BBC Music Magazine

All the world’s a stage

- ILLUSTRATI­ON: MARIA CORTE MAIDAGAN

There’s no such thing as a live recording. All recordings are, strictly speaking, inanimate: they are bits of informatio­n – inert, lifeless stuff that will last as long as the internet survives, surfing an eternal digital temporalit­y that we mortals will never know.

Recordings are, in other words, dead. We are only moved by them through an alchemy of our imaginatio­n, a trick of our subconscio­us, which allows us to hear a recording of a human voice or an orchestra not for what it truly is – an electronic noise – but as an echo of real human experience. When we listen, we have the illusion of human beings communicat­ing with us, across time and culture, to find us in the present tense of our listening. Recordings may be dead, but listening is live.

The power of recorded music only exists because of the essential energy of live music, of which recordings are tokens. It’s not just that we feel Maria Callas singing to us in our living rooms, our cars, our commuter trains: we imagine we’re with her and the rest of the audience at La Scala. It’s the same for Billie Holiday at Carnegie Hall, for Leonard Bernstein at Vienna’s Musikverei­n or for Mitsuko Uchida at Wigmore Hall. Recordings – even studio recordings – put us into a place with the musicians and, by extension, with an audience, with everyone who’s sharing this experience with us.

Which is why when you’re with live musicians in the same space, the intensity of communicat­ion is amplified

We should never again take for granted the communal power of the concert

by their real-time performanc­e, by your real-time listening, and the feedback loop of concentrat­ion you create together.

This is the precious and profound alchemy of concerts, and such are the things we might have become complacent about back in the era when they were at the heart of our musical lives. If nothing else, these concertsta­rved months have shown the ache we all have for live music, and the necessity of never taking for granted again the communal power of the concert.

I’m writing these words having just had the joy of being at the Royal Albert Hall with Isata and Sheku Kannehmaso­n for their BBC Prom. And the thrill of their connection on stage, sharing the empathetic power of their performanc­es of Rachmanino­v and Barber cello sonatas with the handful of us lucky enough to be in the hall, and with everyone listening and watching the broadcasts, was overwhelmi­ng. It was moving proof of why we human beings need live music in our lives.

Concerts, with audiences, are coming back, and they must. And all of us, as listeners as well as programmer­s, broadcaste­rs – and politician­s – must have a urgent mission to sustain and support musicians whose livelihood­s are in danger right now. No concerts means no real musical culture, and no vitalising energy for recordings to thrive on. Life is live, and so must music be.

 ??  ??
 ??  ?? The concert experience is a powerful and joyful union of artist and audience, says Tom Service, and the sooner it returns to our towns and cities, the better
The concert experience is a powerful and joyful union of artist and audience, says Tom Service, and the sooner it returns to our towns and cities, the better
 ??  ?? Tom Service explores how music works in The Listening
Service on Sundays at 5pm
Tom Service explores how music works in The Listening Service on Sundays at 5pm

Newspapers in English

Newspapers from United Kingdom