Article | PETER GRIMES IN STEREO By ERIC SMITH The author is a member of the Classical Artists and Repertoire Department of the Decca Record Company. A review of Peter Grimes appears on page 188 of this issue. THE opportunity of working with the composer himself on the recording of a major work comes our way all too rarely. This, I suppose, is partly because few really important works are written these days, and also because the record companies rarely obtain sales large enough to cover the cost of recording contemporary music. So we were all especially pleased with the prospect of recording Peter Grimes. Benjamin Britten had never conducted Peter Grimes before. Unlike some distinguished contemporary composers, who might have good cause to be, he is extremely modest about his conducting. (When he came to conducting the Round in the second scene, he said he wished he had not written it in 7/4 time!) But singers and orchestra had nothing but praise for the clarity of his beat and for his inspiration which led them all to give their best possible performance. In playbacks he, for his part, would express delighted astonishment at some particularly beautiful singing or playing and give all the credit to the artists concerned. Though one should not be conscious of all our difficulties when listening to the record, you can imagine the problems of ensemble and balance produced by a large orchestra, mobile soloists and chorus, off-stage chorus, off-stage band, church bells, shutting doors, a foghorn, wind machines, and a small boy producing an anguished scream on (or very nearly on) top C. On the technical side we were particularly grateful for Benjamin Britten's helpfulness and humour and objectivity in regard to practical problems, which must sometimes be difficult when one is so intimately involved in the music as both composer and conductor. Probably most great composers have this critical, realistic side to their nature. The cast was that of the excellent recent Covent Garden production with the one major exception of the part of Ellen Orford which is sung on the record by the American soprano, Claire Watson. She brought to it the beauty of tone and above all the dramatic intensity with which she has sung major roles in many opera houses. (One small problem, incidentally, was to make a Suffolk village out of Americans, South Africans and Welshmen; but I think that before the end of the recording all the artists felt quite East Anglian!) The illusion we wish you to have when listening to a stereophonic opera is that of being in an expensive stalls seat— with your eyes closed. With Peter Grimes we did consider abandoning this illusion for the illusion of the actual setting of the drama. The opera was conceived and partly planned when the composer read Crabbe's long poem The Borough while zig-zagging across the U-boat haunted Atlantic in 1942; it is not surprising that the sea in all its moods is present in the score. It was very tempting to introduce into the recording the sound of the sea, of shingle and presumably the inevitable seagull, especially in the scene where Peter walks off in silence to push his boat out to sea and drown himself. But this sort of realism might have been very disturbing if the sound of the sea and the shingle had not been kept up in all the open-air scenes of the opera. It was soon realised that the music itself sufficiently conjured up the presence of the sea (or, for example, the capstan represented by the clicking xylophone) and that we must avoid producing something like a radio play with incidental music and sound effects. So we decided to content ourselves with taking the listener to Covent Garden rather than the beach at Aldeburgh. There are, however, two reasons why we sometimes depart a little from the illusion of the theatre. First the blind listener must be helped to understand what is happening on the stage. John Culshaw writing in the March issue of THE GRAMOPHONE, mentioned the difficulty of producing the sound of the building-up of the Nibelungen hoard in front of Freia—a sound that is in itself of no importance on the stage. But Wagner's gods at least have no doors to shut; in the second scene of Peter Grimes the sound of the door shutting is really important. Again sound effects sometimes have to be exaggerated so that the listener will realise that he is not merely hearing the accidental upsetting of a music stand; thus, when Balstrode in the score quickly overpowers the drunken Boles, we made their struggle into a small wrestling match. The turning of keys in the second act of The Marriage of Figaro, which we recently recorded stereophonically for R.C.A., is another instance of the importance of sound effects on records, which may be unnecessary in the theatre. Our other reason for departing from the stage illusion is that we sometimes think that we can improve on the sound of the theatre (which is a small compensation for losing all the visual element of opera). You may remember the sound of Alberich's voice in the recording of Das Rheingold where he is made invisible and in an uncanny way ubiquitous by the Tarnhelm. In the same way we emphasised the supernatural quality of the voices of Grimes's pursuers in the fog: they are less the threatening voices of the villagers hunting for the public enemy than the fancies of his crazed mind. At times the beauty and softness of their singing makes them almost appear to be sirens lulling him to his death and preparing for the outcome of that haunting scene. Now what about the stereophonic sound as such with its illusion of solidity— which is what the word means? I sometimes suspect that many listeners (or their equipment) are not perfectly attuned to the stereo effect of placing and movement. They have been known to praise the vivid stage sense of a production, in productions where in fact the singers stood in front of one microphone throughout and were sometimes even supposed to be kissing or slapping characters yards away from them. Even today, I believe some stereophonic operas are recorded in which the singers stand in tents while their voices are shifted or faded by electronic means. But we have found that if a singer is supposed to sound as if he is moving, he must really move. In Peter Grimes even