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24
Preserving Music Performances
Music Preserved – a new archive. Performance
Practice and Audience Expectations – have they changed? Archive-videos.
The Oral History of Musicians in Britain.
Once it became possible to record
in their own homes some music lovers began making off-air recordings
of broadcasts of studio performances and relays of public concerts.
The first recordings were made on acetate discs, on which the recordings
sound quality was rather poor and only about four minutes music could
be recorded. From the early 1950s open reel tape machines were used
until the cassette tape recording machine arrived around 1965 which
made it easy to make recordings lasting 30 or 45 minutes with a very
acceptable standard of reproduction. From then on home off-air recording
really took off and a great many tape recordings were made of every
kind of music. It is fortunate that though until 1988 it was illegal
to record off-air at all it does not seem to have acted as a deterrent.
Had it done so a great many jazz and serious music performances that
remain available for study and enjoyment would have been lost for
ever. Being illegal these recordings remained hidden in people’s homes,
as have those made since 1988 when the law was changed to allow home
off-air recording for one’s own private use. In spite of it being
illegal to make off-air recordings, through one of those strange loopholes
in the law it was perfectly legal to sell equipment that combined
a radio and two tape decks. This not only provided the facility for
recording off-air but also for copying from one cassette tape to another
making it simple for tape collectors to make copies and exchange tapes
with each other.
I had never had any interest in collecting
recordings of any kind so I was unaware of this until 1980, when a
few months after I had been appointed Director of the NCOS I received
a letter from a member of the Royal Opera House Orchestra. Jon Tolansky
had been making and collecting tapes since he was a boy and had over
7000 acetate disks, open-reel and analogue tapes of public performances
dating back to 1933. His house had recently been struck by lightning
and though only a small number of his recordings had been damaged
he was frightened by this event and was looking for somewhere safer
to store his collection. He was enquiring whether the NCOS might have
room.. In fact the NCOS did not have any suitable accommodation for
his collection, but none-the-less I was intrigued by his request and
arranged to meet him.
When we met Tolansky brought some
of his treasured recordings with him. They were all recordings of
public performances, some of which he knew I had taken part in: Mahler’s
Symphony No.1 with the LPO conducted by Bruno Walter in 1947; a performance
of Berlioz’s Grande Messe des Morts played by the BBC
Symphony Orchestra conducted by Sir Thomas Beecham, also in 1947;
Otto Klemperer conducting Don Juan and Till Eulenspiegel,
both by Richard Strauss, with the Philharmonia at a concert in
the Royal Festival Hall in 1958. He also brought the recording of
the wonderful concert in 1965 when Stravinsky conducted the Philharmonia
in a performance of his own suite (the 1945 version)from Firebird;
and a recording of the occasion when in 1948 Kathleen Ferrier
joined Sir Adrian Boult and the BBC Symphony Orchestra for a performance
of Mahler’s Third Symphony.
It seemed to me that here were
outstanding performances, with all the immediacy and interpretative
improvisationary elements heard at a ‘live’ performance. They should
not only be saved to preserve our cultural and music heritage for
future generations, but be available in an archive where the public,
students and researchers could listen to them. If this was to become
possible it would first be necessary to convince the Musicians’ Union
of their value and that they would not become a threat to their members.
The MU had never been really happy
about recordings from the start. Recordings were always seen as a
potential threat and though they represented a new and lucrative avenue
of employment for a small number of its members, it feared that records
could be used to replace many more. They were particularly opposed
to any attempt to make on-site or off-air recordings unless their
members received an additional payment for this service. With the
advent of tape recordings and long-playing records that allowed long
stretches of music to be recorded their fears were realised: over
the years recorded music did substantially reduce the employment available
to musicians in broadcasting – all commercial broadcasting stations
rely virtually entirely on commercial recordings – and also for those
who played for dancing.
