Missouri Classical Music News and Notes

The Hatto scandal reminds us that, even in hands not sullied like his, the piecemeal process by which finished recordings are assembled bears a great moral question mark.

The technology of the modern studio has made possible a kind of synthetic perfection in recording undreamt of 50 years ago, in which hundreds of digital edits (tape splices in the old days) create an aural product that sometimes bears little relation to music as it's actually presented in the concert hall or opera house.

When wrong notes, irregularities and idiosyncrasies are removed by editing, what's often lost is the sweep and spontaneity of the original performance, not to mention the warmth that allows music to touch our souls.

Modern recordings have reinforced the 20th century reverence for textual and technical accuracy, making possible, as my colleague Stephen Wigler has pointed out, a kind of "creative lying" that could never be produced in the concert hall. Barrington-Coupe's crime was to compound the lie.