tracked painstakingly--one could say artificially--to achieve sonic and technical perfection (arguably at the expense of live performance energy, feel, and authenticity)...I'm similarly torn.
> 
> The art of studio recording is to trick the listener into believing that the musicians are all in one room performing together when they're not. It's a suspension of disbelief, faking the experience of the ideal live performance meticulously captured. But it's largely smoke and mirrors. Even before auto-tune and Pro Tools, engineers could splice tape and performers could sit alone for hours re-playing parts. And then the engineer adds, effect, EQ, etc. to the final mix. It feels weird to apply this modern pop music technology to 16-19th century concert music. Not to be purist or dogmatic, but ro me there's something intrinsic to the chamber music aesthetic that calls for live performance, interplay, and spontaneity.
> 
> ...


Thankfully, there is not enough money to be made in classical music for that to happen. It is what I dislike most about today's pop. Half the music is simulated electronically, and when there are real musicians or singers, they don't have to have talent because technology will cover it all up.

I have to say that I have decided to love the recording and it is my choice for the Mendelssohn Octet. But also, it marks a sticky wick that I hope is not a turning point toward less musicians performing music that was meant for musicians - not computers - to perform.


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## Guest (Jun 5, 2015)

I don't have an issue with this at all.

:tiphat:


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

I don't feel 'torn' by watching this, I feel thoroughly entertained. I also feel entertained when I hear Emerson Quartet's recording of the Mendelssohn octet. It certainly isn't live, but that isn't a bad thing. It sounds good, doesn't it? It's a good portrayal/interpretation of a piece of music right? What's the fuss?


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