Music Preserved
When Jon Tolansky and I met the executive
committee of the MU we were able to persuade them of the extent and
value of his collection, and eventually they agreed to allow him to
retain it even though it was six years before the law was to be amended.
The MU agreed to co-operate in seeking a way by which on-site recordings
of concerts and opera could be made for an archive. They succeeded
in convincing the Mechanical Copyright Protection Society (MCPS),
representing the interests of composers and publishers, as well as
Equity the actors union, to which many singers were members, to join
in this project. It took another five years of negotiations with performers,
composers and their representatives, the broadcasters, performance
venues and the recording industry before the Music Performance Research
Centre (MPRC) was established as a company limited by guarantee with
charitable status in June 1987. The MPRC was renamed Music Preserved
in 2001.
The BBC very generously allowed the
MPRC to use their control rooms and tie lines at the Royal Festival
Hall and Royal Opera House so that with their own recording equipment
and microphones, donated to them by Sony, they were ready to start
making recordings. A few months later in October the MPRC made its
first on-site archive-recording. It was of a rather unusual concert
at the Royal Festival Hall, given by the London Philharmonic Orchestra
conducted by Victor Borge, the unique Danish humorist and entertainer
who was also a fine pianist and conductor. Sir Georg Solti joined
him, but only to make a short speech. A week later the Centre made
their first archive-recording at the Royal Opera House, a performance
of Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro conducted by Bernard Haitink.
Over the following years the MPRC
continued to make on-site recordings of concerts and operas. During
1988 their recordings at the Royal Festival Hal included a Wagner
programme conducted by Klaus Tennstedt, and a concert performance
of Beethoven’s Fidelio conducted by Kurt Masur, both with the London
Philharmonic Orchestra and some concerts with the Philharmonia, among
them a programme with Giuseppe Sinopoli conducting Mahler’s Symphony
No.1, the Maxwell Davies Trumpet Concerto, with
John Wallace as soloist, and Elgar’s In the South, and Esa-Pekka
Salonen conducting Lontanoi by György Ligeti and
Carl Nielsen’s 5th Symphony. At the Royal Opera House as well as several
other operas they recorded Peter Grimes by Benjamin Britten,
Janácek’s Jenufa, and Don Giovanni by Mozart,
A notice always has to be put up back-stage
a week or so in advance so that any member of the orchestra or chorus
not wishing the recording to be made can post their objection. It
required only one person to object and the recording could not take
place. The same applies as far as conductors and soloists are concerned.
Unfortunately, at the Coliseum some members of the English National
Opera Orchestra did refuse permission and since then no recordings
have been made there. A great pity, as most of the excellent productions
of unusual operas, all in English, have not been recorded commercially.
It would also have provided an opportunity to chart the rise of a
number of very good British singers.
When in 1988 the change in the law
regarding off-air recording changed the Department of Trade and Industry
recognised the MPRC as a Designated Archive. This made it possible
for them to realise their original intention and receive donations
of previously unauthorised off-air recordings and also to start making
off-air recordings themselves. For the first couple of years the only
place the MPRC could find to house their recordings safely was in
the basement of the MU offices – not a very satisfactory arrangement.
Then, in 1989 the Corporation of London agreed to allow the MPRC to
create a Listening Studio in the Barbican Library, within the Barbican
Arts Centre in the City of London. This was an excellent venue where
the recordings could be stored in ideal conditions and where the public
could listen to them. Another generous donation from Sony provided
all the play-back and listening equipment required for the two listening
booths. An additional bonus was the willingness of the Barbican library
staff to deal with those wishing to listen to any of the recordings.