the chorus exits were real exits—no easy thing with the small doors of the Walthamstow Town Hall stage. For one thing, the artists themselves will, unconsciously perhaps, put more drama into their performance when working in something like theatre conditions. I well remember the first opera recordings in which we attempted a full-scale operatic production, because it was my task to chase droves of Valkyries across the stage at given moments. In fact, the monophonic version of Act 3 of Die Walküre, which came out months before the release of stereophonic records, was especially praised for its unusually dramatic atmosphere. So, monophonic records gained from the productions which were principally devised for the stereophonic medium. Nevertheless, the advantages of the stereophonic sound are enormous : you have only to listen to the clarity of the big ensemble numbers to realise this. Note also some other instances where the stereophonic sound underlines the drama: Peter's loneliness in the Court scene or again at Auntie's, where the inhabitants of the Borough are massed on the opposite side of the stage. See how vividly the scene is set at the beginning of the last Act, with the merrymaking up at Auntie's, with Mrs. Sedley lurking in the shadows of the boats, while Justice Swallow is chasing the nieces about and calling on them to assign their prettiness to him. Long before the recording began the stereophonic production was thoroughly planned. We went down to Aldeburgh, which is not only the home of Benjamin Britten but also the original Borough of the opera. There you can see the Moot Hall (where the Court is held), the Inn (Auntie's), the Church and the beach with fishing boats, very much as in the sets of the outdoor scenes of the opera. And there with the composer we discussed every point of movement on the stage, and how to get all the sounds just right—the crowd in the Court scene, the wind howling outside Auntie's, the changing sound of Peter's voice when he goes across the room to look out over the cliff. A series of about 25 plans was then produced to cover the whole opera for all stage movements and all special effects. You can see a specimen page reproduced here. Since recording is largely an empirical science, these plans were sometimes amended on the session; but they were the basis of our work. A stereophonic production is usually a simplification of a theatre production; too many small movements could cause confusion in the listener's mind. Since one is conscious of a singer's position only while he is singing, important movements must be made while actually singing—an idea that is not always popular with artists. On the photograph taken during a session you will see that the stage is covered by a diagram which allows the producer to move the singers rather like chessmen— for instance, at the top of P. 200 move slowly to A 5. There are music stands of course, since Peter Grimes is a heavy vocal score, but no one is allowed to remain by one stand for very long. We would record a whole scene or a major section of a scene in one go. Our happiest moments were those when an entire scene was successful not only in conveying all the drama but in being without the small mistakes which are picked on so much more in recordings than in live performances and which necessitate the repeat of small separate sections. The entire Prologue in Court, as you will hear it on the record, is one recording. I shall long remember the recording of Peter Pears in the Mad Scene on our last session, which made on the hearers in the studio and in the recording room an emotional impression that does not perhaps arise too often on recording sessions. Why do we not record more actual theatre performances? The acoustics of Covent Garden were tried with a view to recording Peter Grimes but found unsuitable for our purpose. One can achieve far more directional effect and clarity in the studio, where we have complete freedom in the placing of microphones and singers. You may notice some variations in the text from the published version. These were mostly made over the years for reasons of sound and suitability for singing. One small change concerns the Rector, who had become something of a figure of fun in recent productions (his mention in Court produced laughter). But, as the composer pointed out, Mr. Adams is a good if rather weak man; and I think that the beautiful Good-night Aria sufficiently shows us that he is not a comic character. The other change concerns that nebulous (non-singing) character, the Doctor. In the original draft, the composer tells me, it was intended to have Crabbe himself, who was at one time a doctor or apothecary, as a constant witness and narrator. But narrators have little scope in opera (the Governess in The Turn of The Screw is a different matter because she takes an important part in the action) and gradually Crabbe's part became quite insignificant. In addition it was pointed out that the opera was set in a period after Crabbe's death. So the Doctor became Dr. Thorpe. When it came to the recording, Benjamin Britten thought, in gratitude, perhaps, to his original inspiration, that Crabbe should be in it after all. And as composers can do these things without being attacked by sticklers for faithfulness to the Urtext, Dr. Crabbe returned to the Borough. Finally, these are the three most important factors that make this, as I think, an intensely musical and dramatic recording. First, the advantage—perhaps too rare in recording—that we were able to take an existing stage production with nearly all its members; for nearly all singers will give a deeper and fuller account of a part which they have already played on the stage, and much the same applies to chorus and orchestra. In fact, Peter Pears and Owen Brannigan had taken part in the first performance and in very many since then. The second advantage is the extra vividness and clarity conferred by stereophonic sound and the stage production, with which we had been experimenting in recent years. But above all it was the direction and inspiration of Benjamin Britten himself which will ensure an important place for this set wherever opera is treasured. | Page 26 - October 1959

