Richard Taruskin, musicologist, 1945-2022

[Madiel]

Isn't that pretty much the same thing though? I don't know if I would trust James McPherson or David McCullough very much to determine how Rameau should be played in an historically "accurate" way. We're taking about musical history.

Indeed we are talking about musical history, but the point is a historian with an interest in music is amply qualified to critique the techniques being used by musicologists on historical documents. Documents about music are not in some special category such that historians' techniques for dealing with documents become irrelevant.

I don't particularly know whether Hurwitz is entirely right in his criticisms, but he's qualified. He's not "just a music reviewer", he's a historian, and he might well know more about how to approach and analyse a historical document than someone whose starting point is music rather than history.

It's even an interesting point as to whether we are talking about musical history rather than historical music.

[prémont]

I'm not suggesting it makes him a musicologist. I'm suggesting it makes him qualified to comment on the historical abilities of musicologists.

It's called historically informed performance, not musicologically informed performance. You keep talking as if musicologists own the field of looking at historical documents.

As I said, I am not a musicologist, but I agree that some musicians, who are probably not trained musicologists, sometimes come up with some musical solutions that may seem far-fetched. Often, however, the results are both interesting and rewarding. OVPP eg. opens up the possibility of a whole new experience of Bach's cantatas, no matter how unlikely the thought is, which, incidentally, I do not see myself able to assess. But that Hurwitz without a specific musicological background should be able to credibly critizise today's leading musicologists, I strongly doubt. How much can you trust a historian specializing in the recent history of Japan if he begins to criticize the theories of classical philologists about the ancient Greek theater? Shouldn't he have a thorough philological and linguistic background to be able to do this?

And I have to repeat a question because you are constantly shying away from it. What exactly is Hurwitz criticizing and with which specific musicological arguments? Who are the musicians doing horrible performances, and why are they horrible?

[Madiel]

And I have to repeat a question because you are constantly shying away from it. What exactly is Hurwitz criticizing and with which specific musicological arguments? Who are the musicians doing horrible performances, and why are they horrible?

And maybe this is not a repeat, but that was not the point of showing you the video. If you want to know this, go look through his other videos, and read his academic articles. But his chief bugbear did come up in that video, a lack of vibrato in string playing.

I can tell you that when it comes to Haydn's string quartets, he admires both Mosaiques and Festetics and hates the London Haydn Quartet. The LHQ avoids vibrato, has stodgy, slow tempos and intonation problems.

[Madiel]

But that Hurwitz without a specific musicological background should be able to credibly critizise today's leading musicologists, I strongly doubt.

And there you go again, creating a closed shop which no-one outside of the shop is allowed to question. Though apparently idolising them constantly is permissible.

[prémont]

And maybe this is not a repeat, but that was not the point of showing you the video. If you want to know this, go look through his other videos, and read his academic articles. But his chief bugbear did come up in that video, a lack of vibrato in string playing.

As far as I understand from the title, his book about vibrato deals with the period from 1800 and forth. This irrelevant to the baroque era.

[prémont]

And there you go again, creating a closed shop which no-one outside of the shop is allowed to question. Though apparently idolising them constantly is permissible.

This is how it works: If you are going to critizise the experts in a credible way, you must have similar qualifications yourself.

None-the-less note that I wrote, that I feel some PI musicians are more or less self-studied and not deeply musicologically qualified. But often these musicians base their ideas on practical musical views and not on musicological theories, and the results are often illuminating and well-working. This may be more important than musicological correctness. In these matters taste is the decisive factor.

[Madiel]

This is how it works: If you are going to critizise the experts in a credible way, you must have similar qualifications yourself.

The whole notion of cross-disciplinary discussion appears to have eluded you.

For one thing, your proposition makes my own job completely impossible. I am a lawyer and legislative drafter constantly querying whether people with expertise in other areas have or haven't given me correct instructions about the laws they want in order to implement policies. In doing so I regularly query the actual policy and whether it makes sense. Because describing my task as simply being about "law" is terribly inaccurate. It's about the interaction of law with other things.

I have a science degree as well, though I wouldn't for a second claim to be an expert scientist. But some of the very best legislative drafting work I've done has involved discussions about science, informed by what I do know. I'd say the single best project I ever worked on involved a constant back and forth with scientists, where I questioned them and where they questioned me, and in both cases we made changes to what we were saying as a result.

So no, this is not how it works. The proposition one that can only be credible if one has similar qualifications is a recipe for never correcting the short-sightedness of one discipline by bringing the perspective of another discipline to bear. You are advocating silos of knowledge, and there is ample evidence that silos are not good things when it comes to knowledge.

[Madiel]

Besides, Taruskin was a musicologist and it seems you're not even happy with a musicologist critiquing other musicologists on this issue.

[prémont]

The whole notion of cross-disciplinary discussion appears to have eluded you.

I'm talking about the theoretical part of a science. If you want to be taken seriously in these things, you must have the necessary prerequisites.

With regard to law, it is only the examination of legal history and the examination of juridic thinking of earlier times which constitute the theoretical part. The rest is judicial practice, which is a rather inexact science and mostly deals with something as subjective as the wording and interpretation of laws. I understand well why cross-disciplinary discussions are useful here.

Likewise, it is probably clear what is theoretical and what is practical musicology. Taruskin made the mistake of abusing his authority in theoretical musicology to make a number of very subjective claims about the HIP movement, and he did so in an unnecessarily vicious way. In some obituaries it's mentioned that he did similarly concerning a number of other topics, and still you blame me for not respecting him.

Compared to Taruskin Hurwitz may look quite human.

[Madiel]

What does "the theoretical part of a science" have to do with historical documents about music?

No, don't bother answering. This is utterly pointless.

It's lovely for you to come onto a thread about someone's passing to talk about how much you don't respect him. Tremendously classy of you.

[prémont]

What does "the theoretical part of a science" have to do with historical documents about music?

No, don't bother answering. This is utterly pointless.

It's lovely for you to come onto a thread about someone's passing to talk about how much you don't respect him. Tremendously classy of you.

Please calm down. Observe that I don't attack you in my posts, whereas you attack me in almost every of your posts.

The comparing of eg. manuscripts in musicology is part of the theoretical part of it.

When someone dies the obituaries often idealize the deceased person, but others try to describe him as he actually was including plusses and contra's. I dont know if Taruskin has become an angel, but we are not obliged to describe him as one.

[Madiel]

When you get as far as suggesting that someone else "may look quite human" in comparison, you have gone WELL beyond what is appropriate in a discussion of a recently deceased person. It's quite frankly disgusting at that point.

Goodnight.

[prémont]

I would like to bring this quote (from a Taruskin obituary by William Robin):

"Following a 1991 broadside by Mr. Taruskin contending that Sergei Prokofiev had composed Stalinist propaganda, one biographer complained of his "sneering antipathy." Mr. Taruskin's response? "I am sorry I did not flatter Prokofiev enough to please his admirers on his birthday, but he is dead. My concern is with the living."

I'm sorry I didn't flatter Taruskin enough to please his admirers, but he is dead. My concern is with the living.