Carlo Marinelli

Istituto di Ricerca per il Teatro Musicale
Roma

SOUND AND VISUAL MUSICAL DOCUMENTS AS SOURCES OF KNOWLEDGE, INFORMATION AND TRANSMISSION

To begin with, I would like to make some general remarks. Through personal observations, I propose to retrace some events that took place in the course of the 19th and 20th centuries in the field of sound reproduction.
My observations will be limited to what is commonly known as “Western” (Euro-American) culture. Which, however, does not exclude the realization that what happens in the West has, now and in the past, growingly influenced the events that take place in the Eastern as well as in the Southernmost regions of planet Earth.
It’s useful to recall that the idea of reproduction exists in all human societies, and that there have always been cases of technical reproduction which could be defined as “mechanical”, though to such a limited extent as to be practically ineffectual for the purpose of describing the basic characteristics of civilizations involving human societies before the 19th century.
It’s appropriate to recall that technical reproduction (and I naturally quote Walter Benjamin) does not concern the realm of sound only: suffice it to mention the field of vision (which is Benjamin’s specific area of research). The technical and scientific lore whose outcome was the possibility to reproduce both visual and sound objects was attained more or less in the same period, the second part of the 19th century, and this innovation resulted in profound changes in our perception of the reality surrounding us. 
Now, I mean to reflect on the nature of the process called reproduction from the standpoint of our profession as musicologists. Therefore, reproduction in the sense of sound reproduction, and particularly the reproduction of sounds organized into music.
For most people, music is an art which can be perceived only through mediation on the part of an interpreter. To use an all-comprehensive term, it is a performing art, like ballet and theater, arts which also necessarily require interpretation or mise en scène.
Italian is not endowed with a term comparable to performing arts, which encompasses arts which cannot be perceived directly – almost physically – by all possible recipients.
Painting, sculpture, drawing, architecture have always been perceived “physically” by those present at the time and place where each work was available. The invention of writing allowed for the direct fruition of literary works also, though for the benefit of an extremely limited audience constituted by those who were capable of reading. Until that time – but also throughout the entire period in which readers were an élite – such works could only be transmitted by means of an interpreter, thus literature could also have been listed among the performing arts.
While paintings, statues, charcoal sketches, buildings, and – for quite some time – manuscripts, can be “read” directly from the original, “reading” performing arts requires the knowledge of specific codes to be deciphered. Works belonging to these arts can be approached solely by means of an interpreter: therefore the “original” does not exist, and we only have reference texts, which can be perceived differently each time. After the invention of printing – which allowed for a greater circulation of books – a text can be considered an original only if it was primarily intended for reading. On the other hand, if we consider the case of a theatrical script (whether it be printed or manuscript), it constitutes an original as a literary work, but as a theatrical work it is a reference text, intended for performance by an interpreter. By the same token musical or coreographical scores (manuscript or printed) are reference texts which can be approached only if “read” by an interpreter.
The fact is that – with the exception of a limited number of persons who possess specific codes – a theatrical script, a musical score, or a kinetography can be communicated solely by an interpretation. And perhaps it should be mentioned that even those who possess the code – the interpreters – mediate reference texts for their own selves at every reading, with gestures, sounds, or steps.

Let me now get back to my main concern, which is to observe the significance and profound novelty which the possibilities offered by sound reproduction determined in the field of musical interpretation.
Research on sound transmission – which resulted in the radio, in the 19th century – indirectly also brought about the reproduction of sound. At the turn of the century it was attained by means of acoustic (or mechanic) recordings, while subsequently, in the Twenties, electric recording (and microphones) came into use. In the Thirties, music recording on magnetic wire and subsequently on magnetic tape (monophonic, stereophonic, quadriphonic) made their first apprearance, and the latter became the established norm only in the mid-Forties; in the Seventies, electronics – and consequently digital recordings – appeared and spread rapidly.

