Sound recordings

Cortot’s piano playing offers many opportunities to consider the relationship between sound, meaning, emotion, calculation, personality, society, and music. The key evidence at the heart of these interrelationships can be found in a detailed analysis of data describing timing and loudness in his recorded performances. A study of his 1926 and (recently rediscovered) 1928 recordings of Chopin Preludes, viewed through Sonic Visualiser software (www.sonicvisualiser.org), is used as a focus for a discussion of Cortot’s mythical expressive spontaneity.

In 2004, Icelandic singer-songwriter Björk (b. 1965) released her fifth solo album Medúlla, made almost exclusively with human voices. After outlining what I have termed ‘the elastic self’, which recognises both personal and external agency, this dissertation first examines how Björk uses technologies of the studio, using Actor Network Theory. Often mechanical manipulation is an attempt to depict powerlessness, whilst her employment of beatboxers’ interplay with technology is to express the body. . I will explore how Björk conceptualised and conceived Medúlla (2004), an album made almost entirely from human voicesI then perform an organicist motivic analysis of the album, studying motives used in different songs and links made across the musical foreground and background and the resulting unity. Through the concept of the rhizome and Actor Network Theory, I expand my analysis of motivic unity outside of the album, suggesting that the album can also be read as a network or as ‘elastic’. This study will attempt to understand how Björk’s idea of the self and body were transferred to the musical work.

Until the advent of recording technology, the composer's influence as a
performer or teacher was continued posthumously only by his or her pupils
in an oral (and aural) tradition, and in written sources. By preserving the
composer's own performance in an audible form which can be recalled at any time and in any place, we have the equivalent, albeit mediated, of a direct experience with the composer. What we need to decide is how much
credence we should give to this information in relation to the score and
the other data used to prepare a performance.

This essay discuses the role of the score and recording in musicological research. It then examines some of the recordings in which Messiaen performs his own music or has had direct or indirect influence on
the performance of others, and suggests that these recordings are an invaluable aid to interpretation. Messiaen's own recordings point to a 'manner of realization' for his music, in effect a performance practice (or perhaps better a performance tradition), which will be an axiomatic reference point for future interpretations.

Liner notes for Great Pianists: Artur Schnabel - Beethoven Sonata Society Recordings (1932-1935), an eleven-CD set of recordings released on the Naxos Historical Label (2003-2006). Remastered by Mark Obert-Thorn. The notes provide a reception history of the recordings, drawing on reviews as well as biographical and autobiographical works. Naxos recording numbers: 8.110671, 8.110694, 8.110695, 8.110756, 8.110759, 8.110760, 8.110761, 8.110762, 8.110763, 8.110764, 8.110765

In the wake of NAGPRA (Native American Graves Protection and
Repatriation Act), museums and archives are acutely aware of cultural property issues. Cultural intellectual property remains legislatively neglected. Ethical precedent does exist, however, for museums and archives to treat intangible heritage with the same respect as tangible property. Recorded sound collections in many libraries, museums and archives in the United States hold ethnographic recordings of indigenous American cultures. These recordings are of immense value to the cultures and peoples they document as well as to those who study the history and development of humankind. Often they require special treatment or restricted access.

Through the development of collections management policies and procedures, a responsible institution can identify sensitive
recordings in its collections and isolate them for further investigation. By doing so, an institution can allow broader access to non-sensitive recordings and can begin the process of determining how to properly manage those that are culturally sensitive.

The management and exploitation of copyrighted material in the form of musical works and sound recordings through the mechanism of collecting societies is a convenient structure that facilitates the utilisation of these works by potential users upon payment of adequate compensation to the owners and rights-holders on mutually agreed terms. In Nigeria, the adoption and application of this mechanism remains a work in progress both in terms of the legal framework for its actualization and the regulatory oversight required to ensure that a convenient tool designed to ameliorate the logistical and other challenges encountered by owners and users of musical works and sound recordings is not elevated to a pedestal that contradicts the rationale and economic justification for such a mechanism. Some vexing issues applicable to the objectives and functions of collecting societies in Nigeria are examined closely in this paper through the lens of the recent decision of the Federal High Court sitting in Lagos, in the case of Copyright Society of Nigeria v MTN Nigeria Communications Limited. The paper argues inter alia that proper care and attention through regular monitoring and supervision is required to ensure that the objectives for licensing collecting societies are not negated by extraneous factors.