Since then many thousands of recordings
dating from 1933 have been donated to the archive. The donations have
been in various formats: acetate discs, open reel tapes and analogue
cassette tapes. Their condition has varied considerably: a good many
have been in excellent sound in relation to the recording techniques
available at the time they were made and have been carefully preserved,
but some of them have had faults of one kind or another. A great deal
of technical work has been undertaken to repair and restore damaged
recordings. Surface noise has been reduced as far as possible; drop
outs made more acceptable by fading in and out before and after the
gap and if there is print through - when a faint ‘echo’ of a passage
can be heard before or after the actual music - whenever possible
it has been removed. But the integrity of the original was and continues
to be paramount. Changes to render a recording more acceptable to
those who have become accustomed to the clinical standard of CDs and
other forms of transmission have been resisted. The recordings were
then transferred to DAT and later to CD, with funding from the Heritage
Lottery Fund.
It soon became necessary to decide
which recordings should go into the archive. A list of criteria was
drawn up to guide those having to make the difficult decision as to
what should be accepted. If a recording was to be kept in the archive
it should be of an event of historic interest, an outstanding performance
by an artist(s) or orchestra (necessarily a subjective judgement),
performances by distinguished artists of music they had not previously
recorded, or a public performance that differed to a marked extent
from their commercial recording of the same music.
The legal agreements that now continue
to protect Music Preserved’s archive of recordings of public performances
from exploitation and that have made it possible for them to create
an archive where the public can listen, free of charge, do not allow
anyone other than Music Preserved itself to copy its recordings under
any circumstances. However, some years later it was agreed that in
safe protected conditions, under the control of a member of the Music
Preserved staff, extracts, and sometimes whole works, could be played
at public and private events outside the Barbican.
Once it was free to take items from
its collection outside the Listening Studio, Music Preserved initiated
a National Access and Education Programme. Presentations of its holdings
have been given all over the country sometimes at music societies,
such as those in Torbay and Esher; at music colleges – Trinity College
of Music, Birmingham Conservatoire – and most notably at the 1997
Edinburgh International Festival. The Festival was celebrating its
50th anniversary and invited Music Preserved to give a presentation
every day throughout the three weeks of the Festival of some of its
historic archive-recordings made at the Festival during the previous
49 years. Jon Tolansky introduced the recordings, which included some
wonderful performances: the Brahms Double Concerto for Violin and
Cello played by Joseph Szigeti and Pierre Fournier, Beecham conducting
Sibelius 1 with the RPO, Guido Cantelli conducting La Meri and
Two Nocturnes both by Debussy and Schumann’s Fourth Symphony,
the Shostakovich 1st Cello Concerto played by Rostropovich with Rozhdestvensky
conducting the Leningrad Philharmonic and the Stockholm Opera’s performance
of Janácek’s opera Jenufa in 1974.
But it was the 1957 archive-recording
of the complete opera La sonnambula by Bellini, with Maria
Callas and Fiorenzai Cossotto, when the entire La Scala company had
come to Edinburgh from Milan, that created the most excitement. Immediately
after the end of the Festival they had made a commercial recording
of the opera. Tolansky told me that an audience of over a thousand
in the Edinburgh Queen’s Hall had sat spell-bound throughout the performance
of Music Preserved’s recording of the opera with nothing to look at
but the two loud speakers on the stage. When the performance was over
several members of the audience who had been at the actual performances
forty years previously came to speak to him. They had bought the long-playing
record issued shortly after the Edinburgh production, but they said
that listening to the archive-recording was different – it was like
being back again in the King’s Theatre all those years ago.
Performance Practice and Audience
Expectations 1900 - 2000
Since the 1970s an increasing interest
and concern for ‘authenticity’ in performance had led to attempts
to identify how the great masterpieces of the past had been performed,
using contemporary reports and internal evidence from the music itself,
but of course, a great deal still remained speculative. Now in the
1980s when the Music Performance Research Centre (MPRC) was being
set up musicians and music-lovers were listening to recordings made
by orchestras from around the world and an increasing number were
lamenting the decline in the individuality and spontaneity of orchestral
performances – on record and in the concert hall – and the loss of
clearly audible national characteristics of instrumental tone and
musical style that had in the past distinguished one orchestra and
performance from another.
