For today’s Music of the 20th Century class, one of our assigned listenings was Mario Davidovsky’s Synchronisms No 6 for piano and tape. It brought up many questions for me concerning the performance of this piece and other pieces that use tape. Here is the YouTube recording we used in class:
According to the YouTube page, this recording was released in 1996. My question is whether the performer used the original sounds created by Davidovsky in 1970 or whether new sounds were created with the new technology available? Tape is a unique format as it is limited by the technology of that precise moment in history. How do performers recreate an authentic version five decades later? After all, when Davidovsky began experimenting with tape, you literally had to splice the magnetic tape using rulers and razor blades. Here is a picture of the composer with some of the equipment used in his composition process:
So how does a 2021 artist approach a performance of this piece?
I have not yet found what the actual process of digitalizing these tape recordings is, but I imagine it is complex and requires a high level of expertise. I did, however, find a performance of this piece from 2013, and I did a comparison of the electronic sounds between the two:
To me, after listening to the first minute of each recording back-to-back several times, the 2013 performance sounded softened and less edgy. The sounds did not strike me as fundamentally changed, however, so the effect remains the same. The modern digital sounds do better suit and blend with the acoustic piano, in my opinion. I do not know whether the 1996 performance altered the original sounds either, as I could not find a recording available from the 1970s.
I do think it is interesting that in the 2013 performance, there is another performer on stage with the computer who is literally in shadow while the pianist is the main focus. It creates a very different setting on the stage than what we are used to. I also am incredibly impressed by the pianists in both recordings, as it takes intense concentration, timing, and familiarity with the music to line up with the electronic sounds.
If the electronic sounds were fundamentally different in character, would this change the piece significantly? Would it be wrong to alter the sounds chosen by the composer in 1970? Or does it serve the piece best to bring it into the modern day so that modern ears don’t interpret the dated sounds in a negative way? Even if the sounds are unchanged, files types and speaker systems have improved so much over the past fifty years that the audio will not sound exactly as it did when the piece was composed. Similarly, however, the pianos in each recording sound very different from one another, so perhaps this issue is no different than using a different acoustic instrument.
Can modern day performance of pieces with tape truly be authentic if we no longer use physical tape? Let me know what you think in the comments!
