Performing Music in the Age of Recording

by Robert Philip

Listeners have enjoyed classical music recordings for more than a century, yet important issues about recorded performances have been little explored. What is the relationship between performance and recording? How are modern audiences affected by the trends set in motion by the recording era? What is the impact of recordings on the lives of musicians? In this wide-ranging book, Robert Philip extends the scope of his earlier pioneering book, Early Recordings and Musical Changing Tastes in Instrumental Performance 1900–1950 . Philip here considers the interaction between music-making and recording throughout the entire twentieth century.
The author compares the lives of musicians and audiences in the years before recordings with those of today. He examines such diverse and sometimes contentious topics as changing attitudes toward freedom of expression, the authority of recordings made by or approved by composers, the globalization of performing styles, and the rise of the period instrument movement. Philip concludes with a thought-provoking discussion of the future of classical music performance.

Genres: Music

293 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2004

Reviews

[Laura Chareun · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved it!

[Richard Pohl · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thouroughly satisfying reading, inspiring further reflections about how today´s performer should be fulfilling his calling of bringing music into life. Apart from wonderful outline of how the performing styles were evolving in the course of the last century, there are even interesting insights in the world of recording process itself (including confession of one producer, that there are even awarded recordings, who should be more awarded for his own work at the studio than musicians themselves...). I will definitely read also this author´s previous book "Early Recordings and Musical Style" to complement my previous reading of "Off The Record" by Da Costa.

[Megan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Extremely well-researched, interesting, and important for anyone who wants to do more than mindlessly play how they were taught at the conservatory; plus larger themes. Taste is always changing! We are a result of what came before but that doesn't mean that we're better.
Reading the book, Philip's own biases come through; he's certainly a vibrato lover, and repeatedly dismisses restraint in the use of vibrato as cold. I'm willing to trust his judgments about old performances and performers, though, because he's clearly done so much listening to recordings, old and new. I've learned a lot.

[Anna · Rating 2 out of 5]

Full of good information, but not engagingly presented. Suspect it would have been better if I had referenced sparingly instead of trying to read straight through.