Tom Beghin, Martha de Francisco, Wieslaw Woszczyk: "Virtual Acoustics and the Recording of Joseph Haydn’s Keyboard Music"

ABSTRACT:
A collaborative project to record Haydn’s complete solo keyboard music, executed at CIRMMT, is nearing completion.  Premise is to match repertoire with instrument, and to cast both in a virtually constructed room.  Thus, seven types of historical keyboards (from a clavichord to an English grand piano) are recorded in the Ceremonial Room of Esterháza, a private room from Haydn’s Eisenstadt home, a Prunkraum from the Albertina in Vienna, or the Oxford Holywell Music Room.
 
This new paradigm of “virtual recording” raises an array of questions.  Have acoustics remained underappreciated in our assessments of musical style and performance?  Are we ready to expand our stereophonic expectations of recorded sound and explore fuller, more integrated sonic images of instrument and room?  Can the recording engineer convincingly reconstruct the impression of a performance in a space different to the one of recording?
 
Representing the various perspectives of performer, historian, producer, engineer, and acoustics researcher, we will address these questions, present some audio-visual examples of the resulting recordings, as well as report on specific details of the project.