There's No Substitute For The Real Thing (27 January 1978)

When I was aged about 15 my former headmaster invited myself and a few other past and present pupils to go to the village school one evening and listen to the wireless set that by some magical means had recently been acquired.  The set had an ebonite front with two white-marked dials on it.  It also had one of those new horn loudspeakers, so that it was no longer necessary to place a pair of headphones in an old treacle tin in order to obtain a measure of amplification.

But we had not been invited in order to admire the wireless set, remarkable though it was   We had been invited in order to listen to a recital by Jan Paderewski, who was reputed to be the greatest pianist in the world.  In fact, he was so popular that some time later his native country of Poland made him president, but that is by the by.

Paderewski was known to be averse both to recording and to broadcasting on the grounds that neither could reproduce music well enough.  But somehow the British broadcasting authority or company had persuaded him to play – and that was the reason for the excitement.

I suppose that by today’s standards the reproduction really was vile, but I shall never forget sitting there in the gaslight, with my bottom on a rickety old desk that went well with the clog-worn floorboards and the other dismal furniture, while I listened to the legendary Paderewski.  He played three Beethoven sonatas, the Pathetique, the Appasionata, and the one which I don’t think has been christened yet, but which contains the funeral march.

I have since heard it said that the few remaining records of Paderewski’s playing show him to have been remarkably inaccurate with his left hand.  Be that as it may, I was so captured by the main tunes in those sonatas that they have remained somewhere in my head ever since.  In fact, I set about learning to play (without a teacher) and mastered the Pathetique to my own satisfaction, if nobody else’s, but never got far with the other two.  Thank goodness I had not yet come across the Waldstein or the Hammerklavier, or I would have had an ineffectual go at those as well.

I have been reminded of that episode of nearly 55 years misspent years ago by the advertised appearance of the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra at Bletchley’s Leisure Centre on Saturday, February 4, when I hope there will be an attendance worthy of the occasion.

There is no substitute for hearing a first-rate symphony orchestra at first hand, even in a hall not exactly built for such a purpose.

I have heard it said that today’s recording and reproduction systems are so good that we might just as well listen to a disc or a tape in the comfort of our own homes.  Would that were true, but it isn’t.  the enormous dynamic range – the difference between loud and soft – of a symphony orchestra cannot be contained in a domestic lounge.  It needs a concert hall and a pretty large one at that.

A lot of clever doctoring of decibels must go into the production of today’s record.  Even so, if you fix your volume control so that you can just hear the very softest passages, the loud ones very nigh blow your head off.  And it stands to reason that this should be so, for what you are trying to do is to bring a symphony orchestra into your own little front room and this just cannot be done.  You may be content with the recoding company’s attempt to do so, but what you are getting is a representation of the composer’s work as played by the orchestra and not a reproduction.

In that sense I have wasted quite a bit of money on stereo records of symphonies and big concertos.  I would have done better to have put it into chamber music instead, exactly because it is much more possible to bring it unadulterated into my own particular chamber.

A lot of people still wince at the mention of chamber music.  I can understand them for it was a long time before I came to appreciate it properly.  But now, as far as records are concerned, I would rather listen to a Schubert quartet than a Schubert symphony.  It ought not to have taken me so long.  I should have realised more acutely that many of the loveliest tunes heard repeatedly over the radio are straight from chamber music and thus have been encouraged to explore further.

To come for a moment “from the sublime to the ridic[sic],” do you remember how years ago the No 1 place in the “pop chart” was held by a crib from a Mozart piano sonata?  Come to think of it, so-called rock music must be pretty easy to record and reproduce.  For it maintains a consistent noise level, which can be reduced to front room dimensions without any great harm being done.

But then, most people have their musical likes.

In my own sphere there are a great many likes and dislikes.  Some say no good music has been written since 1700, or 1800, or 1900, or 1950.  Some dislike Berlioz, or Liszt, or Richard Strauss, or Mahler.  Some dislike grand opera, or ballet, or massed choirs.  Some prefer what we can call the French school to the German school or the Slavonic school and so on.

I freely admit to having two dislikes.  I do not like traditional organs unless they are played along with other instruments.  And I do not like the spoiling of good hymn tunes by the addition of soprano descants.

However, I think most people will enjoy the playing of Paderewski’s countrymen on February 4.