Ian,
Re: rhetoric and projection (since you ask):

To all intents and purposes screen and stage acting are such different techniques that there are are considerably more actors (of both sexes) who are proficient in one or other as opposed to those who can manage both. Screen acting is internalised to the point where it's not 'acting' as such, but rather more 'being'; actors with big personalities used to bestriding the stage find it very difficult to come to terms with the very different scale of performance required when the audience is a small box with lenses feet (or inches) from their face; the camera is merciless at betraying artifice. Conversely, actors used to the studio can find it impossible to 'scale-up' a performance for a large auditorium, and learn quickly that what looks natural on the screen may well disappear before it has crossed the footlights; even the technique of vocal projection may fox them completely. (I'm afraid I've always tended to belong to the first group, though now that so much of my acting is corporate role play in a one-to-one situation in small rooms with an audience of one or two, I'm confident that my small-scale technique is improving.)

Working in an opera house and recital hall are different experiences for singers in the same way, and I'd not expect an instrumental soloist to play in the same way in a recital hall as when being a soloist in a large concerto: there's a need to match the dynamic of performance to the situation and the venue. Every size of performance space creates advantages and disadvantages for performer and audience alike, though at least in screen-based performance there's the chance of varying the distance from long-shot to close-up: something mercifully rare in recordings today (though it was not ever thus!)

Perhaps more in the way that the genres are made, Ian: this isn't cut and dried, but most movies are created from scenes rehearsed and shot separately (and very likely out-of sequence), whereas with TV it's still more likely to be the case that the whole thing will at least be rehearsed as an entity, though split-up for shooting. The process will usually be much faster for TV, too: films can be very protracted. It's possible that film actors will get to see the 'rushes' - the rough takes - as they go along, too, which can alter the way they view the entire performance. Technical advances are possibly muddying the distinction further: there's a goodly proportion of TV output being created as if it were film, now, while HD digital cameras offer film directors the opportunity of working as fast and freely as those working in TV. I'd say that film directors - particularly big names - might have more control over exactly how they want their actors to perform, but to some extent that's dealt with during the audition period.

I'm left with answering this either with generalities, or picking out specific instances which might not be representative: a good question, Ian: but not easy to answer.

Yes, Ian, you are correct to broaden the sphere of this discussion by bringing in situations where the composer might want - and indeed perhaps be well advised to want - some of the kinds of thing to which you draw attention here and to which I have admittedly not drawn attention in what I've written on the subject so far. I think that it is important to consider what the composer is aiming at in terms of how he/she perceives or hopes to perceive the listener's response to the end result; if a composer writes in such a way as to imply that the most appropriate results are likely to be produced by means of a certain degree of electronic intervention, then of course that must be taken on boaard in any consideration of what the music needs in presentation.

Important as this is, I think that it is a somewhat different issue, at least to the extent that you are writing her of the kinds of "authentic" performance practice that require the use of instruments of the day; I do not imagine that you would advocate attempts to replicate as nearly as possible on a modern keyboard instrument the kinds of sound that you write about here when a pianist decides to record such works on such a modern instrument. This is a matter that would appear to go well beyond the mere question of late Romantic or other playing styles as applied to the music of earlier eras.

Indeed so - but so many other considerations are at work here beyond just the question of how such performances are miked during recording; there's the type of instrument used, its condition when used, the playing styles and disciplines (especially with reference to pedalling). We can't ask the keyboard composers of Mozart's day,not only because they're not available to speak to but because (a) we cannot know about their attitudes to performance of their work in the light of later developments in writing, playing and instrument manufacuture and design and (b) because they had no possibility to think about their work and its performance in the context of such performances being captured for posterity.

It may do, but if certain composers see it in that particular way in respect of their own work it is surely their prerogative to do at least that; this is where, in terms of my own piano music, I sought to agree with "autoharp" in that my ultimate aim is for something that happens in a live performance situation (so my ideas need not apply to composers whose priorities and emphases may be differnt to this).

I think that my answer here is already given above; if the composer wants to conceive something different to what might reasonably be expected from the desire to prioritise the values and expectations of live performance, then that's fine and must be considered from a different perspective.

I think that my answer to that may be extrapolated from the above but, for the avoidance of doubt, I would add that I consider something made specifically for film or television to be different from something made specifically for live performance in the theatre; I remain concerned, however, that I may not fully have grasped your question here in the sense that my answer deals only with the matter of things originally conceived for different media as distinct from things originally conceived for one medium that are subsequentl;y reinterpreted in another, such as a stage play reworked for film or television.

Anyway - all very interesting stuff and I appreciate this being been pulled away from the Barraqué thread (and I fear that it is I who started to go sufficiently off-topic there to warrant a new thread on the subject now being discussed here!)...

Best,

Alistair

What I often like in closer-miked piano recordings is the length of sustain you hear - which is of course there in a live performance but often only audible to the pianist and a few people at the front. I think there's room for both approaches - if you see recordings as a concert-substitute, then obviously you'd want as natural and 'faithful' a sound as possible (although it must also be stated that that is in itself an artificial situation: you can't see the performer's movements or facial expressions, you can't hear any audience noise, or sounds made by the pianist, and the sound is not modulated by the bodies of the audience members...)

But there is also a case for a creative approach to recording - getting something interesting out of the performance that might indeed not be possible/perceptible in a live situation - and I often like to hear some of those extra sounds (hammers, keys, breathing etc.) which remind me of the real human being playing the music - it seems so intimate, somehow, in a good way!

I'm getting an idea from this, too - might it be interesting to explore the possibilities and differences in effect enabled by different recording methods in a piece? And is this something that could be replicated at all in a live situation, or would that require excessive amplification?

  Poor old Claudio

I once had the idea of amplifying a piano through a Soundfield mike placed inside it, so that (I never tried it out) the piano could seem to occupy the entire performing space and could then be "tilted", "rotated" and so on.

From the 1980s on (?), Stockhausen preferred his piano music to be amplified if he could arrange things himself. I heard a fascinating performance of Piece X (by Bernhard Wambach) in which the piano indeed seemed to occupy the entire stage and in which sustained chords would hang in the air like curtains of electronic sound.

Having been involved in a bit of piano recording myself, I do think that the approach taken is an artistic decision which depends on many factors, not just the music, the performer, the piano and the recording space but also what kind of "statement" the recording is intended to make. I tend to incline towards close-miking, but that's more to do with the kind of music I'm usually involved with recording or amplifying rather than being a general principle.