hornblatt

I remember when the washington post did a story about this a few months ago. My school actually clipped it out and posted it on the door of the recital hall (I still don't know if they meant it as a warning or just for entertainment...). I personally can't stand things like this. I never edit recordings even when they are just for my website.

Here's a fun little story:

When I was 12 years old I had to make a audition tape for the NTC. I was playing the first movement of the Hummel on Bb trumpet. I'd been working on it for a few months but had never played it all the way through. My teacher was prepared to have to splice two takes together if I couldn't get through it. Eventually I got a good take of the beginning and a good take of the end. My teacher asked if I wanted to just use those or if I wanted to try again. I went for it once more and played the whole thing for the first time. Instead of splicing together the two that might have sounded better, I used the third because I was proud of myself for getting through it. That tape made it into NTC and left me a very happy 12 year old. Since then I have always prefered a not as good full take to a perhaps better spliced one.

My (long) $.02

Annie

camelbrass

Ed,

I think that it's something we will ultimately have to live with, not fraud on this scale of course but the cleaning up of performances and suspect that, without realising it, we already have to an extent. It's been an accepted practice in every other form of music for decades...would Jimi Hendrix have been the icon he was if everything he did was in one or two takes? Maybe not.

As a musician I'm not comfortable with it, I would prefer to hear 'honest but flawed' anyday, but my purchases count for about 0% of music sales so I have no say at all. If I had to earn my living out of selling a CD I would probably be tempted to do a little 'cutting and pasting' myself.


Regards,


Trevor

PS Annie, I admire your integrity and at 12 to do a worthwhile job on the Hummel is fantastic. Keep with it.

Vulgano Brother

This story reminded me of trumpeter Stefan Mross, the star of German Volksmusik. In Germany, it is normal for artists to perform to "playback" when on T.V. Apparently, Herr Mross was doing this in live performance as well. A Belgian trumpeter, Alexandre Malempré, then came forward and claimed to have made the recordings with Stefan's name on them. The ensuing press dubbed the conflict a Trompeterkrieg, and Max Sommerhalder, professor for trumpet in Detmold, acted as judge in a playoff between Malempré and Mross. Sommerhalder was not impressed with Mross' playing and called Mross a "stümperhaften Trompeter" (ragged and stuporous trumpeter.) This was headline news in Germany, but apparently got little attention here in the States.

rowuk

Most of the good editing programs now have a plug in for "humanizing" plagiates - introducing small tempo and color changes.
In principal, we do not know what to believe anymore - unless we hear it unamplified and live ourselves.
The tragedy is that professional players are expected to deliver this level of perfection (to even get a job). I am sure that the recording industry has created a monster that they soon will only be able to artificially feed!
Thanks be to YouTube and the like, it may not always be as pretty, but is many times more human!

Vulgano,
the difference between Hatto and Mross is that Alex Malembré had a contract....................(also to keep his mouth shut). Mross released a recording that was only intended for TV and Alex just wanted his money. There was nothing criminal about Mross being an actor and Alex synchronizing his trumpet voice. 119 plagiate CDs is interesting, why is this not getting more attention? Maybe the industry knows more that they care to admit (like welcoming additional revenue for otherwise fine but unsalable repertoire?)!

Vulgano Brother

Hatto and Mross were both being sold as musicians that they weren't; neither of them played a lick on "their" albums, and that's just plain wrong, although in Mross' case, not criminal.

mazzrick

What a fascinating article. I was never aware of any of this. Something about editing though:
to the best of my knowledge, almost all produced recordings are edited. I've done a few recordings with Martha DeFransisco, the recording engineer and maybe producer for either most of or all of Hakan Hardenberger's Phillips recordings. Her opinion on editing recordings is that people are not buying a concert (unless they are buying a live recording) and that the recording should be as perfect as possible. Even with edits, it is still a representation of the performer's playing, except in this odd case with Hatto. If I buy a recording, I don't want to hear mistakes or imperfections. I want to hear that perfomer's ideal rendition of a piece. I also know that edits are not always used to cover mistakes. More often than not it's the extra quality (really nailing it) in one section that gets edited in.

Take for instance the German Brass recordings. Their recordings are often not as good as a live concert. This is mostly because they don't rehearse for recordings, if you can believe it, and for concerts they at least have a soundcheck before-hand and maybe a rehearsal between shows on a tour. These recordings are unfortunate, even though they're still great. They are perfectly honest maybe even totally unedited and I use the word unfortunate because if they could be edited to sound like their ultimate performance, I would rather that than a straight to disc recording of their session. Thoughts?

Matt

ecarroll

Matt,

Trust me....my old recordings were edited half to death. Pretty good player, whoever he was.

Glad things are working out in Berlin,
EC
(ps: Amy Horvey will be joining you at Lucerne Festival)

rowuk

I do not consider editing dishonest. I prefer a player that goes for it with wild abandon - even in the studio. And as Matt reported, I am not buying a concert.
There are no limits to what is editable, and to be honest, I prefer not to know. If the recordings are inspiring, I will make every effort to see that person or ensemble live. If the experiences line up, great. If not, hasta la vista, baby!
In the 70's, there were several companies that sold brilliant direct to disc recordings. Great readings, clean playing, no editing. In our digital plastic world, the critics with an agenda will prevent repeats of such ventures.
I have many of those discs and Harry James, Tower of Power, Dave Grusin, Amanda McBroom and the LA Phil among others proved that uncut can still be WONDERFUL!

Sunnyvale Sam

Getting back to Hatto, Hattogate was a serious fraud. But even that can have unexpected consequences. In the last Gramophone magazine, the president of BIS records wrote that the publicity from Hattogate had helped Laszlo Simon, the pianist behind the highly praised "Hatto" Liszt recordings. It turns out that the records weren't selling, and Simon's concert career was weak. Hattogate renewed interest in both, helping the pianist and the record company. So there were no financial damages to Simon or to BIS, and no basis to sue. Strange, eh?

rowuk

Can we get our money back because the cover promises something NOT on the inside?
Is this perhaps a BIS scam to jump on the Hatto Bandwagon..................