The Cranky Audiophile: Don’t Call It a Manifesto
It’s more like an operating manual for unpacking and digesting my opinions. From this blog you’ll either develop an abiding and healthy disdain for me and my opinions, or you’ll find me something a kindred spirit. Or you’ll ignore me altogether. And that’s fine too.
So anyway, here’s my reason for writing this blog: I feel as though too much of what is written about classical music assumes everyone already knows and understands why it’s such great music. Now, to be clear, I am not trying to build some delicate bridge to those who need to be swayed into listening to classical music. If you are the sort of person for whom music is largely relevant only as background or a lifestyle soundtrack, I can’t help you. I mean I REALLY can’t help you. You’re missing out. Sorry.
But for those people who are truly interested in good music, I am eager to swing open that door to classical music wide. I am not a musicologist, or even a classically trained musician, so don’t expect detailed descriptions of how Debussy’s use of modal melodic elements freed him from the strictures of traditional harmony, or other similar analysis. There are plenty if worthy people out there who will do that. I’m also not some classical music insider. I don’t know, nor have I seen and heard, every classical performer live in concert and there are plenty of great—even essential—works of which I have only a passing familiarity.
What you’re going to get is my lay opinion on classic music recordings (and occasionally concerts). The other thing you’re going to get is a detailed assessment of each recording I discuss from an audio engineering perspective. I have sufficient familiarity with those processes and techniques to at least discuss it in more detail than is traditionally reserved for such matters in most classical music reviews. Likewise, I will also discuss audio gear when appropriate. I will list my playback systems in detail and which was used in my reviews so you may determine whether you think my opinion might fall in line with yours or not.
Two things: First, for classical music, the quality of the playback system matters a great deal more than it does for almost all other forms of music, save for acoustic jazz. Second: my primary interest, both in considering the quality of a recording and in considering the quality of a playback system, is how closely the sound hews to what that performance would actually sound like in the actual spaced in which it was recorded. Does this sound like actual live music in a real acoustic space? That’s the only question I think is worth asking.
On this last point, I wish to make it clear that I have no interest in being turned around on this issue. I spent many years bludgeoning my ears with rock music, both recorded and live (and wrote and played much myself) – I have no interest in the many legitimate defenses of rock and pop music as art. Is it the music of the masses? Who gives a crap. The masses, as has been shown time and again (and especially lately) are morons. And anyway, if you love music, the fact that some of the best music is “highbrow” or “artsy” or that it is presented in an oft perceived “elitist” manner shouldn’t matter to you. Music belongs to no one, whether its brow is high or low. Capture it for yourself and experience it in whatever manner works for you. Too much in the modern world centers on lifestyles and personal identity. If the people making or selling the music have to look like you, or have come from similar backgrounds as you, for you to become interested, you probably are better off with two-and-a-half minute long songs with three chords. Not that there aren’t great songs that fall into that category, but if your appreciation of music is limited by your own tribal boundaries, simplicity rapidly diverts from virtue to vice.
So, with those cranky admonishments in mind, read on. Or ignore me altogether. Just remember: great minds talk about ideas, good minds about events, and mediocre minds about people. Truly brilliant minds don’t talk at all. They listen. So let’s listen.
The Cranky Audiophile 