64 ❧ chapter three
without retakes. Nevertheless, I was far from satisfi ed with them, although at
the time I must have been obliged to admit that I could do no better.
It is fortunate that I have always closely supervised the tuning of my harp-
sichord for recording sessions. In the forty-odd years since 1936, I have never
seen a tuning fork in a recording studio, nor indeed any precise method of
determining fundamental pitch. In the days of short-playing records, it was
common to hear various parts of the same movement at entirely different
pitches. This could easily have happened to the two halves of my 1938 record-
ing of the Chromatic Fantasy which were made a week apart had I not personally
supervised the tuning. Even now, records still give no indication of the pitch at
which they were originally made, and on most playback equipment, the devices
for correcting the pitch are inadequate. More often than not one hears record-
ings played back at a pitch that is at least half a tone too high. For a sensitive
ear, Mozart horn parts sounding in F-sharp major lack plausibility, and the lis-
tener is too often forced to acrobatics of mental transposition.
After the recording of a recital album for Musicraft in 1938, I was less con-
scious of its virtues than of my own shortcomings. But I have since discovered
that many a record with which one is dissatisfi ed at the time of recording later
reveals unsuspected qualities, and that conversely new faults are discovered in
what had been previously considered satisfactory.
Between 1945 and 1951, I collaborated with Alexander Schneider in the
recording for Columbia of a number of albums of violin sonatas, mainly by Bach
and Mozart. Our fi rst album of Mozart sonatas was recorded in the old Columbia
building at 7th Avenue and 53rd Street. We recorded the Bach sonatas in 1946 in
the splendid old Liederkranz Hall on East 58th Street before its ruin by acousti-
cians and eventual demolition. Our later recordings were made in a converted
church on East 30th Street, most of whose favorable characteristics have also
been gradually eliminated by the acousticians. In those days, the presence of a
score in the control room was unheard of, and it was often abundantly evident
that producers and engineers had very little idea of what they were supposed to
balance. To this the albums in question bear eloquent witness.
Anyone listening to old 78 albums may have noticed that the quality is bet-
ter on some sides than others. If the fi rst side lacks the freshness and vitality
of the others, it may well have been the side with which the recording ses-
sion began, and that it has served for endless experimenting with equipment,
retakes and playbacks, until, worn out and exhausted, the players achieved a
“take” that was acceptable for entirely external reasons. Those brought up on
tape-recorded LPs may forget that on the old short-playing records no editing
or splicing was possible.
My fi rst recording using tape was made in the spring of 1951. I still remem-
ber with a feeling of guilt the fi rst wrong note that I ever allowed to be cor-
rected by a splice. It was in the Mozart G-major Piano Concerto recorded
KKirkpatrick.indd 64irkpatrick.indd 64 2/8/2017 9:57:12 AM 2 / 8 / 2017 9 : 57 : 12 AM
rick simeone
(Rick Simeone)
#1