Is the skill of performers declining?

[Wunderhorn]

I think that it is a case of taste to a large extent. Many of the first digital recordings need to be edited with the innovation of 21st century technology. This might seem unreasonable, but truth be told, I hear unmusical things in many of them and I say to myself, 'If it wasn't for that..." I believe the conducters job is bring the music to life, not scrutinize it. If this earth makes it another half century, most of the supperficially organized soundworlds of over-intellectual composers and conducters alike, will be seen as dribble. I am amazed by many preformers from an abundence of time periods, and prefer to get both a classic and a contempary classic rendition of my favorite works. Unfortunately there is no way to answer your question with any true degree of accuracy. Musical Theorist and Scholars would love to get there two-cents in I'm sure.

[Frederik Magle]

A long way I agree with Todd's first post. I don't think the skill of performers is declining. From a technical point of view quite the contrary in fact, but perhaps it's simply impossible to top the pure "musicality" of older performers - I was reminded of this thinking about a recording I once heard of Widor playing his own famous Toccata (reading this thread).

There is one concern though. With the generally increasing technical perfection, some musicians may get their priorities wrong, letting the pursuit of technical skills get in the way of the musical expression and personality. It could be that perhaps in the "good old days" there was a more well balanced view on those matters. Also among the audience which may be getting a little too "spoilt" from the technical perfection on many CDs (forgetting that a very large part of those recordings are spliced together from countless takes), which may also in some cases further move emphasis away from musical expression and development and on to technical details.

I say some cases, because then again, as Todd so correctly states, »time has filtered out the greats of the past from the lesser artists«. That of course is very true. The question then remains how many of todays performers will be "filtered" away in years to come.

[BGMCFAR]

My hope and prayer is that technology decress musician's determination to be very percise in their proformances and to never ever get to the point that they think oh someone can clean it up in the studio I know sverel instructor who absolutely refuse to use canned music for a performance and especially live performances for backround and I believe that that there are a number of performers who will keep to the pure form of classical music I beive Jerry goldsmith to be one of these composers even tho he may use a little electronic most of Mr. Goldsmith's is pretty much right on.

[Kromme]

I agree with Mr.Frederik Magle but i must say i believe Toscanini,Furtwangler, Mravinsky,Solti,Szell,Bernstein,Karajan,Celibidach e and Kleiber were all highly acclaimed at their lifetimes.Although time filters out the great artists that does not prevent them from having a sparkling reputation and also from being respected very much.

[rojo]

Give me a musically expressive performance with a few wrong notes over a technically perfect one lacking musicality any day. (Of course, having both would be ideal...) Just my 2 cents.

[Manuel]

I don't think the skill is declining at all. Globalization also involves instrumentalists schools of technique, so that now many teachers take the best from, let's say, italian, french and russian school of violin (the same with other instruments).

What is absent is the personal touch that the old artists could imprint in their music, to the point that you can inmediately recognize Heifetz, Oistrakh, Horowitz or Richter. However, the appearing in international stage of talents like armenian Sergey Khachatryan confirm there's no lack of talent out there. More names to this list can be: Argerich, Zimerman, Anderszewski, Biondi, Carmignola, Sokolov, Gavrilov...