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In the Forum: Playback Listening
In the Thread: Accuracy vs. Musicality (and YMMV)
Post Subject: Maybe being a musician is a disadvantage?Posted by rowuk on: 1/11/2026
Relevance is another rabbit hole that has changed throughout the centuries. After Bachs death, his relevance was dramatically reduced for a short period of time (meaning his works were not performed). The reason was that it was considered too intellectual. The audience was looking for less "challenging". The early classical era set different goals and performance opportunities for composers. It did not take long (actually one of the "kings" of the classical era - Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy actually brought Bach back.
In any case, the discussion of subtracting interpretation is in my view a bogus argument. The reason for this is the amount of layers of interpretation.
In my own life, I have my recordings for playback. They have the disadvantage that there are no surprises after the first play. Long notes always have the same length when playing again, loud passages are always the same, articulation is the same with every play. Here I can only "see" what an artist has made out of the granite. If I am disturbed by something intrinsic to the performance, this often gets in the way of deeper appreciation. If I can connect, I can dig deeper with every play. In principle, the successful recordings do something for me that the score does not (huge subject in itself). If not, the recordings collect dust.
Then I have live performances (where I am in the audience). Here I have EXPECTATIONS and reactions depending on surprises encountered. I often have a score with me if it is a piece that I am not familiar with. Here the performance is each time something new. The demands on me are great to grasp what the artist is saying, my attention is very dynamic as some things are easy and others difficult to grasp. Sometimes answers to questions in my head are answered later in the performance.
Then there are the performances when I am playing. In this case, there is a very advanced preparation of the material. There are rehearsals to help the musicians connect with one another. During the performance we must be on transmit and receive at the same time. Based on our preparation, I have expectations, actions, reactions and surprises. Our play must provide the answers. Connecting with the audience is very much part of that.
As a trumpet player, I do not get an opportunity to play Bach BWV582. That does not prevent me from "reading" the score, attending concerts, playing recordings - giving this work many levels of relevance far after Bach died. I would maintain that the relevance actually STARTS with the composing and is carried on with every attempt to learn, perform or playback this piece. When studying Bach, we learn how he integrated composing styles, created opportunities for new methods of tuning, and above all, about his uncanny sense of painting pictures with optimally placed notes.
In the context of this thread (Accuracy vs Musicality), we could argue about the performance, but I believe that the thread is more about the focus of the playback on supposed technical perfection vs enjoyable playback. In this last case any arguments are irrelevant as there is no general accuracy possible with stereo, the best we could accomplish is "plausible". This is NOT vs "Musicality" as this term also has no meaning as applied to playback.Rerurn to Romy the Cat's Site