Is it Live, Memorex, or Just Bavarian Radio?

Last month, the Akademie was in Munich to give two performances of Bach’s Christmas Oratorio together with the Bavarian Radio Choir at the Herkulessaal in the Münchener Residenz. Being Christmastime, Bavarian Radio used the opportunity to spread holiday cheer by airing our first concert on Christmas Day and the second on the 2^nd of January. If you have a chance this week, you can find that second broadcast on Bavarian Radio’s website. Go to http://www.br-online.de/, find “BR Mediathek” on the homepage menu and click on “video”. A new window should open automatically, allowing you to find our concert from Sunday, January 2^nd at 11:40 (or, in German: So. 02.01.11 at 11:40 under the title “Weihnachtsoratorium”).

You can well imagine that I was interested in seeing how the production turned out. For the entire week we were in Munich, the crews at Bavarian Radio made a colossal effort to record and film practically every moment we were on stage, going so far as to have us dress up in concert attire for a mock “live performance” dress rehearsal. It all seemed to be completely overblown for a broadcast of two ‘live’ concerts, and yet the crews told us not to worry- everything would be “wonderful”. “Just play, and we’ll take care of the rest.”

“Yeah, right,” I thought to myself. Sitting there, I found myself witnessing yet another example of how the needs and wants of film crews don’t necessarily match those of sound technicians. This isn’t the first time I have had to work in front of cameras, and I know how sound technicians, who require absolute silence for a successful take, often end up yelling at film crews for their inability to shut up. Film crews, primarily interested in capturing dramatic images from stunning angles, have no reservations about setting up cameras on booms that go “Whrr!” over the stage, or positioning crew members who crouch down from below to stick their lenses into our faces in order to get close-up shots of musicians in action (“Just act naturally”). Because for them the visual effect is of first priority, even if it means having to get in the way of everything else going on during the production. And when you add to that some artsy-fartsy lighting crew who wants to dramatically ‘redesign’ the hall’s atmosphere, and needs to play around with colored spotlights, then you’ve got a real recipe for disaster in the making. Two years ago, during the rehearsal for a televised performance of Handel’s Brockespassion in Warsaw, Poland, I witnessed a fight nearly erupt between the camera crew, the lighting technicians, and sound technicians when the blowing noise of the dry ice machines, set up in the hall to create a dramatic fog-like effect, was found to be too loud. We musicians, who were barely able to see the music in front of us, quickly sided with the sound engineers, who threatened to walk out if the machines were not removed “immediately”. That in turn enraged the camera crew and the lighting technicians, who also began threatening to quit. Only a firm decision to replace the fog with extra pink lighting diverted all out war.

And it seemed to be not much different here in Munich. There were no fights, but regularly the good takes were simply ruined by extraneous noise by the crews working in the hall during the rehearsals, doubling the amount of time we needed to collect useable material. Television crew members always seemed to be caught talking with each other and more than once the lighting would be set into test mode, turning the stage into a disco of flashing lights of every which color possible. But despite this Bavarian Rundfunk’s confidence that their Herculean effort would result in two ‘flawless’ concerts seemed to remain unshaken. I had my doubts.

Which leads me to ask something: just what is ‘flawless’ anyways, and why does perfection always have to be based on the lowest common denominator of the studio engineered CD recording, or a televsion show? Why couldn’t Bavarian Radio just risk accepting the concert ‘as is’, keep the use of cameras to a minimum, and have us stay on stage after each of the two concerts for minor corrections, which is normal? We could have easily accepted that, and considering that both of our concerts were basically excellent, filled with moments where the orchestra, together with the soloists and choir, really ‘rocked’ the stage, it would have been easier in the end for all participants. However, this ideal of achieving a ‘flawless’ performance seemed to override the risk of using anything that was spontaneous, energetic, and yet sometimes a bit gritty. It’s a pity, because in my own opinion I find that the imperfections are just part of what truly makes a thrilling live performance ‘perfect’.

But obviously a recording engineer, who has the chance to use different takes to create the illusion of perfection, would dispute that.

That’s probably the reason why I’m disappointed with the results, because in truth we really played better than what the video shows. Yes, the broadcast technically ‘good’, but a lot of what was ‘great’ during the concert got castrated. The soloists are clean and the trumpets don’t break their high notes, and all of the rough edges are perfectly ironed out, but there’s not much left to our performance that made it really moving. And that’s a shame. Moreover, if you look really carefully, you will also start to notice how the synchronization of the sound and the picture is terribly off, which, in my opinion, is an even greater sin. At first I thought it was just because my computer connection was too slow, but when I kept on finding moments where the synchronization was suddenly right before trailing off again, I realized that the recording engineer was probably forced to cut a compromise between the two mediums. Again and again I had to think to the words of a colleague of mine who helped edit the Akademie’s video of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. “There were moments where it was nearly impossible to line things up exactly,” he explained. “If we moved things over even just one hundredth of a second forwards or backwards, and it was wrong, then everything would quickly unravel, so much so that after a few seconds it was unbearable to watch. I almost gave up in the end.”

Which is exactly what I did with the Christmas Oratorio. Shutting off the monitor, I just listened to the rest of the concert without the video, wishing that I could just hear what we really played that evening.