“Saturday night, honey. Shall we go out and hear a concert or stay in and watch one?” writes Arthur Kaptainis in Saturday’s (11/28) Gazette (Montreal). “Either choice is viable on Nov. 28 as Kent Nagano and Orchestre symphonique de Montreal” perform at the Maison symphonique in Montreal. “Mezzo Live HD brings the same concert to your television screen at home…. If cost is a consideration, Mezzo has something of an advantage.… Your digital investment brings you other concerts, live and recorded, from around the world, including some OSM events of relatively recent vintage…. What the Maison symphonique offers that Mezzo cannot is being there, a certain ‘liveness’ that the mediated experience merely replicates. Or is this so? … At-home self-entertainers who take the trouble of setting up their spaces for sound usually do so with helicopters and explosions in mind, not soaring sopranos and resonant violins. Hearing the OSM live in the Maison symphonique is the pure, beautiful and inimitable experience of which a mediated broadcast can be only a pale shadow. I think. In truth I do not have a firm opinion on this question because I have been far too busy hearing live concerts over the years.”
Posted December 2, 2015
