Recording Robin Holloway

Listening back after a time to a CD recording, you hear things afresh. Back in 2018, making this CD was a new and very exciting challenge. With time away from the project - now the beauty of Robin’s writing has hit me all over again. Both in his chamber music and the Solo Viola Sonata, Robin’s style is very succinct and masterfully crafted, but it is still the beautiful lyrical writing that I both adored playing and listening to the most.

At this time, when we are socially distancing, the effect of not being able to play music with others has directly affected many. Collaborations and chamber music are the life blood of playing music for me. The difference between hearing a CD recording and experiencing live performance has never been so keenly felt before. And yet, it has highlighted to me the hugely different process that learning music to record in a studio for a CD, and learning music to perform live is.

Looking forward to the future of music - how will these two very different worlds change? Certainly, live performances will change the most. In the near future huge changes will be necessary. Not all bad, I feel music will again be created at and for the heart of communities. But the thrill of large events and large audiences will not be possible immediately, if not for some time. CD recordings however, for small groups and soloists will go on. Will they substitute more for live events? Will these split-screen online video recordings become the new norm for recording orchestras?

I hope the recording industry will support the changes needed for live events to continue. Never before has the need for recording live concerts seemed more necessary, with the screen and radio fast becoming the only window for human contact, for those who must isolate from others. And yet will recordings capture the rawness of live events, the human nature of these performances, which so often edited CD recordings air brush away? Can the music industry temper this need for edited perfection, to allow the atmosphere only live events have, to come through?