Friedrich
Ich musste darüber nachdenken, wie sehr die Erfindung des Tonträgers die Wahrnehmung von Musik wohl verändert hat. Vorher wurde Musik gespielt und dann war sie „gone, in the air, you can never capture it again.“ (Eric Dolphy) Bei frei improvisierter Musik wie dieser hier war das sicher am ausgeprägtesten. Wie kostbar muss da der Moment gewesen sein! Heute drücke ich einfach auf repeat.
auf einem portugiesischen blog habe ich dazu ein interview gelesen, in dem sich eicher genau vor diesem punkt ziemlich wegmogelt (aber die frage ist sehr interessant gestellt) :
Question:
In the early twentieth century, the recordings were intended to preserve a moment to the posterity and give it to the public. They were recordings of music played alive and the audience could imagine it being played. Throughout the twentieth century, most of the recordings went to the studio, causing a new relationship between the audience and the recording. With ECM, I believe that the relationship between the musician, the act of recording and the disk was lost definitively, as if the object could live without the original moment of the recording. As we saw in the movie (Sounds and Silence), you interfere with the recording in the minimum detail, and each ECM disc seems to have both of you and the musician, and he became a living object for itself. And it is a cult object, by the music, but also by its cover and the smallest details of production.
The public no longer imagine the musicians playing, and somehow it is as if the moment of creation was the disc and the recording never even happened.
The question for you is: when you start a recording, your intention is to preserve a moment and a music for the eternity or just create a new musical object?Manfred Eicher:
I’m not really concerned about preserving a moment for eternity, but just do what I know best which is to offer the musician the best possible conditions so that he can realize his ideas. I try to create an empathy with the musician, to hear him and understand his ideas. And I think that is what makes the difference, because the musician must have someone to trust. And this is what I consider my greatest contribution to music: to hear the musician and offer him the best conditions to record his creation, offer him the best possible sound for his creation. And I try to do it as best as possible, with the best sound possible, balancing the sound, trying to understand what the musician intended, highlighting another instrument or sound, often as the musician can not do because he knows how to play or compose but writing is what I do. I’m not thinking of the public, but if we succeed, then that’s good for the musician and music and I can say that I was also successful.
But the album is not done with the pretense of being something special rather than being a reflection of a good composition and good performance. And in the end is always the public who decides.
beides (deine überlegung und diese frage) sind mir persönlich zu kulturkritisch, aber für den zusammenhang von konservierung und improvisierten moment und die spezifische klanggestaltung von ecm schon interessant. trotzdem diesbezüglich auffällig: wie sehr der frühe katalog von ecm aus freien kollektivomprovisationen besteht.
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