Had performing in studios, rather
than to an audience, and the advances in recording techniques that
had and were continuing to take place had any effect on those frequently
involved in studio broadcasting and recording? Did concert audiences
have expectations derived from listening to many more commercial recordings
than concert performances, since even the most ardent concert-goers
spent far more time listening to broadcast and recorded music than
attending ‘live’ music events?
The MPRC felt that the archive of
historical and contemporary recordings of live performances
it had created and the extensive collection of recorded interviews
it possessed provided a research
tool that could enquire into whether
there was evidence that recording and broadcasting had influenced
performances in the way that was being suggested. As Chairman of what
was then still the Music Performance Research Centre, I applied to
the Leverhume Trust for a Research Grant that would fund research
into a number of questions regarding changes in performance practice.
The Trust responded favourably to
this application for a grant and agreed to fund a two-year research
programme. This enabled the MPRC to engage a part-time researcher.
Leverhulme approved my directing the project, but as a member of the
Council of a Company Limited by Guarantee I was not allowed to be
paid for undertaking any work for it. They also approved Jon Tolansky
as the part-time researcher.
The research programme included an
examination of the differences between studio and public performances
and a comparison of five orchestras between 1951 and 1975 and then
in 1992. There was a questionnaire for audiences and questionnaires
and recorded interviews with conductors, soloists, singers, recording
engineers and orchestral musicians. Some of the performers had recorded
on both 78rpm and tape and others only on tape. The written accounts
by artists about their relationship and attitudes to recording were
collected.
The MPRC sought answers to these questions:
Is there evidence that there has been a loss
of individuality and spontaneity?
Have national and local traditions of performance
been affected, or lost, as a result of the world-wide distribution
of recordings and been replaces by a musical
Esperanto?
Has the intervention of the recording producers
and engineers, the artificial balances created in the studio and editing
had an effect onthe artists involved?
Do they perform differently in the studio than when in the concert
hall or opera house? Is there evidence that
audience expectations have been changed by listening to studio
recordings on which the performers have concentrated on accuracy of
instrumental technique, ensemble and intonation?
Do public performances attempt to emulate the recordings?
Is there any evidence that listeners are now more concerned with ‘sounds’
than content?
The MPRC started by comparing studio
recordings and archive-recordings of public performances of five orchestras.
The comparison were always of the same music, played by the same orchestra
and conductor within quite a short time of each other. On some occasions
the two recordings had been made within a few weeks of each other.
Amongst the works selected were The
Walk to the Paradise Garden, from A Village Romeo and Juliet
by Delius, played by the RPO conducted by Sir Thomas Beecham, Francesca
da Rimini by Tchaikovsky played by the Leningrad Philharmonic
Orchestra conducted by Gennadi Rozhdestvensky, the Overture
Consecration of the House by Beethoven, played by the Philharmonia
and conducted by Otto Klemperer, Roman Carnival Overture
by Berlioz played by the Cleveland Orchestra conducted by Lorin Maazel
and Moonlight, one of the Sea Interludes from the opera
Peter Grimes by Benjamin Britten played by the Royal Opera
House Orchestra conducted by the composer.
When the pairs of recordings were
being analysed there was no difficulty in recognising which were the
studio and which the public performances: there was a marked difference
between them. On all the recordings that were compared there was far
more rubato in the public performances and not only considerable differences
of tempo – in general andante and adagio passages were taken more
slowly and faster tempo markings played faster at concerts than in
the studio – but variation within a given tempo were also quite frequent.
It was much more difficult to be sure about differences of dynamics.
Though there did appear to be a wider range of dynamics on the archive-recordings
than those recorded in a studio, it was not possible to know whether
this was inherent in the actual performance in the studio, or if they
had been ironed out by the producer and his recording engineers in
the course of editing. However, from the work that was undertaken
on performances from the period 1975 to 1992, there is some evidence
that the studio and concert performances were becoming more alike.
