The Dirty Little Secret Of Classical Recordings

“The Hatto scandal reminds us that, even in hands not sullied like his, the piecemeal process by which finished recordings are assembled bears a great moral question mark. The technology of the modern studio has made possible a kind of synthetic perfection in recording undreamt of 50 years ago, in which hundreds of digital edits (tape splices in the old days) create an aural product that sometimes bears little relation to music as it’s actually presented in the concert hall or opera house.”