Live or Recorded; A Faustian response

Plsl: I'm sneaking out on Friday to catch their matinee, if I can. In my view, the VPO owns almost any piece they choose to play. Heard them in Vienna last June playing the Strauss Alpine Symphony with Janssons conducting--no stereo system in the world can reproduce that experience. How was Haitink with them?

The best term to describe it was masterful. It was one of those very select performances where the conductor was in complete service to the music and did not seem to impose an interpretation, but rather lead an orchestra of virtuosos that CARED about the music. The tempi tended toward the slow side but it never dragged. The adagio was (as it should be) the centerpiece of the interpretation and it was shattering. The first movement did not emphasize the tragic to the extent of the Furtwangler and Karajan and I would have preferred that the articulation of the scherzo had been sharper but these are quibbles.

The sound of the VPO is so right for Bruckner it was glorious to hear them play such a truly great piece of music from up front.

Do you need the VPO to get that experiential feeling?
My friend(who is a great guitarist) doing lewd lyrics to Gloria on his Martin acoustic guitar?? My wife on her
accordion playing the Tic Tock Polka?? My granddaughter
with a penny whistle??? All live events right???? Do we draw a line and say only VPO with Haitink or the Zurich with Zinman are the only experiences that are memorable or worthy of our attention???If your daughter was learning to play the Star Spangled Banner on her clarinet would you shoo her away and say go away!! I think not!!! You would want to experience that with your heart and soul.And that experience existentially( an authentic experience-Heidegger again) is pure music.

Well put, sir! You could add to that my wife's (off-key) singing to the Gilbert & Sullivan Songbook record I got from Sdcampbell--thanks, SD, it's been a lot of fun!

Sorry I don't agree. I've gone to a live musical event once or twice a week for thirty plus years. There are good, bad and great performances. There are many live performances of music that I could go to but don't like the music so I don't go. There are many musicians who are enjoying themselves and having a great time on stage and are not worth listening to. I've been to concerts where the musicians are playing great music on auto pilot -- this just makes me hopping mad so I stay away from these groups and listen to recordings.

These opinions apply to recorded music as well.

The authentic experience happens between the ears in wetware of the perceiver whose perceptual capabilities have been molded by billions of years of evolution. The listener’s actual experience is both culturally and personally determined but so what. It is the height of intellectual arrogance to refer to another person’s life or experience as inauthentic but it doesn’t hurt to point them to great music.

My answer to the purpose of being is for me to have a great time and listen to as much good music as I can. Life is too short to listen to bad music