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Live recordings. Cough and applause. Can you stand them?

5K views 77 replies 26 participants last post by  BlackAdderLXX 
#1 ·
What's your opinion?
Is coughing and/or applause, deal breaker for an otherwise excellent live recording?
For me, absolutely. I just can't tolerate both.
I don't own many live recordings just for these two reasons. The moment I detect either of them, the recording will go on the shelve for ever. I will never listen to it again. Thankfully, there are too many choices for good recordings.
In the Concert halls there is no alternative but in my private listening, when I am in my favorite composer's musical universe, there is no need to suffer the "noise pollution"...

Glenn Gould's humming is something different...:D
 
#3 · (Edited)
If it is a concert of works by Cage, the more coughing, probably the better.

In other contexts, I prefer there not to be coughing. I don't mind applause at the end, especially if there is a slight pause after the music ends. If there is such noise over the music, especially in quiet parts, that can be a real annoyance, although not necessarily a deal breaker if there are sufficient reasons to value the recording.

Edit: In our current crisis, it is interesting that coughing has taken on a very different aspect. When I was in the pharmacy waiting to get my flu shot a few months ago, one woman began a bit of a coughing fit, and everyone started to look at her as if there was blood gushing out of an artery. Fortunately, she was fine, and had just accidentally swallowed her breath mint.
 
#9 · (Edited)
It's quite a big issue, not what you prefer, but the relative merits of live versus studio. But in a smaller way, I just find long form Feldman hard at the best of times, but harder when there's someone next to me scrunching on some mint imperials, someone in front of me texting her friends and someone behind me rummaging in her handbag.
 
#32 ·
There is no question in my mind that the best performances are the result of the interaction between a performer and the audience, coughs and all.

Which is why I am particularly angry that we are living under a regime of fear of what is essentially getting a cold. Populations of people who cannot think critically are accepting petty tyrants to dismantle our society right before our eyes - with one casualty being live concerts. Stupid people are "virtual signalling" about how vigilant they are and riding their high horse, admonishing others to "mask up" and informing on their neighbors. It is disgusting to witness.

And don't tell me your covid "horror" stories. People die. That is a fact of life. People with compromised health die from relatively minor causes - everyday. This was reality before covid. Only now we are being programmed to accept lockdowns, stay at home orders, masks, and the whole social distancing bs. This is nothing less than a worldwide government takeover of free societies using a fake pandemic as their rationale.
You and I are on opposite ends of the spectrum on this issue - I'll say no more.
 
#6 ·
I've come to accept it, although sometimes it's just ridiculous. I'm thinking of old Sviatoslav Richter recordings from Russia and Czechoslovakia where I'm guessing 90% of the adult population were heavy smokers.

Can't remember which recording it was that I heard, with either Richter or Gilels, where the coughing was so much in the foreground of the recording that the piano playing was like an extraneous background noise.
 
#12 ·
Probably, the most interesting recording of Brahms' Piano Concerto #1 that I have ever heard is the infamous live recording that features Glenn Gould and Leonard Bernstein from about 1965, where Bernstein addressed the audience first and stated that even though he disagreed with Gould's dynamics and tempos, that he was conducting it that way anyway, on account of the respect he had for Gould's integrity as a musician. Interestingly, Bernstein himself would be criticized by others for the liberties he took with dynamics and tempos in his later career during the 1980s (most notably his DG recording of Tchaikovsky's 6th).

Anyway, as great as the Gould/Bernstein recording of Brahms' PC#1 is, the slow movement is practically unlistenable due to the noise you hear from the audience; it's just a series of coughs, sniffles, and sneezes.

Especially in these days of social distancing, I feel like I have to wear a mask just to listen to it, let alone enjoy it.
 
#13 · (Edited)
The worst I ever experienced was at Covent Garden, Boris Godunov. The end, the Tarkowsky production, I think John Tomlinson singing Boris, it was unbelievably good, and he was in his final, tragic aria, the audience was rapt, it was as if he was singing just for me, I was thinking that this is the best way to spend your life, there is nothing better to do than go to the opera. I will no nothing else with my life than go to opera.

And then someone’s mobile phone goes off in the row behind me.

And then there was another deeply embarrassing time at Covent Garden, a mediocre performance of something by Verdi, I forget what. I had a cold, it seemed to be getting better. But in the first half I couldn’t stop myself coughing for a short time, or so it appeared to me. In the interval all was OK but as I arrived at my seat I heard someone say, “Look, here comes Mr Cough.”

I wanted to die.
 
#15 · (Edited)
The most notorious example on my shelves is during the Schreier / Richter live from Dresden. Half the audience appear to be in advanced stages of bronchitis!
Of course there is the case of Jon Vickers who broke off his Tristan monologue to tell an audience member: "Stop your damn coughing!"
I thought he said to the audience in Texas "Stop rattling your damn jewlery!"
 
#17 ·
Telling people please don't cough or make noise because we're recording this will prompt a coughing fit like nothing else. You can bet that many of the worst offenders went home from the concert and didn't cough once for the rest of the evening.

It's like kiddy fiddling in the Catholic church.
 
