Time traveler's first choice

[Chaszz]

You can travel back in time for one evening only, go where you will, dressed in the clothes of your chosen time and place, and blend in with the audience at a chamber recital or larger concert or whatever. You secrete in your clothing a superior recording device to capture the music of the evening, and later you will return to the present with your prize. Will you record composed music or improvisation? Who and what will you retrieve for posterity?

[springrite]

You can travel back in time for one evening only, go where you will, dressed in the clothes of your chosen time and place, and blend in with the audience at a chamber recital or larger concert or whatever. You secrete in your clothing a superior recording device to capture the music of the evening, and later you will return to the present with your prize. Will you record composed music or improvisation? Who and what will you retrieve for posterity?

Too many choices, but I wouldn't mind being at the premiere of Turandot.

[mamascarlatti]

A frequent dream of mine. I'd like to hear go back to 18th century London to hear the great castrati Farinelli and Senesino on stage together in Artaserse. After all that is something we will never hear in our lifetime, wonderful castrato voices shaped by the rigorous and extensive musical training of that era.

[mc ukrneal]

So many great options to consider (and singers!). Something in the 18th or 19th centuries would surely be tempting. The premiere of one of Beethoven's symphonies would surely be an event (especially the famed 5th/6th symphony premiere with the 4th PC and other works)! Or to hear a great composer that also played like Liszt or Godowsky!

But I wonder if I might not go back to a time where we have an existing recording , but in bad quality. Imagine being able to listen to Furtwangler, Toscanini or Caruso in perfect sound! The risk of a poor performance is nearly nil this way (whereas we have no idea of the true performance quality of many of the events prior to recorded sound, although we do have some written accounts).

Ultimately, I think I would choose Verdi's Otello premiere (a favorite opera of mine), which was a resounding success with some fabulous singers of the day, including Francesco Tamagno (a tenor superstar of his era). But ask me tomorrow, and I might have a different idea!

[david johnson]

the first music ever.

[springrite]

the first music ever.

That must be eons ago when two people farted in unison.

[jowcol]

Easy for me.   
I'd have to go visit Mussorgsky in the last year of his life.  (He's my first musical hero).  Supposedly he had created a piano work representing a storm on the Black Sea coast where he claimed he went beyond music and into pure sound.  It was never written down.   Supposedly it was his most revolutionary work.

So I'd definitely have to show up with the Microphone stand and taping rig.



On a non-classical front, I had a dream that Duane Allman returned from the dead and came to my apartment.  (I confess-- although I don't like their radio-friendly songs, I'm a big Allman Bros fan.)  Anyway, Duane had  had a solo that he wanted to record for posterity, and wanted me to record it.  I hurry to set up the mikes, and Duane plugs in his Les Paul.  Just I as I hit the record button, there is a knock at the door.  It's "JB" a dumb, loud person I worked with at the time.  Duane starts playing a gorgeous slide solo, but I can't get "JB" to stop talking.  It seems like "JB" is getting louder and louder, and every time I look over at Duane he gets fainter and fainter.  He vanishes at the end of the solo.

I finally shove JB out the door, and hear him booming as he walks down the stairs.  I rewind my tape player, and crank the volume.  This is it.  Duane's last solo.  Despite the background noise, this would be a gift from the Gods.

As it turns out, however, I can't hear Duane on the tape.  The only person I hear is JB.

Tragic....

[jowcol]

A couple of other options.  The premier of the Rite of Spring-- I'd want a lot of video cameras so we can see the audience freaking out as well.

It was also said the Scriabin's piano technique has a lot of nuances that could only be heard near the instrument, and could not be captured in the few piano rolls he recorded.

[Superhorn]

  I would love to have been at the opening of the Bayreuth festival in 1876 ,when the first complete performance of Wagner's Ring took place, conducted by the legendary Hans Richter, who had been Wagner's right hand man for some years.
  Of course, Das Rheingold and Die Walkure had been premiered several years earlier in Munich, but Siegfried and Gotterdammerung were receiving their world premieres, and this was the first time the complete Ring was performed.
  So many famous composers attended, such as Grieg,Bruckner,Tchaikovsky,Saint-Saens,etc, and even heads of state from various countries !

[MN Dave]

Beethoven at the piano.

[Franco]

I like to go back to the first meeting with Lucchesi and Vanhal hatching the Great Mozart Conspiracy, and witnessing them as they cajole and badger the witless Wolfy to going along with their wild and crazy idea.

[Chaszz]

My own fantasies, active in my mind for years, are two:

Bach's weekly Collegium Musicum concerts at Zimmerman's Coffee House in Leipzig, where hopefully one could hear one or two of the concertos that were later lost by the prodigal drunken son Friedemann. The master would be vigorously leading the orchestra from the keyboard and no doubt playing the most difficult and resplendent of the solo harpsichord parts.

Pre-eminent jazz soloist Louis Armstrong reached his peak of genius from 1920 to 1930, and only a small fraction of this period of playing is captured on records. Since he abused his lip by playing in an unorthodox way, he was able to do things technically on the trumpet that later often were too difficult for him. What was captured makes plain that, beyond technique,  almost everything he played - even a one-bar fill-in on a Bessie Smith blues - was at a level of melodic and rhythmic genius, and I would pick him on an evening when he soloed with the Carroll Dickerson orchestra in Chicago, sometimes playing 30 or more choruses of improvisation at a stretch.

[mc ukrneal]

My own fantasies, active in my mind for years, are two:

Bach's weekly Collegium Musicum concerts at Zimmerman's Coffee House in Leipzig, where hopefully one could hear one or two of the concertos that were later lost by the prodigal drunken son Friedemann. The master would be vigorously leading the orchestra from the keyboard and no doubt playing the most difficult and resplendent of the solo harpsichord parts.

Pre-eminent jazz soloist Louis Armstrong reached his peak of genius from 1920 to 1930, and only a small fraction of this period of playing is captured on records. Since he abused his lip by playing in an unorthodox way, he was able to do things technically on the trumpet that later often were too difficult for him. What was captured makes plain that, beyond technique,  almost everything he played - even a one-bar fill-in on a Bessie Smith blues - was at a level of melodic and rhythmic genius, and I would pick him on an evening when he soloed with the Carroll Dickerson orchestra in Chicago, sometimes playing 30 or more choruses of improvisation at a stretch.

Great idea to go back and rescue a lost work! I like it!

[Scarpia]

Or to hear a great composer that also played like Liszt or Godowsky!

You could go back in time and record Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin perform their own works and you'd record Godowsky??? 

[mc ukrneal]

You could go back in time and record Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin perform their own works and you'd record Godowsky???

Um, yeah - but only his studies of Chopin etudes.  I prefer that work to nearly anything by Bach. Go figure.

[Josquin des Prez]

I prefer that work to nearly anything by Bach. Go figure.

There's nothing to figure. You obviously still have a lot to learn.

[Scarpia]

There's nothing to figure. You obviously still have a lot to learn.

Besides which, Godowsky lived until 1938, he could easily have recorded the pieces if he or anyone thought it was worth the bother (and he did record some of them). 

[mc ukrneal]

There's nothing to figure. You obviously still have a lot to learn.

That's true - there is always something to learn in life.

[david johnson]

That must be eons ago when two people farted in unison.

fartissimo!

[springrite]

That's true - there is always something to learn in life.

Yeah, but OTOH, some people obviously have nothing to learn, only lots of things to preach.