Live from Flushing - part 2
So, it’s taken me somewhat longer than planned to post this follow-up, but I needed some time to process the extraordinary experience I had two weeks ago.
I was excited at the prospect of making this recording, but it’s fair to say there was some trepidation as well. In addition to being my first ever live recording, it was my first orchestra recording. And since Orpheus plays without a conductor, that was another element of unfamiliarity inserted into the process. (I had played conductorless before, but not with anything approaching the frequency with which I’ve played concerti with conductors.)
There were also logistical differences between this and my previous recordings: until now, I’d always recorded in London, which meant sticking - obsessively, some might say - to a routine. I stayed in the same hotel, ate the same things for breakfast, ran in the same park, left at the same time every morning. This time I was in New York, which meant that I was at home: nice, but psychologically different. (In my life, being at home usually means not working - or at least not performing.)
All of which is to say that the element of the unknown was very, very present. The details of the recording had been more-or-less in place since the summer, so I had a long time to think about the implications of all this. I’ve written in the past that a recording, to me, simply represents a snapshot of my thoughts about the piece on the day, but the truth is somewhat more complicated: however impossible it might be, the permanence of recording has always caused to me to fantasize about an idealized performance of a piece. And because I always record a piece after I’ve played a series of performances of it, there’s an urge to see the recording as a kind of summation of the process - a chance to meld all of the prior performances, and hope for a “the-whole-is-more-than-the-sum-of-its-parts” kind of result.
There’s a big downside to this attitude: not only does it discourage spontaneity, it is anti-spontaneity, as it carries the implication that everything that will happen in the recording studio has been experienced already. It also, I believe, leads to the making of a recording whose value is more theoretical than real - a recording that can be admired, but not loved. The snapshot analogy still holds, but the question becomes: is a photograph a document of a moment, or a highly posed creation?
Needless to say, I’ve given this issue a lot of thought, and in previous sessions I’ve felt that these two concepts of recording were doing battle with one another. I would have liked to have let go entirely of any expectation of perfection, or idealization, but the foreverness of the CD was often in the back of my mind. (Schnabel used to talk about the process of “verplattung” - which in German means both “disc-making” and “flattening out.”)
One of the advantages - or challenges, depending on your point of view - of recording live was that the decision as to which attitude I would take towards the recording was made for me. While the dress rehearsal was also recorded, and we had a brief patch session after the concert, the number of hours devoted to recording this album was a tiny fraction of what I spent making the Schumann and Beethoven CDs. The opportunity to play things over and over until I had found - or at least approached - what I had in my ear at the beginning of the day was simply not there. In its place was a very different opportunity: the chance to make a recording in which spontaneity was not only not shied away from, but actually the primary element involved. It’s not that my preparation for this recording was any less thorough: if anything, the mental and physical preparation for this disc was more intense than ever. It’s that the goal of the preparation was not to eliminate the element of uncertainty, of chance, but to free me to take chances. As cliched as it may be, my goal for this recording was to meet the moment.
As luck would have it, several elements combined to ensure that the odds were stacked in my favor. First of all, the music itself asked for this approach. Whereas in a Beethoven movement, creating a sense of the architecture of the whole is perhaps the biggest key to making the performance work, with Mozart, a sense of the mercurial - the sensation that the character of a phrase is being determined as it is played, as a reaction to the provocation that was the previous phrase - is of utmost importance. And that cannot be faked - you can only give the impression of being in the moment by actually being in the moment.
Second, I had the huge fortune of playing with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. In addition to their fantastic playing, their energy and enthusiasm were incredibly contagious, and the level of involvement each of them had in the music-making is something I will not soon forget. And any fear I may have had about playing without a conductor in a recording session proved unjustified: the lack of conductor - and the security one brings - forced everyone to listen that much more intently, which changed everything. It made the ensemble tighter, facilitated greater flexibility, and most importantly, it meant that whenever I tried something on the spur of the moment - a different dynamic shape, a slight leaning on a note - the orchestra not only accommodated it, but responded in kind. Never, playing this repertoire, have I had such a strong sense of a conversation being written on the spot.
Suffice it to say, the experience on the whole was memorable, and the concert itself had a joyousness - a pleasure in music-making - which I wouldn’t have imagined possible beforehand, given the pressure created by the circumstances. I’ve yet to listen to the tapes, but the making of the recording was so gratifying, the end result somehow doesn’t seem so important. (Another sharp contrast with my previous recordings, when the arrival of the first edit was a momentious - and nerve-wracking - moment.) What is important is the way the week confirmed my deepest-held feelings about music-making, so often compromised, and occasionally even obscured, by the pressure of recording and performing to the standard that great music demands: that it is all about communication. That if you strive to play in the most open, egoless way possible, you can reach people in a way that only music can. That it is, at its best, a more wonderful means of communication than speech.
I am very, very lucky to do what I do. Making this recording, I felt that as strongly as I ever have in my life.