Back
to Chapter 23
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
