Applause in live recordings

Started by 12tone., October 16, 2010, 11:45:49 AM

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Should there be more applause in new live recordings?

Yes
6 (15%)
No
17 (42.5%)
I don't like live recordings
3 (7.5%)
I don't care
13 (32.5%)
I only buy vegetables
1 (2.5%)

Total Members Voted: 31

Mirror Image

I find applause to be intrusive in terms of a recording unless it's on a separate track which can be easily deleted when ripping the CD. What can't be controlled, however, is audience noise during a performance. Russian audiences are the worst, especially Soviet Era ones where there's always one guy who sounds like he's losing a lung. And it's only prominent during the slow movement of a work. It's as if he's miraculously feeling better during the more uptempo movements. ::)

Florestan

Quote from: Mirror Image on October 23, 2021, 07:44:52 AM
I find applause to be intrusive in terms of a recording unless it's on a separate track which can be easily deleted when ripping the CD. What can't be controlled, however, is audience noise during a performance. Russian audiences are the worst, especially Soviet Era ones where there's always one guy who sounds like he's losing a lung. And it's only prominent during the slow movement of a work. It's as if he's miraculously feeling better during the more uptempo movements. ::)

Imagine yourself living exactly 200 years ago, with all the implications for music listening and music making --- and you'll realize that audience noise during a live recording is the least of your problems.

I dare say, moreover, that back then, when the first occasion of listening to a symphony/sonata/concerto/whatever was also the very last, they had a more profound relationship with music than we have today, with our 300+ versions of the same work at one click distance.

YMMV, of course.
Every kind of music is good, except the boring kind. — Rossini

Cato

Quote from: Florestan on October 23, 2021, 08:08:11 AM
Imagine yourself living exactly 200 years ago, with all the implications for music listening and music making --- and you'll realize that audience noise during a live recording is the least of your problems.

I dare say, moreover, that back then, when the first occasion of listening to a symphony/sonata/concerto/whatever was also the very last, they had a more profound relationship with music than we have today, with our 300+ versions of the same work at one click distance.

YMMV, of course.

Yes: I once read that in the 1700's a conductor considered his main task to be the tapping of a cane, i.e. he became a human metronome, so to speak.   The implication was that this tapping occurred for several bars and began again, whenever the tempo changed.  If that is true, then audience noise was indeed the least of one's listening problems!
"Meet Miss Ruth Sherwood, from Columbus, Ohio, the Middle of the Universe!"

- Brian Aherne introducing Rosalind Russell in  My Sister Eileen (1942)

Florestan

Quote from: Cato on October 23, 2021, 08:17:13 AM
Yes: I once read that in the 1700's a conductor considered his main task to be the tapping of a cane, i.e. he became a human metronome, so to speak.   The implication was that this tapping occurred for several bars and began again, whenever the tempo changed.  If that is true, then audience noise was indeed the least of one's listening problems!

Tne other day I was listening to Mozart's Andretter-Serenade and wondered how would have Wolferl reacted, had he been told back then that 250 years after its composition this work which he composed for a particular, one-time-only occasion would be recorded (a term which by itself would have been alien to him) by a super-professional ensemble, to be listened to in the privacy of their home by people who are completely alien to that particular, one-time-only occasion, and possibly to be compared, and found wanting, with respect to other recordings of the same serenade... I might be wrong yet I firmly believe he'd have been utterly, completely and absolutely dumbfounded.
Every kind of music is good, except the boring kind. — Rossini

Todd

Quote from: Florestan on October 23, 2021, 08:08:11 AMImagine yourself living exactly 200 years ago

I would have died of smallpox.

I guess we should all feel lucky that we can ponder the relative importance of applause in recordings.  It's as inconsequential a topic as can exist.
The universe is change; life is opinion. - Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

People would rather believe than know - E.O. Wilson

Propaganda death ensemble - Tom Araya

Florestan

Quote from: Todd on October 23, 2021, 08:43:09 AM
I would have died of smallpox.

You might have or you might have not. Your beloved Beethoven hasn't.

Quote
I guess we should all feel lucky that we can ponder the relative importance of applause in recordings.  It's as inconsequential a topic as can exist.

Amen to that, of course!
Every kind of music is good, except the boring kind. — Rossini

Crudblud

Quote from: Florestan on October 23, 2021, 08:08:11 AM
I dare say, moreover, that back then, when the first occasion of listening to a symphony/sonata/concerto/whatever was also the very last, they had a more profound relationship with music than we have today, with our 300+ versions of the same work at one click distance.

I think they had a more profound relationship with the event, the unique physicality of a given performance of a piece of music, while we may have at least the potential to achieve a more profound grasp of the music itself.

Wanderer

Quote from: Pohjolas Daughter on October 23, 2021, 07:12:12 AM
I wish that more people would just let the work "breathe" at the end before applauding.  By that I mean letting the sound, echoes die out and sit there and just enjoy/feel/savor the work and performance for a while..the mood created, etc., rather than just rushing to start clapping.

PD

I utterly agree with that.

Spotted Horses

Applause is an unwelcome distraction, which I will tolerate in a good recording.
There are simply two kinds of music, good music and the other kind. - Duke Ellington

ritter

I suppose it depends on the work and the circumstances. An idiot shouting "bravo!" as soon as Mahler's 9th finishes is really disturbing (in the concert hall or in a live recording). I suppose, in any case, that a deft conductor can at least try to avoid that (not lowering the baton for a while).

But I have live recordings of, e.g., Die Meistersinger, where it is clear that the audience has started to applaud as soon as the curtain starts to fall (and before the music actually ends) but, with a jubilant ending like this, the applause isn`t really disturbing and actually adds to the excitement.