After reading Plato's post, I can confirm that I have attended several emotionally moving concerts right there in his home listening room. We've covered just about every genre of music, and what we didn't actually "hear" as the system produced a wide dynamic range over a wide bandwidth, we certainly "felt" its impact over a rather large sensory area of the human body. I feel very lucky to have had this kind of "emotionally involving" experience live by attending a concert and in the home after paying attention to detail in every aspect of the system's set up!
"Emotionally involving" music and your system...
I recently attended a concert performance of Brahms' 1st Symphony and found the experience, quite frankly, overwhelming. I had previously heard this piece at least a dozen times on my system. I had also attended roughly a dozen live concert events over the last several years. While I found each of these listenings on my system enjoyable and each of these live performances interesting, none had any real emotional impact. On this occasion, however, I felt swept up by the music. By the time the last few chords came crashing down in the final movement I felt emotionally drained and had shivers running down my spine. I still cannot explain my reaction. Perhaps I felt that same sense of exhilaration that Brahms must have felt as he composed those last few bars, casting off the great shadow of Beethoven for at least a few brief moments. When I returned home I put a copy of this same work on my system. It had none of the emotional involvement of the live performance.
My question, then, is this: What pieces of music have you heard performed live that have had this effect on you? Have you been able to duplicate this effect at home via a recording? (I am sure some of you might think my system needs an upgrade, and I agree, but I will save that for another post.)
My question, then, is this: What pieces of music have you heard performed live that have had this effect on you? Have you been able to duplicate this effect at home via a recording? (I am sure some of you might think my system needs an upgrade, and I agree, but I will save that for another post.)