Technical reproduction of sound allows for the following:
1.	Circulation of any sound object without limitations of time or space;
2.	A history of musical interpretation based on “reproduced” performances which differ in time and space; 
3.	A history of an author’s (or a work’s) fame in time and space, based on the same evidence; 
4.	A history of musical reception based on the same information; 
5.	The in-depth analysis of compositional and stylistic details of each opus, based on the possibility to listen to specific sections repeatedly. 
These five possibilities derive from the theoretically infinite repeatability of recorded reproductions, whose sole limitations are determined by their unavoidable distortion (if compared to live performances), as well as by the support’s deterioration, which just as unescapably occurs after repeated use.
Distortion derives from the fact that reproductions – as opposed to live performances, characterized by the physical presence of both listeners and performers – are “decontextualized”. When listening to a recording, the physical presence of instruments and performers disappears, while the surroundings and the conditions in which the performance takes place also vanish. The time and place of a performance are no longer established “a priori” by a designated schedule and venue where people assemble (and which are therefore not repeatable); they are entirely entrusted to the wishes of the owner of the recording reproduction: time and space are thus done away with. We are free to listen to recordings at home, or in any other given place, whenever we wish: any recording can be heard time and again, at any moment and under any condition, so long as a hi-fi equipment is at hand.
Thus sound reproduction contributes to enhance the phenomenon of doing away with distance, both in time and in space (an acoustic recording made in 1910 can be listened to and compared with a digital recording made in 2000; orchestras based in New York, Tokyo, or in my own city, play in my very own house).
The possibility to attain deeper critical comprehension of reference texts by means of listening to diverse interpretations repeatedly and selectively is also diminished on account of the performances’ physical and environmental decontextualization.
We should keep in mind that – before videodiscs began to circulate (a recent phenomenon, as pre-DVD supports were judged unsatisfactorily by the public) – the circulation of various disc-shaped or taped supports gave rise to an exclusively auditive reception of music, lacking any visual support, whereas the visual aspect of music has always been present in live performances of any genre and in every historical period, not only in the context of theatrical or concert music.
However, the “innovative” effects of the technical reproduction of sound are not merely the abolishment of distance and the purely auditive reception of music. There are other less general, but nevertheless significant aspects.
The first one I would like to discuss is the possibility to document all music which is not based on a text (written in any form of notation), and which – until the advent of the technical reproduction of sound – relied exclusively on oral tradition. By means of recording, it is possible to “freeze” (in the course of their transmission in time and/or space) works belonging to one of the manifold currents of “popular” music: in the first place all music pertaining to ethnomusicology, and also jazz – at least a great part of it –, as well as many forms of expression which do not find their way to a written notation format (or whose written version is more or less distant from that which circulates in the milieu for which they were originally conceived).
Written transcriptions of popular music always constitute an adulteration, due to the dissimilarity between systems. A recording makes music of oral tradition available for listeners as it actually is: in that precise moment and place, in that specific variant, in that exact interpretation. By the very nature of oral tradition, each variant in fact constitutes an original version.
While diverse interpretations – in recorded documents of manuscript or printed music – constitute secondary sources of reference texts, sound documents of different variants in music of oral tradition are primary sources, as they document original versions, in which interpretation is part and parcel of the text.
This, however, contradicts the nature of popular music, in that it fixes it into a historical context. With the use of recordings, it is in fact possible to retrace a documented history of popular music, and to compare variants in different times and places. It is in the nature of popular music to be contemporary in every time and place, and solely in that specific time and place. Its historicization decontextualizes it, making it become contemporary in every time and place, no more no less than the interpretations of notated music, simply because interpretation (that specific interpretation, not another) constitutes its textual make-up.
