Review: L.A. Phil tackles Gorecki’s Fourth. Orange County Register, Jan. 18, 2015.
Review: L.A. Phil tackles Gorecki’s Fourth. Orange County Register, Jan. 18, 2015.
January 18, 2015
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For those interested, Gorecki’s 4th was premiered in April 2014 by the London Phil who co-commissioned it. A recording would be nice …
I have yet to hear anything about a recording but I’m sure there will be one. At the same time, I was thinking as I heard the piece that it’s best experienced live.
Are there any musical pieces worth experiencing that are best experienced in recordings? If so, which ones and why? Personally, i can’t think of any.
Sometimes I think Rossini operas are, at least the musical part. They are almost never executed with such precision and clarity when performed live.
Your point is well taken though. I think it’s a matter of degree, though. I don’t see the Gorecki working that well on a recording (I could be wrong). Whereas, other pieces are just fine on a recording, if not as good as live.
Of course most pieces are “just fine on a recording”, but hardly ever “as good as live” and certainly not better. We are supposed to be listening to much more than “precision and clarity” in any musical piece, and i believe that this definitely applies to any opera too, even just the “musical part” of it. Obviously, we usually enjoy a great recording more than we do a mediocre live performance, but that is a different story altogether.