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PETER GRIMES IN STEREO By ERIC SMITH The author is a member of the Classical Artists and Repertoire Department of the Decca Record Company. A review of "Peter Grimes" appears on page 188 of this issue. THE opportunity of working with the composer himself on the recording of a major work comes our way all too rarely. This, I suppose, is partly because few really important works are written these days, and also because the record companies rarely obtain sales large enough to cover the cost of recording contemporary music. So we were all especially pleased with the prospect of recording Peter Grimes. Benjamin Britten had never conducted Peter Grimes before. Unlike some distinguished contemporary composers, who might have good cause to be, he is extremely modest about his conducting. (When he came to conducting the Round in the second scene, he said he wished he had not written it in 7/4 time!) But singers and orchestra had nothing but praise for the clarity of his beat and for his inspiration which led them all to give their best possible performance. In playbacks he, for his part, would express delighted astonishment at some particularly beautiful singing or playing and give all the credit to the artists concerned. Though one should not be conscious of all our difficulties when listening to the record, you can imagine the problems of ensemble and balance produced by a large orchestra, mobile soloists and chorus, off-stage chorus, off-stage band, church bells, shutting doors, a foghorn, wind machines, and a small boy producing an anguished scream on (or very nearly on) top C. On the technical side we were particularly grateful for Benjamin Britten's helpfulness and humour and objectivity in regard to practical problems, which must sometimes be difficult when one is so intimately involved in the music as both composer and conductor. Probably most great composers have this critical, realistic side to their nature. The cast was that of the excellent recent Covent Garden production with the one major exception of the part of Ellen Orford which is sung on the record by the American soprano, Claire Watson. She brought to it the beauty of tone and above all the dramatic intensity with which she has sung major roles in many opera houses. (One small problem, incidentally, was to make a Suffolk village out of Americans, South Africans and Welshmen; but I think that before the end of the recording all the artists felt quite East Anglian!) The illusion we wish you to have when listening to a stereophonic opera is that of being in an expensive stalls seat— with your eyes closed. With Peter Grimes we did consider abandoning this illusion for the illusion of the actual setting of the drama. The opera was conceived and partly planned when the composer read Crabbe's long poem "The Borough" while zig-zagging across the U-boat haunted Atlantic in 1942; it is not surprising that the sea in all its moods is present in the score. It was very tempting to introduce into the recording the sound of the sea, of shingle and presumably the inevitable seagull, especially in the scene where Peter walks off in silence to push his boat out to sea and drown himself. But this sort of realism might have been very disturbing if the sound of the sea and the shingle had not been kept up in all the open-air scenes of the opera. It was soon realised that the music itself sufficiently conjured up the presence of the sea (or, for example, the capstan represented by the clicking xylophone) and that we must avoid producing something like a radio play with incidental music and sound effects. So we decided to content ourselves with taking the listener to Covent Garden rather than the beach at Aldeburgh. There are, however, two reasons why we sometimes depart a little from the illusion of the theatre. First the "blind" listener must be helped to understand what is happening on the stage. John Culshaw writing in the March issue of THE GRAMOPHONE, mentioned the difficulty of producing the sound of the building-up of the Nibelungen hoard in front of Freia—a sound that is in itself of no importance on the stage. But Wagner's gods at least have no doors to shut; in the second scene of Peter Grimes the sound of the door shutting is really important. Again sound effects sometimes have to be exaggerated so that the listener will realise that he is not merely hearing the accidental upsetting of a music stand; thus, when Balstrode in the score "quickly overpowers" the drunken Boles, we made their struggle into a small wrestling match. The turning of keys in the second act of The Marriage of Figaro, which we recently recorded stereophonically for R.C.A., is another instance of the importance of sound effects on records, which may be unnecessary in the theatre. Our other reason for departing from the stage illusion is that we sometimes think that we can improve on the sound of the theatre (which is a small compensation for losing all the visual element of opera). You may remember the sound of Alberich's voice in the recording of Das Rheingold where he is made invisible and in an uncanny way ubiquitous by the Tarnhelm. In the same way we emphasised the supernatural quality of the voices of Grimes's pursuers in the fog: they are less the threatening voices of the villagers hunting for the public enemy than the fancies of his crazed mind. At times the beauty and softness of their singing makes them almost appear to be sirens lulling him to his death and preparing for the outcome of that haunting scene. Now what about the stereophonic sound as such with its illusion of "solidity"— which is what the word means? I sometimes suspect that many listeners (or their equipment) are not perfectly attuned to the stereo effect of placing and movement. They have been known to praise the vivid stage sense of a "production", in productions where in fact the singers stood in front of one microphone throughout and were sometimes even supposed to be kissing or slapping characters yards away from them. Even today, I believe some "stereophonic" operas are recorded in which the singers stand in "tents" while their voices are shifted or faded by electronic means. But we have found that if a singer is supposed to sound as if he is moving, he must really move. In Peter