Studio/Live Recordings of Classical Music

There will necessarily be a difference between the two. In the case of a studio recording, right from the conception, the artist is aware of the eventual listener, probably a connoisseur & the contribution to posterity. The listener is one who is sufficiently interested (to invest his money, in the early days at least), to acquire the record & listen with full attention. Also in the quest for perfection, there will be many takes, and the best will be selected for release. So the finished product may be expected to be technically sound & artistically aimed at the "high end" of listeners.

On the other hand, the presence of a live appreciative audience may spur the performer(s) to higher levels of creativity, which may be captured in a live recording. However, the artist is bound to perform to please a broader spectrum of audience, including the philistines. So he/she may dumb down the presentation to cater to the lowest common denominator, or in other words, "to play to the gallery". This is evident in the Promenade concerts, where the audience is allowed to applaud between movements of a work, which is forbidden in a more formal setting. Also, any errors may be preserved.

A curious amalgamation of the above two, seemed to have taken place when Pandit Ravi Shankar played to his largest audience at Woodstock (estimated at 5 lakh listeners). He was dissatisfied with the audience & after the concert, was unhappy with the recording. So he is supposed to have recorded the same ragas in a studio, overdubbed with the live announcements & ambient noise at the venue & released the result as "Live At Woodstock"!