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I am not a musician the calibre, or even near it, to Gould but I completely, utterly disagree about live music. Maybe he preferred the recording studio, but why would you want to take away live music from the tradition! It's like watching a chef make food on TV instead of being where you should be when it comes to food: in the kitchen and dining room, smelling all the smells.

Edit for those not agreeing: try sitting under or near a grand piano with your eyes closed. Your body experience is completely, utterly different than listening to the same music over even a very good stereo sound system. Being in the same room as an orchestra or even small chamber ensemble gives you a fully physical experience. It's not just your ears being involved, when listening to music.




As far as "classical" music goes, I can definitely live without the synchronized audience coughing between movements. Or the fact that you can only applaud at the end of the piece, no matter that a prior movement might have ended on an energetic forte and the last movement on an introspective pianissimo. Or the upraised eyebrows you inevitably draw if you're under 70.


I have to disagree. When listening to a recording, you hear all the music. A more fitting analogy would be tasting and eating the food without seeing the chef prepare it.


No audio system comes close to sitting in front of a symphony orchestra with a hundred or more different sound sources.


This is absolutely correct, but for choral music Janet Cardiff's 40 Part Motet might actually come close. http://www.cardiffmiller.com/artworks/inst/motet.html


Better than close. When in real life would you get to hear a choir of that caliber, and just walk into the middle of them singing?


Yes, I suppose that's usually frowned upon during the performance. :)




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