Grimes even the chorus exits were real exits—no easy thing with the small doors of the Walthamstow Town Hall stage. For one thing, the artists themselves will, unconsciously perhaps, put more drama into their performance when working in something like theatre conditions. I well remember the first opera recordings in which we attempted a full-scale operatic production, because it was my task to chase droves of Valkyries across the stage at given moments. In fact, the monophonic version of Act 3 of Die Walküre, which came out months before the release of stereophonic records, was especially praised for its unusually dramatic atmosphere. So, monophonic records gained from the productions which were principally devised for the stereophonic medium. Nevertheless, the advantages of the stereophonic sound are enormous : you have only to listen to the clarity of the big ensemble numbers to realise this. Note also some other instances where the stereophonic sound underlines the drama: Peter's loneliness in the Court scene or again at Auntie's, where the inhabitants of the Borough are massed on the opposite side of the stage. See how vividly the scene is set at the beginning of the last Act, with the merrymaking up at Auntie's, with Mrs. Sedley lurking in the shadows of the boats, while Justice Swallow is chasing the nieces about and calling on them to "assign their prettiness to him". Long before the recording began the stereophonic production was thoroughly planned. We went down to Aldeburgh, which is not only the home of Benjamin Britten but also the original "Borough" of the opera. There you can see the Moot Hall (where the Court is held), the Inn (Auntie's), the Church and the beach with fishing boats, very much as in the sets of the outdoor scenes of the opera. And there with the composer we discussed every point of movement on the stage, and how to get all the sounds just right—the crowd in the Court scene, the wind howling outside Auntie's, the changing sound of Peter's voice when he goes across the room to look out over the cliff. A series of about 25 plans was then produced to cover the whole opera for all stage movements and all special effects. You can see a specimen page reproduced here. Since recording is largely an empirical science, these plans were sometimes amended on the session; but they were the basis of our work. A stereophonic production is usually a simplification of a theatre production; too many small movements could cause confusion in the listener's mind. Since one is conscious of a singer's position only while he is singing, important movements must be made while actually singing—an idea that is not always popular with artists. On the photograph taken during a session you will see that the stage is covered by a diagram which allows the producer to move the singers rather like chessmen— for instance, "at the top of P. 200 move slowly to A 5". There are music stands of course, since Peter Grimes is a heavy vocal score, but no one is allowed to remain by one stand for very long. We would record a whole scene or a major section of a scene in one go. Our happiest moments were those when an entire scene was successful not only in conveying all the drama but in being without the small mistakes which are picked on so much more in recordings than in live performances and which necessitate the repeat of small separate sections. The entire Prologue in Court, as you will hear it on the record, is one recording. I shall long remember the recording of Peter Pears in the Mad Scene on our last session, which made on the hearers in the studio and in the recording room an emotional impression that does not perhaps arise too often on recording sessions. Why do we not record more actual theatre performances? The acoustics of Covent Garden were tried with a view to recording Peter Grimes but found unsuitable for our purpose. One can achieve far more directional effect and clarity in the studio, where we have complete freedom in the placing of microphones and singers. You may notice some variations in the text from the published version. These were mostly made over the years for reasons of sound and suitability for singing. One small change concerns the Rector, who had become something of a figure of fun in recent productions (his mention in Court produced laughter). But, as the composer pointed out, Mr. Adams is a good if rather weak man; and I think that the beautiful "Good-night" Aria sufficiently shows us that he is not a comic character. The other change concerns that nebulous (non-singing) character, the Doctor. In the original draft, the composer tells me, it was intended to have Crabbe himself, who was at one time a doctor or apothecary, as a constant witness and narrator. But narrators have little scope in opera (the Governess in The Turn of The Screw is a different matter because she takes an important part in the action) and gradually Crabbe's part became quite insignificant. In addition it was pointed out that the opera was set in a period after Crabbe's death. So the Doctor became Dr. Thorpe. When it came to the recording, Benjamin Britten thought, in gratitude, perhaps, to his original inspiration, that Crabbe should be in it after all. And as composers can do these things without being attacked by sticklers for faithfulness to the "Urtext", Dr. Crabbe returned to the Borough. Finally, these are the three most important factors that make this, as I think, an intensely musical and dramatic recording. First, the advantage—perhaps too rare in recording—that we were able to take an existing stage production with nearly all its members; for nearly all singers will give a deeper and fuller account of a part which they have already played on the stage, and much the same applies to chorus and orchestra. In fact, Peter Pears and Owen Brannigan had taken part in the first performance and in very many since then. The second advantage is the extra vividness and clarity conferred by stereophonic sound and the "stage" production, with which we had been experimenting in recent years. But above all it was the direction and inspiration of Benjamin Britten himself which will ensure an important place for this set wherever opera is treasured.


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