Thepros and cons of live recording have often provoked discussion at our ''Sounds in Retrospect'' listening sessions. Probably though, none of us expected the strength of feeling which Alfred Brendel expressed in his article—largely written around the making of this Beethoven cycle—in our April issue (page 1157). To my mind, SP when reviewing the LPs accurately evaluated this set in three important facets, namely musically, desirability and technically. The first is not my brief, the second subjective indeed (I remain faithful to the Haitink set—also on Philips), but the last calls for comment.
It is no easy task which Philips gave to their engineer/producer, Volker Straus, to pluck a successful recording from these concert performances. It would be remarkable indeed if no cracks showed in the almost three hours of music which have resulted. So yes, there are anomalies of tonal quality, placing and perspectives; it is difficult to identify with an often changing acoustic and therefore it is not possible to build up an accurate mind's picture of the scene. To me Concertos nos. 2 and 4 offer the greatest realism, No. 3 is marred by a bias to the soloist, and surely this 'Emperor' has more than a few problems with his new clothes! Accept these understandable difficulties and one can then sit back and enjoy the total experience.
A little rearranging has put these five concertos on the three CDs and only No. 1 requires a change of disc. Sensible provision of a separate track number for the introductory applause makes it easy to avoid, leaving just atmospheric hall noises to be heard in quiet passages, any unwanted audience sounds being well supressed by the microphone placings employed.'