The concert performances seem by the mid-eighties to have become much
less distinguishable from studio performances than had been the case
previously..
Compilations were made of extracts
from recordings made by orchestras in France, Germany, Russia, America
and Britain between 1930 and 1992 and of ten orchestras from nine
countries playing in the Royal Albert Hall within a period of six
weeks during the 1992 Promenade concert series. The intention was
to learn whether the distinct national characteristics of tone and
the traditional elements in their performances in the 1930s had been
retained. Another taped compilation of performances, this time of
Ravel’s Bolero made during the same period, show a quite remarkable
change in the way the balance between the solo instruments and their
accompaniment was considered appropriate. There is a marked increase
in the prominence of the soloists in relation to their accompaniment
from the 1970s onwards. This is particularly noticeable in the first
very quiet solos for the flute and clarinet.
As well as this work a Questionnaire
addressed to members of the audiences were left on the seats in the
hall for concerts given at the Birmingham Symphony Hall, the Barbican
Hall, the Royal Opera House and the Royal Festival Hall during 1993.
It consisted of a single sheet of paper with a letter on one side,
explaining the reason for the questionnaire and on the other side
the questionnaire itself. The letter explained that the MPRC was engaged
in an enquiry into listeners expectations when listening to ‘live’
and ‘recorded’ music, and the effect that performing at concerts and
in the recording studio has on the artists themselves and that they
were comparing recordings made in a studio with those made at concert
performances. As well as the nearly 250 detailed replies to the questionnaire
that were returned there were meetings with members of record societies
when these questions were discussed.
The questions, which was quite far
ranging were:
Do you listen to music on the radio
and on which stations? To your own records and CDs? About how long
do you listen to specific programmes or recordings each week and for
how long when it is just background to some other activity? How often
do you attend a concert or opera performance? What decides you to
go – is it the music to be performed, the artists taking part or because
you own or have heard a recording of the music or artist? What makes
you buy a particular recording – the music, the artist or a critical
review? Are you ever disappointed at a concert or at the opera after
you have become familiar with the music from a recording? Are you
disturbed by any blemishes or distractions that may occur at a concert
or opera? Are you ever disappointed when listening to a recording
after you have heard the music at a concert or opera? Is the sound
quality of a recording of great importance to you? If the tone quality
is thin or scratchy, as it can be on older recordings, does this make
it unacceptable? Do you use the controls on your equipment to increase/decrease
the volume, or to only listen to sections of the music you particularly
enjoy?
There were also questionnaires and
recorded interviews with conductors, soloists, singers, recording
engineers and orchestral musicians. Some of the performers had recorded
on both 78rpm and tape and others only on tape. The written accounts
by artists about their relationship and attitudes to recording were
collected.
Sadly it has not been possible for
the extensive research that was undertaken to be completed as the
necessary funding has not been available. The only part of the research
to have been published so far is the comparison of the five orchestras.
The chosen orchestras were the Cleveland Orchestra (US), the St. Petersburg
Philharmonic (formerly the Leningrad Philharmonic), the Concertgebouw
Orchestra (Holland), the Vienna Philharmonic (Austria) and the London
Symphony Orchestra (UK). They were chosen because each orchestra had
a strong tradition of performance, observable national characteristics
and they had all taken part in the 1992 BBC Promenade season in the
Royal Albert Hall. The archive-recordings of these performances in
the Archive are not off-air recordings, but direct off-line checks
provided to the Archive by the BBC. The result of this research was
published by Harwood Academic Publishers in the 1997 edition of Musical
Performance (Vol. 1, part 4). Copies of this publication and recordings
of the extracts used to make the comparisons can be seen and heard
at the Music Preserved Listening booths.
From its inception Music Preserved’s
intention was to chronicle the changes in performance style that had
already taken place and would continue to do so in future. Equally,
if not more important, is their aim to preserve performances of new
music, very frequently not recorded commercially. It would be wonderful
if in the future instead of having to rely on the often dubious written
accounts, as we are obliged to do now when considering how the compositions
of Mozart, Beethoven and many others were performed, we could actually
hear how their music was played when they were alive.
