Orchestral Music: How well synchronised in time do musicians have to be to sound as if they are playing together?
08.06.2025 04:51
Perfectly, in the ordained time.
Pay attention to what's written and placed before you, fellow Musicians. It’s YOUR/OUR JOBS!! (Unless your part/passage is demarked as ad-libitum..”at you liberty’ or a piacere—”at your pleasure”, submit to the notes written and their proper duration in hold!).
I recall a single English Horn entering a millisecond before their due admittance at the outset in a recording of Wagner's “Ride of the Valkyries”. Not only this, but his/her assigned tremelo was to be from C#—D Natural, (Concert F#- G natural before transposition). The performer instead quavered between a C#—D#, (Concert tones F#—G# before transposition). The errant reading by the Hornist was impermissible and the recording should have been halted and begun anew. Yet, it was not. Worst recording ever.
Aside: Wagner FOREVER!
I remember, also, a single Violin holding an E6 far longer than notated in the finale to Wagner's Overture to “Tannhauser”. As the Violin figures in this Overture are among the best ever written, I found forgiveness in my Musical heart.