Guido, since English is not my mother tongue, I would not have the vocabulary to describe what you have so beautifully put forth, it is now my turn to say that I understand what you mean... in spades! Thank you!
Mrtennis,
Yes, we do not speak of sound here, we speak of music. The former of course will not, the latter however may touch the soul. Of course it is both semantically as well as psychologically not quite correct to say that music has soul. Music may move your soul. Per se however music, let us take a Bach fugue, is a mathematical construct within a certain set of rules and boundaries, written down to be turned into sounds, which, when performed, we, especially if we have been socialised within the same cultural context where these compositions stem from, will percieve as music. Music, as we all know, can have an emotional impact on us, will trigger feelings, which sometimes even will touch the realm of the transcendental. Such music, we say colloquially " has soul " . There is a beautiful phrase in German which points into the same direction: Here we say a certain interpretation of a certain composition is "beseelt", which is best translated as "endowed with soul". I think basically up to here, we are in agreement. I would also see eye to eye with you in your statement, that quality of recordings have nothing to do with soul. I just have to think of most of HP's (TAS) favourite list of recordings and to remember how often some of them bored me and left me unmoved. I liked the sound, but not the music.
I also agree with your statement, that at best soul inheres in a live performance. I suppose we are in agreement, that most of us in our hobby try to come as close as possible to our perception of live music through our rigs. Now, just speaking for myself, I have lots of redbook Cds the sound of which I find great. Amongst those -within the classical realm- there are only two performances, solo performances, mind you, one by Hilary Hahn, the other by Janos Starker, which really move me and let me forget both rig and medium. I could recount infinitely more instances of analog rendition, which will do the same for me. This is only me naturally, hence of no statistical relevance at all, I realise that, also of course, as you say, this discussion could very well be held within the music section of A. as well. However, within the context of certain shortcomings which digital still to this day seems to have vis a vis LP or analog tape, in the rendition of the total "gestalt" of a musical performance, the chances are great, that LPs will get under your skin much more often than digital would. So, even though I would wish that it were not so, the medium, especially to someone deeply spoiled by live music, is still quite an issue to me and hence reason for me to join this discussion just here, where I find, it rightly belongs.
Mrtennis,
Yes, we do not speak of sound here, we speak of music. The former of course will not, the latter however may touch the soul. Of course it is both semantically as well as psychologically not quite correct to say that music has soul. Music may move your soul. Per se however music, let us take a Bach fugue, is a mathematical construct within a certain set of rules and boundaries, written down to be turned into sounds, which, when performed, we, especially if we have been socialised within the same cultural context where these compositions stem from, will percieve as music. Music, as we all know, can have an emotional impact on us, will trigger feelings, which sometimes even will touch the realm of the transcendental. Such music, we say colloquially " has soul " . There is a beautiful phrase in German which points into the same direction: Here we say a certain interpretation of a certain composition is "beseelt", which is best translated as "endowed with soul". I think basically up to here, we are in agreement. I would also see eye to eye with you in your statement, that quality of recordings have nothing to do with soul. I just have to think of most of HP's (TAS) favourite list of recordings and to remember how often some of them bored me and left me unmoved. I liked the sound, but not the music.
I also agree with your statement, that at best soul inheres in a live performance. I suppose we are in agreement, that most of us in our hobby try to come as close as possible to our perception of live music through our rigs. Now, just speaking for myself, I have lots of redbook Cds the sound of which I find great. Amongst those -within the classical realm- there are only two performances, solo performances, mind you, one by Hilary Hahn, the other by Janos Starker, which really move me and let me forget both rig and medium. I could recount infinitely more instances of analog rendition, which will do the same for me. This is only me naturally, hence of no statistical relevance at all, I realise that, also of course, as you say, this discussion could very well be held within the music section of A. as well. However, within the context of certain shortcomings which digital still to this day seems to have vis a vis LP or analog tape, in the rendition of the total "gestalt" of a musical performance, the chances are great, that LPs will get under your skin much more often than digital would. So, even though I would wish that it were not so, the medium, especially to someone deeply spoiled by live music, is still quite an issue to me and hence reason for me to join this discussion just here, where I find, it rightly belongs.