Performance traditions are constantly evolving entities. Some musical traditions purposefully look to the past to reinvent and consolidate a sense of national-cultural identity in the present, a compelling case for which is provided by the performance practice of Grieg’s Slåtter, Op. 72, No. 2. An investigation of this practice in piano and Hardanger fiddle recordings of this repertoire, by means of new empirical techniques for the comparative analysis of beat tempo and dynamics, traces the mechanisms of stylistic recombination in the performance of this music. Cultural-historical and ethnographic contextual evidence reveals tension between discourse and actual performance practice in (re)constructions of Norwegian cultural identity, with broader implications of reinventing the performance practice of this repertoire on contemporary Norwegian cultural memory.

Esta tesis doctoral trata sobre las grabaciones integrales de Iberia de Isaac Albéniz, desde una perspectiva que tiene en cuenta varias aristas con la intención de obtener una visión completa de estos documentos. Las diversas secciones abordan aspectos particulares relacionados con el objeto de estudio, siendo así que el cuerpo central del trabajo de investigación está dividido en tres partes: la primera de ellas desarrolla una discografía, aporta las fichas biográficas de los pianistas y documenta los elementos complementarios de las grabaciones; la segunda explora la iconografía mostrada en las carátulas de discos; y la tercera parte se enfoca en el tempo musical. A estas secciones analíticas le anteceden un estado de la cuestión y la presentación de una propuesta metodológica que posibilita el estudio sistemático del registro sonoro. El trabajo se inicia con el diseño de la investigación y cierra con un apartado que sintetiza los puntos principales del estudio realizado. La importancia de esta tesis recae en su enfoque riguroso y científico para estudiar la información musical, visual y discográfica dentro de un contexto interdisciplinario. El limitado número de registros contemplados y lo homogéneo del grupo en cuanto al soporte sonoro, permiten realizar un estudio comparativo de aspectos concretos con pocas variables. En un concepto más amplio, esta investigación contribuye al entendimiento de las grabaciones musicales como testigos fehacientes del siglo XX. Estos documentos sonoros han cobrado vital importancia al permitir el estudio de la interpretación musical y al existir un número considerable de registros disponibles. La perspectiva de estudio aplicada a dicha realidad conlleva las siguientes ventajas: en primer lugar promueve el posicionamiento de la grabación como objeto de estudio dentro del quehacer musicológico actual. En segundo, posibilita la obtención de máxima información de los elementos constitutivos de una grabación a través de las herramientas adecuadas. Y finalmente, ofrece una aproximación sistemática novedosa para estudiar el registro sonoro como un documento musical, histórico y comercial.

This paper focuses on how I collect and curate sound recordings, particularly the 78rpm shellac format. It deals with the motivating forces behind why I collect sound recordings and how I situate them in their appropriate historical context - through curated exhibitions, blog writing and reissue projects. I touch upon curating methodology involving sound and how the reissue "package" can function as a physical site in a similar way to an exhibition space. I also draw attention to the importance of sound recordings as an active, living history in an Australian context, and why we should do more to share and disseminate them.

Before the era of recorded music, the performer and audience had a direct connection principally because they sat in the same room. The Performer could respond to audience interaction either immediately, or in the development of new works to satisfy the audience. Similarly, the audience could show appreciation enthusiastically, be non-committal or even ignore a performance. As Eisenberg has stated, the advent of the phonograph meant “that [for the performer] the audience is not there…[is] the flip side of the fact that, for the listener, the performer is not there”. The era of Eisenberg's "Music as a commodity" has therefore meant isolation between the performer and their audience. The performer only gets the “delayed” response from the audience through record sales, reviews and career success. The audience becomes accustomed to waiting for new recordings, not quite knowing whether they will satisfy their expectations.

Just as the adoption of new technology starting with the Phonograph created this isolation, so too is new technology now breaking it down. Developments in technology and social media communications now allow a rejoining of the performer and their audience. Rather than waiting for a performer's next creation, the audience can communicate with the artist, invest financially in their projects and influence the composition, recording and production processes.

