Preoccupied as I often am with hi fi reproduction a refresher course in live music can be sobering.
One evening last week I was a few hours north, up in the redwoods of Mendocino County, in a wooden building made from old growth redwood and Douglas fir by CCC workers during the thirties. Outside children were playing, and people talking quietly under the trees and young lovers moving from the light into the shadows and out into the light again. Inside there were about 175 people on benches, on chairs, on the floor. From a side room a woman came in carrying a cello and walked to a small bench set for her about ten feet from where my wife and I were sitting. After a few moments' preparation she played Bach's Suite No. 1 in G for Unaccompanied Cello.
That was the high point. On other occasions during the week I heard solo voice, acoustic piano and guitar, flute, viola, oud, mandolin, various small rhythm instruments and that room filled to overspilling with singing voices.
There isn't a stereo anywhere that can come close.
David
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