#19 · (Edited)
It does seem to me that if one is listening to a recording and the coughing is troubling to them, it's likely that insufficient Aufmerksamkeit is being paid to the music (assuming coughing is not excessive, of course). Many CM listeners' pursuit of purity and perfection makes them unwitting targets of humor; best to avoid this - we're humans and prone to defects and faults of many persuasions, including being obsessed with CM.
 
#20 · (Edited)
Coughing and creaking chairs during the performance is extremely annoying, I have some live recordings, only one of them has coughing, I actually discarded the recording, leaving the booklet because they are quite beautiful. Applause and even some whistlings at the end of performance exhilarate me, I actually like it.
 
#22 ·
As long as it's not excessive, I can tolerate it. There are some studio recordings where players try to stifle coughs, that's ok too. The extraneous noises in some older recordings is quite amusing. They would be covered up on LPs with surface noise and such, but CDs just make it all so clear.

Applause is another problem: sometimes it's so loud that it's jarring and annoying. I prefer it to be left out. But I have a concert recording of Glazunov's ballet Raymonda where the audience claps at times and somehow it's ok - adds to the sense of joy.

I will never understand why anyone who is ill would go to a concert and spread their disease. Flu, cold, now Coronavirus. And these people who cough all the time? Quit smoking. Drink plenty of fluids. Take care of yourself, but quit exposing the rest of us to your rude behavior.
 
#36 ·
I will never understand why anyone who is ill would go to a concert and spread their disease. Flu, cold, now Coronavirus. And these people who cough all the time? Quit smoking. Drink plenty of fluids. Take care of yourself, but quit exposing the rest of us to your rude behavior.
Most people I know who attend classical concerts purchase their tickets well in advance, some times as part of a subscription. As such, it might be very difficult to countenance missing a concert one has already paid for.

I suppose the more liberal the exchange/refund policy, the more likely people would be to stay home with a cough.
 
#27 · (Edited)
I purchased this set of Beethoven trios, featuring Du Pre, Barenboim, and Perlman. The playing is top shelf.

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But the coughing drives me to distraction. I listen on headphones, and it is very unpleasant. The real problem is that it occurs during quiet passages of the music itself, as opposed to during movement breaks.

So: applause is great (though I frequently skip past it). Coughing is a deal breaker for me. I totally understand the argument for live versus studio recordings. At their best, a live recording might be able to communicate some of the electricity between performers and audience. But if it suffers from coughing, I will take a studio recording in a heartbeat.

This is not to say that I am some sort of coughing nazi in a live show. I get it. People, especially old people, need to cough. I don't like it, and it might disrupt my appreciation of a beautiful passage of music, but I paid for a live show with other humans present , so it is what it is. I don't have the option of renting out the entire hall for a private show. I'm getting what I paid for at $30-$60.

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My family also goes to outdoor performances in Millennium Park in Chicago (above is my son getting into the performance with my sushi chopsticks). People have picnics, conversation, etc, and there is the regular cacophony of city sounds added into the mix as well. But I am paying for nothing besides a bus ride and a takeout order, and I enjoy the sights and sounds of the city anyway. If I wanted to focus with laser like intensity on the music, I would either take it indoors or listen to a studio recording.

So a recording with coughs is the worst of both worlds. It's a venue in which I ought to be able to focus entirely on the music, but can't, and it gives me a recording of a live experience, which it isn't (I don't get the visual ambience). So why tolerate it at all?
 
#29 ·
Personally, applause or coughing doesn't add nor subtract from the performance. It bothers me not. It's like the clicks and pops of my vinyl, hiss and so on. Not a problem either chez vincula. I'm very much aware that I'm listening to an artifact, a musical re-production, so as long as the performance achieves the goal of moving me and my fantasy, I'm perfectly happy.

Regards,

Vincula
 
#30 ·
Personally, applause or coughing doesn't add nor subtract from the performance. It bothers me not. It's like the clicks and pops of my vinyl, hiss and so on. Not a problem either chez vincula. I'm very much aware that I'm listening to an artifact, a musical re-production, so as long as the performance achieves the goal of moving me and my fantasy, I'm perfectly happy.
Given a choice between an excellent performance with "the clicks and pops of vinyl, hiss and so on," and the same performance on CD without the clicks and pops and hiss, I'll choose the CD every time. Given the choice between an excellent studio performance with dead silence behind it, or an excellent performance in front of a rheumatic audience, I'll choose the studio recording.

Sometimes you have no choice though.
 
#45 ·
The only problem I have with applause is that it wakes me up at the end of the recording.

Otherwise, it can really add interest to recordings of 4'33". :D
 
#47 ·
The BEST example of extraneous noise I've heard is Sviatoslav Richter's "Richter in Spoleto" recording, done in 1967. As he's walking out on stage, you hear his footsteps treading the boards, and the town bell is ringing in the background! When the opening applause dies down, you can still hear the bell ringing in the first few bars. It's beautiful!

 
#48 · (Edited)
Sometimes excited applause at the end can really add to a spectacular performance, especially if there are yells of bravo, etc. I've heard this on Martha Argerich playing a Rachmaninoff concert, and recently on a newer Rachmanninoff recording with BBC Philharmonic/Sokolov.
 
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