Based on empirical research with artists who have adopted the Artistshare model, this paper will examine the implications of this radical rejoining of artist and audience. Artistshare facilitates audience investment in artist projects, and in return, them being involved in some way (from being present at recording sessions through to being credited as Executive Producer). This change of relationship suggests a number of issues which warrant examination. For example, what do Artistshare artists anticipate to be the effect of involving audiences in their creative process? What has been the effect of audience intervention on the creative and technical processes? Is audience involvement motivational and inspirational or a necessary evil to fund projects? Do those who invest more money deserve more influence? How is the power balance between artist and audience managed - does it shift with time, and does a more successful artist automatically have more power in the relationship? Through the research findings, this paper aims to answer these questions to establish the effect of audience investment and participation on creation, performance, recording and production.

En este capítulo se hace una breve presentación de las recomendaciones técnicas mínimas que deberían tomarse en cuenta al momento de registrar imágenes, sonidos y videos con la finalidad de preservar una lengua determinada. Se pone más énfasis en las buenas prácticas, los métodos y las recomendaciones de sentido común que en los aparatos o programas con los que se registra los archivos audiovisuales, pues eso cambia constantemente.

The last twenty years have seen concerted efforts to shift the object of musicological study from scores to performances and sound recordings have played a huge part in fostering a sub-discipline of musical performance studies that focuses on acts rather than text. An action-centred musicology has sought to reposition musical creativity from enduring products or the minds of individuals to the diverse social and cultural sites of musical production and reception. Taking as a starting point Nicholas Cook’s theorization of recordings beyond the reproduction paradigm, this chapter considers how approaches to the cultural and historical, analytical, empirical and ethnographic study of classical sound recordings have been fuelled by this fast-changing scholarly landscape and have contributed to shaping an increasingly interdisciplinary field of musical performance studies which seeks to understand performances (recorded or otherwise) as intrinsically creative social practices. By firmly locating the study, criticism, and reception of classical sound recordings at the disciplinary cross-roads of musicology, empirical musicology, psychology, sociology, and ethnomusicology, this chapter reflects critically on the rich potential for cross-disciplinary dialogue and how this can extend the purview of musical performance studies.

路德維茲‧凡‧貝多芬獨奏鋼琴全集: 由亞圖爾‧施耐貝爾錄製於一九三零年代的倫敦艾比路錄音室 --
三十二首鋼琴奏鳴曲(包括"悲愴"、"月光"、"暴風雨"、"華德斯坦" 及 "鎚子鍵琴")、迪亞貝里變奏曲及其他作品。
Ludwig van Beethoven: intégrale des oeuvres pour piano solo, enregistrées par Artur Schnabel au studio Abbey Road de Londres dans les années 1930 - les 32 sonates pour piano (y compris la «Pathétique», le «clair de lune», le «Tempest», la «Waldstein» et la «Hammerklavier»), les Variations Diabelli, et d'autres pièces.

路德維茲‧凡‧貝多芬獨奏鋼琴全集: 由亞圖爾‧施耐貝爾錄製於一九三零年代的倫敦艾比路錄音室 --
三十二首鋼琴奏鳴曲(包括"悲愴"、"月光"、"暴風雨"、"華德斯坦" 及 "鎚子鍵琴")、迪亞貝里變奏曲及其他作品。
Ludwig van Beethoven: intégrale des oeuvres pour piano solo, enregistrées par Artur Schnabel au studio Abbey Road de Londres dans les années 1930 - les 32 sonates pour piano (y compris la «Pathétique», le «clair de lune», le «Tempest», la «Waldstein» et la «Hammerklavier»), les Variations Diabelli, et d'autres pièces.

History, origin, context, promotion, and reception of singer Elvis Presley's second number-one hit record "I Want You, I Need You, I Love You," released by RCA in June 1956, which includes discussion of its lyrics and Presley's performance, Life Magazine's coverage of the recording session, and Presley's related television appearance.

路德維茲‧凡‧貝多芬獨奏鋼琴全集: 由亞圖爾‧施耐貝爾錄製於一九三零年代的倫敦艾比路錄音室 --
三十二首鋼琴奏鳴曲(包括"悲愴"、"月光"、"暴風雨"、"華德斯坦" 及 "鎚子鍵琴")、迪亞貝里變奏曲及其他作品。
Ludwig van Beethoven: intégrale des oeuvres pour piano solo, enregistrées par Artur Schnabel au studio Abbey Road de Londres dans les années 1930 - les 32 sonates pour piano (y compris la «Pathétique», le «clair de lune», le «Tempest», la «Waldstein» et la «Hammerklavier»), les Variations Diabelli, et d'autres pièces.