Archive-Videos
BBC Libraries and Archives Division
in1994 donated a number of videos to Music Preserved. The videos made
it possible for them to add another facility at its Listening Studio
at the Barbican. These videos could no longer be broadcast by BBC,
because of contractual agreements with the artists involved, nor could
they be issued commercially at that time. Music Preserved has added
to them by making a number of off-air television relays themselves
including part of the BBC Fairest Isle Festival and have accepted
donations of privately made off-air video performances.
Oral Histories
Music Preserved, not satisfied with
only recording music performances decided to start recording interviews
with musicians. Their intention was to trace how working conditions
and standards had changed for musicians during the 20th century. Musicians
from as many areas of the profession as possible were interviewed,
including part-time musicians. In the series of interviews titled
The Oral History of Musicians in Britain, musicians in their
own words provide information about where they had been educated,
where employed, what music they had played and with whom, and how
they had been affected by the musical, technological and social changes
that had occurred while they were in the profession.
In the relaxed environment, usually
in their own homes where the interviews were recorded, it was possible
for the interviews to be more like ‘conversations’. The interviewees
whether celebrated conductors, singers, soloists or members of orchestras
and bands felt able to express their views and comments more freely
than is often the case. In fact, on several occasions I had to ask
whether they were sure they wanted what they had said to remain on
a recording that would be in an archive where anyone who wished to
could listen to them..
Two of those interviewed were over
a hundred years old when I recorded them. Bill Waller, who was a hundred,
had been a horn player in Liverpool. He had known some of the great
players who had played under Hans Richter in the Hallé at the
end of the 19th century and himself played as an extra in the Hallé
under Sir Hamilton Harty as well as for some of the successful musical
comedies in the early 1920s. Sidonie Goossens, a member of the famous
Goossens family, was the principal harpist in BBC Symphony Orchestra
when I first met her in 1932. My father had taken my mother and myself
– I was then seven – to see the newly built Broadcasting House and
attend one of the Orchestra’s rehearsals. When I went to interview
her 68 years later in 2000 she was 101. Her memory was still very
sharp and she was able to recall her first professional engagements,
chamber music and playing in theatres from 1916, during the first
world war. Her orchestral debut was on June 7 1921, in the orchestra
which her brother Eugene had formed when he conducted the first British
concert performance of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring. She remained
the principal harpist in the BBC Symphony Orchestra from 1930 for
over fifty years and was a favourite of composers from Stravinsky
to Boulez and renowned for her ability to learn and play contemporary
music right up to when she retired.
As well as interviews with distinguished
orchestral musicians, including many of those I have already written
about and some less celebrated, there are interviews with jazz and
dance band musicians, some of whom were band leaders and others who
were only part-time musicians; there are also interviews with those
who played in theatres, night clubs, on ships and band-stands. In
fact anywhere that musicians are employed. In addition to the recordings
that Music Preserved itself has made, there are sets of valuable interviews
that have been donated to the archive. Particularly important are
the 50 that were made at the Royal Opera House as part of the Verdi
Centenary with conductors, singers and members of the chorus and orchestra..
At a series of celebrity interviews,
Profile of the Artist, mounted by Music Preserved and funded
by Guardian Royal Exchange in a small hall within the Barbican Centre,
the celebrated tenor Jon Vickers, the conductor Sir Edward Downes,
Gary Brooker, from the group Procul Harum, and others, recalled
their careers and listened with the audience to extracts from their
own public performances preserved in the Archive. All the interviews
can be listened to in the Music Preserved listening booths.
Perhaps these interviews – there are
now nearly 200 – may prove to be as valuable for future generations
in providing a picture of musical life in Britain in the 20th century
as the recordings of the performances.
Chapter 25
