This morning Radio 3 played a classic 1940s recording of the Schumann piano concerto with Walter Gieseking and the Dresden State Orchestra, conducted by Karl Bohm. Wonderful music making but spoiled by the inevitable SSSSSSSSSS all the way through.

So here's the business idea. Any entrepreneurs feel free to copy. Set up a new record company called, say, Clone Records. Company logo is Herbert Von Karajan portrayed as a zombie, i.e. brought back from the dead. Clone Records hires the best orchestras, soloists and conductors and commissions them to record works exactly replicating famous performances such as Gieseking's Schumann concerto.

Imagine being able to enjoy (effectively) Karajan's wonderful recording of Honegger Symphonies 2 and 3 without that ruinous tape hiss on the original. Or Thomas Beecham's Delius. Or Kubelik's Dvorak. the list is endless.

Is there a venture capitalist out there who can make it work?

Nothing new in the classical world, trying to resuscitate old corpses.

No, but seriously, I'm not interested.

If you pray to God hard enough, then maybe one venture capitalist might show up.

All the best,
HC

The fly in the ointment, I think, is this: if you were to employthen these performers would want to set down for posterity their performance concepts, and not a mimicking of performance concepts from prior performers. Or, sure- you could give unambiguous instructions, and possibly sweeten the pot with heaps of money- but I'd tend to think that the artists wouldn't have their hearts in it.

'Fraid it's a case of "you can't go home again."

__________________
The hardest knife ill us'd doth lose his edge. Shakespeare- Sonnet 95

A bit of an understatement there, methinks. I would have thought that it's not just a case of the artists not having "their hearts in it" but rather that they wouldn't be remotely interested in engaging in such an idea.

Imagine some venture capital company approaching, say, Sir Simon Rattle, the BPO, and Martha Argerich with a view to recording Schumann's PC with instructions that the conducting must sound like Bohm, the orchestra must sound like the Dresden State Orchestra, and the pianist must sound like Walter Gieseking (as per the reference specification).

The cost would be enormous and the expected payoff very likely would be low. If anything like this came up in the "Dragon's Den" they would rightly pour scorn all over it, and rightly so.

Why on earth should these present-day artists wish to demean themselves by playing in a fashion that apes the style of long forgotten forbears? Also, why should they do so merely because an arbitrary bunch of BBC reviewers happened to think that some historical recording was the best in their view?

It might just about be possible to get a bunch of far less august performers to attempt the job, but even assuming that the quality turned out to be OK the chances are that the same reviewers wouldn't rate it anything like as highly as the original masterpiece as it would be seen as a modern fake and worthless. The chances are, of course, that they wouldn't be able to match the quality (in musical terms) of the reference model.

I happen to have to listened to that BBC programme and I thought it was a silly recommendation by the two reviewers, given the very poor sound quality. It was a compromise recommendation at best as the two reviewers had different ideas. The main presenter of the programmer, who introduced and chaired the discussion, also evidently wasn't that impressed by the recommendation, judging by his luke-warm summary at the end. I took a copy of the recommended recording (by Gieseking et at) and would say it's nothing special musically, and in sound recording terms it's poor.

All in all not this "business idea" doesn't stand a cat-in-hell's chance of success.

Oh dear, if I take these comments as market research they are not encouraging. I fear Opal may be right in supposing Sir Simon Rattle, the BPO, and others, will not readily sell their souls.

Perhaps all I can do is wait for fashion to turn full circle and the music loving public to rediscover the joys of mid-twentieth century Haydn. Slow, heavy, unsmiling, leaden footed.....wonderful

Wouldn't it be simpler to remove the annoying tape hiss electronically, while leaving the rest of the music intact? If I am not mistaken, this can be done using current electronic technology.

The closest you get these days are period orchestras, playing in the style of the time. Also, a period orchestra playing today might do a better performance of the old recording.

Other than that, you will have for a technology that can compleatly remove the hiss from recordings. Perhaps you should start a technology company dedicated to sound restoration instead.

Bass

I think you have hit on the solution Bass. We have orchestras giving us the authentic seventeenth and eighteenth century sound, so why not an orchestra that brings us the genuine 1950s sound? For added authenticity the male players could wear Brylcreem. The 'period' label gives respectability to the whole enterprise. In fact....just a year or two ago didn't some orchestra make an 'authentic' early twentieth century recording of Holst's Planets?