The following is an unpublished outline for the "Australian Discographic Reissue Project" - an unrealised venture that would have seen Australia's entire recorded output of 78rpm recordings (from 1925-1958) digitised, remastered, researched and reissued through a combination of physical CDs and digital outlets like iTunes and Spotify.

As the film focuses on how technology and messages introduced by the missionaries play a role in larger socioeconomic transformations, The Tailenders asks viewers to think deeply about the impact of evangelism on indigenous communities facing crises caused by global economic forces. As an outreach tool, this documentary provides a springboard for discussions about the pursuit of social justice and the often complex — and sometimes ambiguous — definitions of acceptance, resistance, benefit, harm and salvation.

FILM SYNOPSIS: Global Recordings Network (GRN), founded in Los Angeles in 1939, has produced audio versions of Bible stories in over 5,500 languages. GRN aims to record in every language on earth. They distribute the recordings, along with ultra-low-tech hand-wind players, in isolated regions and among displaced migrant workers. GRN calls their target audience "the tailenders" because they are the last to be reached by worldwide evangelism.

*Served as one of the guide producers.

Lotte Lehmann (1888-1976) was one of the most distinguished singers of her generation, specializing in particular in the Wagnerian and Straussian operatic repertoire. Together with Maria Jeritza, she was an acclaimed prima donna at Wiener Hofoper under the superintendences of Franz Schalk, Richard Strauss and Clemens Krauss, until the Nazi Anschluss of 1938 led her leave for the USA. She established in California, continuing her operatic career until 1946 and co-founding the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara, where she taught Vocal Interpretation. Lehmann’s 1924 first appearance as the Marschallin under Bruno Walter at Covent Garden can be considered as a breaking point in her artistic life. This event marked the starting point of an international career throughout which Lehmann never ceased to sing the Straussian role. As a result, a complex relationship was engendered, linking the singer to that role and vice versa.
This article aims to reconstruct the main characteristics of Lehmann’s interpretative model for the Marschallin through the analysis of the singer’s writings and of the audio-visual materials related to her performances of the role. Moreover, a comparison between Lehmann’s model and the cultural ‘traditions’ embodied by the character of Marie Thérèse according to von Hofmannsthal and Strauss’s conception will highlight some phenomena related to the US reception of both the singer and the composer.
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The complete article can be read on:
https://www.sidm.it/ojs/index.php/ridm/issue/view/117

Work dynamics that characterize music production have been profoundly affected by the incursion of digital audio. The multiple possibilities of audio manipulation currently offered by DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) software on the one hand, make it possible to 'make up' inaccuracies and mistakes by solving the performer's shortcomings, but on the other, offer the possibility of 'molding' the interpretation, thus acquiring an indisputable protagonism within it: in this technological context, audio edition and musical interpretation suppose two activities closely related. Langford (2014) distinguishes three editing methods that are clearly differentiated according to their purpose: corrective, creative, and restorative. For the author, the usual corrective tasks include cutting, copying, pasting, and comping, while the most common creative tasks include time-stretching and pitch manipulation. But some of the tasks that are usually associated with a 'corrective' edition have, as we will try to demonstrate through this research, a clear artistic intentionality, enabling the deconstruction of the original rhythmic or melodic motif and generating new texts.

From the earliest days of sound recording technology shared a fraught relationship with the pre-modern cultures of South Asia, and in particular with traditional music and sounds. Imperial companies and colonial ethnographers introduced the recording of sound in South Asia in the early 20th century. The recording of musical performances along with other forms of sound (i.e., speeches, comedy shows, theatre, and staged acts) within a studio setting that were then made available publicly as objects for reproduction and as products for sale had far-reaching social and sonic effects. Recording technologies altered the performance aesthetics of sound practices by limiting the duration and scope of improvisation and transformed modes of distribution by transmitting vocals, instrumental music, and local sounds as fixed objects to mass audiences for the first time. Yet there was resistance to recording the voices and sounds of colonized subjects in South Asia on the part of leading musicians and sound practitioners who, for a long time, refused to commit their improvisational sounds to shellac discs. The article addresses this question: what were the reasons for their protestation?