The technical reproduction of music, precisely because of its infinite repeatability, makes it possible to listen to every type of music, wherever and whatever time it was produced, without any restrictions in time or space. Consequently, it allows for fruition at any time and in any place, on the part of anyone: the only limitation is posed by the availability of the support and the equipment capable of reading it.
This is the most extensive circulation that can be fathomed for any kind of music. But the price to be paid is its decontextualization, i.e. an alteration in pertinence and destination which goes hand in hand with the demolition of time- and space-barriers. The former – decontextualization – and the latter – the abolishment of distance – result in a “de-historicizing contemporaneity” of reception and in its permanent “employment”, which in turn increasingly depletes it of intensity and quality.
The fact remains that each recorded reproduction of a performance of music of oral tradition is a sound document which constitutes a primary source for that music. Considering the vastness of the oral music repertoire, and its ascertained existence throughout the entire planet (beyond the boundaries of the so-called Western civilization), it is an acquisition of great social and cultural relevance: suffice it to simply think of the change in perspective that derives from it when considering the presence of music, and its significance, in an overview of human civilization.
The importance of sound documents in the study of the history of musical reception has not been sufficiently recognized by musicologists, who generally tend to give more credit to contemporary written documents, and – perhaps more correctly – to the performance scores which have fortunately been preserved by opera theater and concert society archives. These are doubtlessly the only available sources until the beginning of the 20th century. Nevertheless, sound recording is now over one hundred years old, and it is amusing, to say the least, that technical reproductions (mechanic, electric, electronic) of music have almost never been taken into consideration: they are secondary sources (and could never be primary, so long as they deal with music originally meant for theatrical or concert performance), but I personally claim that they offer a means to get a closer look at the manner and capacity of reception of their contemporaries no less important than written evidence. I furthermore hold that a combined use of these two kinds of document supplies means for interpretation which are fascinating, to say the least. The same goes – at least in my opinion – for the use of sound documents in studying the history of musical interpretation, and for the historical reconstruction of the renown enjoyed after the 19th century by authors and works.
The substitution of acoustic recording with electric recording, in the second half of the Twenties, was a side-effect of the same technological innovations which brought about the oncome of sound in film: precisely in the years around 1930 “Vitaphone”, an American firm, published a series of short films featuring famous singers in the act of performing arias and scenes from operas; in these works the natural unity between vision and audition was re-established.
Long before television, the film industry offered a supply of “audiovisual” documents of musical interpretation. Unfortunately this evidence – for as much as it may be more complete in that it includes both aspects, vision and sound – is incomplete and sporadic, and its contribution is extremely limited if compared to the copiousness of exclusively sound documents.
This is even more true of ballet: unfortunately there is simply an exceedingly small number of filmed ballets, as compared to how many there could have been.
On the other hand, there is a great number of radio programs in musical documentation, constituted by recordings made both in theaters and concert halls, as well as – especially – in studios (often using resident performers, particularly orchestras, of the highest quality). When they were recorded, and preserved on vinyl or tape, radio programs become secondary sources, valuable evidence of contemporary live performances (especially from the Thirties on).
Radio-station archives have not always been preserved. And, in any case, managements very rarely promoted conservationist policies regarding sound documents, considered as historical evidence. In cases when they were preserved in their entirety, or when scattered fragments survived, such sound documents are recordings (therefore “technical” reproductions) which, in the case of music written especially for a specific radio show, no longer constitute secondary sources; they are primary sources insofar as they are the sole reference text.

