Musical Collaborations, Timbre, and Recorded Sound

In-depth: a post or two about Maestro Brendel's comments:

“– One should hear the particular sound of the pianist, the timbres and balances that are recognizably his or her own. When I listen to some old recording of Cortot (Chopin 24 Preludes 1933), Edwin Fischer’s Well-Tempered Clavier or Kempff’s Decca recordings from 1950 I get this impression. They remind me of their sound which was such an essential quality and which I witnessed in many concerts. The other features: rhythm, tempo, articulation, cohesion, are easier to transmit.

– Do modern recordings have greater clarity? There is, on old recordings, often less reverberation, and yet they have a warmer sound. And there are recordings like my second set of Beethoven Sonatas where, alas, too much reverberation has been added by the sound engineer (it wasn’t Prof. de Francisco!).

– I have, in my later years, generally insisted on pianos that were not excessively bright except for the “big” concertos. Only once in my life, I used two different pianos in one concert. The somewhat unusual programme in London consisted of the Concertos Bartok I and Schoenberg, with Haydn sonatas in between.”

— Comments on the dialogues by Alfred Brendel (January 2022)

https://www.actorproject.org/tor/dialogues/musical-collaborations-timbre-and-recorded-sound/part-one