El objetivo del presente estudio es relevar las tradiciones interpretativas de la ópera Il
Trovatore de Giuseppe Verdi a través del análisis de registros sonoros, estudio y
comparación de fuentes con la edición crítica de la partitura realizada en conjunto entre la
Casa Editorial Ricordi Milán y The University of Chicago Press en 1993. Este trabajo
permitirá contar con un sustento teórico que complete el estudio de la obra en favor de
nuevas propuestas que continúen, contradigan o renueven estas prácticas interpretativas.
Para ello hemos seleccionado veinte grabaciones completas y once arias que abarcan un
período de tiempo de 106 años entre 1908 y 2014. Para la comparación han sido tenido en
cuenta los siguientes parámetros: velocidad (discrepancia en la interpretación de las
velocidades metronómicas indicadas por el compositor - cambios súbitos o graduales en la
velocidad de diversos fragmentos que no obedecen a ninguna indicación de la partitura);
variantes en la línea melódica; texto (distribución silábica – pronunciación - cambios de
texto); duración (cambios de ritmo en la línea vocal – detenciones - prolongación de las
líneas vocales en la finalización de escenas -cadencia vocal con detención total); cortes;
interpolaciones y transposiciones. Para mejor visualización de los resultados las
audiciones se han volcado en cuadros comparativos. La contextualización de la obra en su
entorno histórico-cultural se estableció a través del análisis musical enfocado en establecer
parámetros formales, armónicos, melódicos, rítmicos, instrumentales y topográficos.
Asimismo se observaron otros procedimientos compositivos que pudieron ser comparados
con los de otros compositores de la época.
Como consecuencia del examen de los registros sonoros seleccionados podemos asegurar
que la ópera Il Trovatore ha sufrido cambios musicales durante sus interpretaciones con
respecto a lo escrito en la partitura los cuales tienden a replicarse en versiones realizadas en
diferentes lugares, momentos y con la participación de diversos intérpretes. Los mismos
han sido clasificados, comparados y analizados. En los casos pertinentes se aporta la
transcripción de las versiones escuchadas. Asimismo hemos rescatado aquellas situaciones
que por su conducta se han establecido como tradiciones de interpretación que se
multiplicaron, desarrollaron, transformaron y subsistieron en el tiempo. Así, la presente
investigación nos da un completo panorama acerca de la historia sonora de Il Trovatore.
Conocer las tradiciones interpretativas que se desarrollaron alrededor de la obra permite un
abordaje más completo de la misma, no sólo en el campo de la comprensión analítica sino
como sustento al momento de tomar decisiones artísticas en favor de su puesta en acto. En
este sentido el trabajo aporta evidencia a la cual se ha arribado en forma sistematizada y
metódica. Este conocimiento amplía la gama de posibilidades de interpretación que
subyacen en la partitura y resalta aspectos que la completan. Sobre todo estimamos que es
un aporte significativo al campo de nuestra especialidad, la dirección musical.

"In this public letter, provided in response to the U.S. Copyright Offices notice of inquiry regarding their "Study on the Desirability of and Means for Bringing Sound Recordings Fixed Before February 15, 1972, Under Federal Jurisdiction," I argue in favor of federal copyright protection of this class of sound recordings.

Using examples from my digitization internship and case study on the Jesuit Tape Collection, a collection of reel-to-reel sound recordings from the 1950s and 1960s held by the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California, I show the difficulties faced in digitization and digital preservation of this class of sound recordings that develop as a result of legal barriers. Federal protection of this class of recordings could lead to a reduced risk of losing significant cultural heritage as these materials degrade over time.

For further details on the U.S. Copyright Office's study, visit their website: http://www.copyright.gov/docs/sound/

La Sonata para flauta y piano de Francis Poulenc es parte del repertorio indispensable para todo flautista, es una de las obras fundamentales, gracias a su virtuosismo en cuanto a articulaciones, dinamicas y fraseos. Una de las caracteristicas principales es el juego que tiene con los tempos en el primer movimiento. Consideramos interesante analizar el primer movimiento de esta obra debido a la forma en que los diferentes interpretes llevan el tempo sin alterar el fraseo. Realizamos un estudio minucioso de la secuencia de cambios en el tempo para que el flautista, o personas interesadas, puedan disfrutar mas al momento de escuchar, analizar y trabajar, si es el caso, para una mejor interpretacion, basandonos no solamente en lo que el compositor pide, sino agregando informacion valiosa que estos interpretes pudieron aportar a esta importante obra. Para esto hemos estudiado a cuatro interpretes mediante sus grabaciones comerciales, es importante mencionar que dos de estas grabaciones ...