This introduces the subject of sound documents as originals, in other words sound documents not based on a reference text which is complete per se, or can be performed-interpreted, but which constitute an indivisible whole with the technical elements which presided in their recording. Such documents cannot be re-recorded, they can be reproduced from the sole existing matrix, the original. In the historical context of music, multimediality and electronic recording-techniques make their appearance. The turning point can be dated more or less around the mid-Fifties of the 20th century. The assumption of technical reproducibility, i.e. recording, then becomes a creative tool. In such creations, there is an interplay between music and other sound components, whose outcome is an object which – for all its complexity and diversity – is still and all musical, being as it is a logical, coherent, representative sound object, capable of communicating rationally. One could imaginatively define it as “the square root of a repetition”, in other words a procedure created to reproduce an original or a reference text other than itself, with no limits, becomes a creation in itself, original/object which in turn has to be reproduced in order to be taken into account.
The matrix used for reproduction is the original itself: the codes which allowed for its creation are manifold, and the result of their use is so complex that it is not conceivable to read the original anew in an interpretative performance.
The same phenomenon had already taken place in film: the final edit (cutting) is the original; any different edit is another original; each edit is an autonomous matrix for “copies” (technical reproductions) for projection. In film, besides all other technical factors which concur to create the multimedia result, the visual aspect prevails over the audio, which is nevertheless relevant. The sound documents (records or tapes) I am talking about are also multimedia objects: the visual factor is missing, but it is only a matter of time.
The first public television programs were broadcast in the Thirties of the 20th century. They expanded rapidly in the Fifties and Sixties to the point of becoming planetary, standing side-by-side, and sometimes even surpassing the radio as far as the musical audience is concerned. The so-called “home video” soon came to stand alongside the television, though I prefer to use the definition “video recording”, which puts the accent on its technical reproducibility, thus differentiating it from television which, like the radio, can be benefited from on scheduled days and fixed channels (or “places”). In order to enjoy them freely, TV programs must be “videorecorded” (“audiorecorded” in the case of radio) and therefore displaced, so to say, in order to be made available for technical reproducibility ad infinitum.
Nowadays, the vast circulation of audio and audiovisual technical reproductions is a consequence of the invention of a numeric (“digital”) recording system (for both sound and video), which allows for extraordinarily complex multimedia creations, and which also allows the production of an almost inexhaustible number of “originals”, to be used as matrixes only, never performed or interpreted as texts (the most popular genre is the so-called “videoclip”).
In recent times, at the turn of the 20th century, we have witnessed the creation of “digital” (electronically produced) sound which, by its very nature, cannot but become increasingly far-removed from “fidelity” to the natural sound of the human voice or any man-made instrument (whichever material it is made with, and no matter how complex it is).
“Digital sound”, if heard directly from its electronic source – without passing through an “ambient” in which to extend and become defined – through headphones which transmit it directly to our ears, without any bodily, material or environmental mediation, is prevailing progressively. It is now possible to state that vocal and instrumental performance techniques increasingly tend to imitate the acoustic results of “digital sound”, even in live performance.
It would thus be possible to assert that the entire spectrum of musical reception, at this point, appears to be a universe of reproductions, with an increasing predominance of “originals” which cannot be performed-interpreted.
Is this impossibility to perform-interpret also illegibility? And, therefore, does this multitude of “originals” – each independent from the other, characterized by the fact of not sharing a common reference text – result in a failure to communicate? (according to the well-known principle whereby too much communication is equivalent to no communication whatsoever?).
To what extent does the proliferation of multimedia and digital creations influence the possibility to acknowledge – with critical and historical awareness – the information contained in sound and audiovisual documents concerning texts produced before the digital era (be they primary or secondary sources)?
Finally, and above all: did the inventions which made technical reproducibility ad infinitum possible in the field of music (and not only, if we step outside our field of research) influence the rise of the so-called “virtual reality”? And if so, how deep was their influence?
These are questions and doubts which I personally do not feel up to answering. I do not have a ready answer, and would furthermore be unable to arrive at one with the sole means of my personal research. Nevertheless, I am convinced that such questions and doubts cannot remain unanswered.

I.R.TE.M. (Istituto di Ricerca per il Teatro Musicale) – in keeping with its tradition in research regarding the relationship between music and mass media –wishes to organize an International Conference entitled “From original to reproduction: a revolution in the perception of sound? Not only (The concept of reproduction as one of the founding elements of virtual reality)” in Rome this coming December.
I feel that most IASA members working in this field of research might be – and perhaps should be – interested in discussing such matters, and their influence on music’s life, together. I also hope that all those interested will be able to come to Rome. Today’s paper is an invitation to meet and discuss the present situation (and, implicitly, the present vitality of music created in the past). We must come to terms with the fact that technical reproduction has made available, in the present, all music from anywhere and any time, thus we should be concerned about what music could represent in the future, through changes in the way of perceiving sounds and listening to music. Thank you.