There’s a notion among audiophiles that we must be regular consumers of live music, especially live acoustic music. It’s the only way, the thinking goes, to calibrate our ears to the sound we should all be aspiring to at home.
This notion persists despite some deep and obvious flaws. For one thing, it doesn’t matter what live acoustic music sounds like if that sound isn’t captured on the recording we’re listening to—it usually isn’t—and it’s impossible to know whether it has been or not. The very notion that grooves on a record or bits in a file even have a sound independent of the means of reproduction is questionable except as an abstraction or, at best, an unapproachable ideal. The only people who have a chance of knowing what a recording sounds like—how close it comes to live—are people who were there when the recording was made, especially the recording engineers. Even for them, there are issues.
In the studio, the engineer is usually behind glass, monitoring electronically. For onsite recordings, the engineer may occupy the same acoustic space as the musicians, but she’s usually not where the mikes are. (For multimiked recordings, forget about it.) The recording engineer can only compare what’s recorded to what she heard live via a particular monitoring system. Maybe it sounds live when played back on that system, but what’s it gonna sound like played back in 1000 listening rooms, on very different gear?
An even better reason for rejecting this live-is-better idea is that a good engineer can do better than live. By putting a microphone (or stereo pair) right next to an instrument and another—or more than one—farther out in the hall, she can capture both the intimate, up-close sound—wood, gut, rosin—and the ambience. It may not be natural, but it sounds natural, and it’s an aspect of sound I value highly.
As a regular consumer of live music, I’m comfortable saying that this in-principle preference for live music is a pretention, an affectation. There are plenty of reasons to prefer recorded music. In my listening space, I rarely have guests who wear perfume that burns the nose and eyes. Nor do I hear cell phones ringing, nor that listener in the row behind me incessantly rubbing his program, cicada-like. I get to play whatever music I want, including great performances by long-dead musicians.
Last night, I visited Carnegie Hall for the first time since the pandemic started. I was reminded of how little I’ve been missing.
The performer was Denis Matsuev, a Russian pianist of astonishing skill. (This was before the Ukraine invasion, after which, Matsuev was banished from Carnegie Hall and the West.) The program included two late Beethoven sonatas—Opp.110 and 111—then, after intermission, Schumann’s Kinderszenen and Rachmaninoff’s second sonata. The mask mandate was still in effect—another reason to prefer home listening.
Matsuev must have had dinner reservations, or maybe he was pissed about the protesters outside, objecting to his advocacy of Putin’s Crimea and Ukraine policies. He stormed onto the stage and, after a cursory bow, started playing Op.110 before the audience had settled. (The audience should have already been settled, I thought to myself, resentfully. Such petty resentments are yet another reason to prefer home listening.)
It had been a long time since I’d heard a piano at Carnegie Hall. I was surprised how much of the piano I heard from Row U. The highs were sparkly, and when Matsuev dug into the lower part of the keyboard, I got more than a hint of that New York Steinway grunt. But, compared to what I’m used to at home, the music was muddled. My ticket cost more than $100, and I was too far from the stage.
After he finished Op.110, Matsuev stalked off the stage, the audience still applauding. He was offstage no more than five seconds . He took another cursory bow, sat, and started playing Op.111. The audience was still applauding Op.110.
A few minutes into the massive second movement, Matsuev lost focus. A cell phone went off somewhere in the hall—not loud, but audible. This being Carnegie Hall, every few minutes a subway train rumbled through. Matsuev finished and stormed off the stage.
Despite that cell phone, the audience was fairly well-behaved before the break. (A Carnegie Hall audience is usually a mix of sophisticated music lovers, society folk, and curious tourists; in this case, most of the tourists were speaking Russian.) Quite a few people had departed during the intermission, yet now, after, there was more coughing, sneezing, and object-dropping than before. In the row directly behind me, another ringer went off; it was silenced quickly. During a quiet passage, a metal cane wielded by a woman to my right clattered to the floor.
Kinderszenen is a lovely piece, but much of it was lost on its journey to Row U; I kept wanting to turn up the volume. Matsuev stormed through the Rach, demonstrating serious chops. It was one of those performances where, if you watched the pianist’s hands, you’d see a blur. I was on the wrong side and too far back.
It was only toward the end of the concert that I recognized what had been bothering me most. Throughout the performance, ushers in red jackets roamed the aisles, up and down, policing COVID masks and (especially) phones. People who keep their phones on during classical concerts make me angry—yet the presence of enforcers was chilling. They might as well have slapped billy clubs into their palms.
Next week, I’m hearing the Philadelphia Orchestra play Beethoven’s Symphonies Nos.1 and 9, also at Carnegie Hall. “Ode to Joy” should make a perfect sendoff to this hellish era we’ve just lived through. Here’s hoping Carnegie Hall’s management keeps the enforcers sequestered for at least the final movement—or, better, that the music’s spirit transcends that oppressiveness and makes the live audience feel appropriately joyous. Fingers crossed.
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