Copland: El Salon Mexico
Live Concert Recording
Tuesday, May 7, 2013
This is a live concert recorded for delayed broadcast. Two mics straight into the recorder. In this case, a pair of AKG C-414s in omni, suspended twenty feet above the seventh row. Warning - no compression - it gets loud from time to time. You’ll want a good subwoofer. This is what real music looks like, not a solid bar of 100% compressed and clipped audio. It’s a chance to hear a recording “in the raw,” since the radio station will compress, equalize, and manipulate the signal on the way to the transmitter. On a good stereo system the processing detracts from the original.
In 1932, Copland went to Mexico to visit his friend the composer and conductor Carlos Chávez (1899–1978). Chávez took Copland to El Salón México, a dance hall in Mexico City. A guidebook from the time describes it as follows:
‘Harlem-type nightclub for the peepul, grand Cuban orchestra, Salon Mexico. Three halls: one for people dressed in your way, one for people dressed in overalls but shod, and one for the barefoot.’
Copland was struck by the earthy quality of it, such as the sign saying ‘Please don’t throw lighted cigarette butts on the floor so the ladies don’t burn their feet.’
