Richard Taruskin, musicologist, 1945-2022

[Brian]

I would like that.  I rarely hear baroque era music live anymore because I think that it is presumed that MI can't play them.  We have room for both.

Actually it would be cool to hear more interventionist modern arrangements for full orchestra of baroque pieces. Since it is not the original instrumentation anyway, why not have fun? Like Berio's Boccherini study.

[Madiel]

Having seen the video I'm a bit disappointed. In the beginning lots of words with essentially no more information than what you have written on the last two pages of this thread. And then he takes ten (in his opinion great performances - I agree about the ones I know) and talks a lot about them - but there are no sounding examples and no detailled argumentation. I had nourished the hope that he was going to talk about some terrible performances and tell why they are terrible. This would be more relevant to his topic and the discussion above.

Among the things you were supposed to get out of it is that he has academic qualifications. Do you deny this? Having characterised him as knowing nothing at all.

You were also supposed to ask yourself why people bother to invent or adopt a new form of instrument if they're perfectly happy with how the old one works.

[Madiel]

I read Taruskin's "Text and Act" some years ago, particularly to get to know his view on HIP. His implied polemical style I found tiresome and his main ideas not strikingly original, but they were presented as if they were. My impression of his efforts stems largely from then.

. The relevant texts are not Taruskin. The relevant texts are the ones from past centuries that HIP folk invoke.

[fbjim]

Taruskin was spot on; the HIP movement and ideology is a typical product of the 20th century which has got little, if any, to do with the 17th or 18th centuries. It is an entirely modernist concept.

It's something that cuts across a lot of art and culture, I think - a preoccupation with "authenticity". A concept that I always tend to be a bit skeptical of, to be fair.

[Mandryka]

Taruskin was spot on; the HIP movement and ideology is a typical product of the 20th century which has got little, if any, to do with the 17th or 18th centuries. It is an entirely modernist concept.

What do you think follows from this, assuming it's true?

(By the way, it isn't entirely true, the Solesmes palaeographical project for recreating authentic forms of church chant was supposed to be historically informed.)

[DavidW]

Actually it would be cool to hear more interventionist modern arrangements for full orchestra of baroque pieces. Since it is not the original instrumentation anyway, why not have fun? Like Berio's Boccherini study.

Fully agreed!  And these great composers are fading from memory of concert goers due to neglect.

[prémont]

Among the things you were supposed to get out of it is that he has academic qualifications. Do you deny this? Having characterised him as knowing nothing at all.

I'm not able from that Youtube movie to judge his academic qualifications. He might as well be an experienced music-lover who - like me - has developed his own musical taste.                 

You were also supposed to ask yourself why people bother to invent or adopt a new form of instrument if they're perfectly happy with how the old one works.

This is because the musical fashion is changing and creates a need for new instruments. But we are all different in our tastes, and when one - like me - is most fascinated by early music and fully satisfied with the instruments relevant to its performance, one doesn't see any need for new instruments - to exaggerate the point a bit. For example, I would be reasonably happy if modern electronic instruments had never been invented.

I still miss from Hurwitz some examples of horrible performances and a qualified explanation of why they are horrible, which means explanation based on examples from period treatises.

[prémont]

Thanks for the effort in posting that paper. That looks like an interesting read.

+1

[prémont]

Why, of cpurse! It's all a matter of preference. But it's exactly the "preference" that the hardcore HIP brigade will not allow. I mean, if one likes Maisky''s performance of Bach's Cello Suites one is certainly likely to be censured --- on no other ground that either a rigid ideological commitment to HIP or on the basis that "I don't like it".

You are free to listen as much to Maisky's Bach as you want, and I'm free not to listen to him, that's the important thing for me. However I'm also free to express my opinion of him, in the same way you are free to express your opinion of informed interpreters.

[prémont]

. The relevant texts are not Taruskin. The relevant texts are the ones from past centuries that HIP folk invoke.

I am not musicologist. I have not been around in Europe and studied the relevant  texts in situ. I owe musicologists my information. This is why Taruskin's argumentation should have been much more specific, drawing upon examples from period treatises. Otherwise his efforts are just useless generalisations or - what I unfortunately might think - a hateful attempt to downplay the HIP movement.

[DizzyD]

You are free to listen as much to Maisky's Bach as you want, and I'm free not to listen to him, that's the important thing for me. However I'm also free to express my opinion of him, in the same way you are free to express your opinion of informed interpreters.

Absolutely. Maisky's not one of my very favorites, but I like his playing in isolated movements of the Bach suites. I also like Bylsma and other historically-informed performances. It's not either/or.

[Karl Henning]

Yesterday and today, a friend and fellow composer shared these thoughts via Facebook:

Last week we lost one of America's most prominent musicologists in Richard Taruskin. There is no doubt that he drew a lot of controversy over many subjects and his views on many composers. I remember my one and only meeting with him back in 1995 at a conference that combined the American Musicological Society, Center for Black Music Research and the Society for Music Theory, and I talked to him about his criticism of Prokofiev's score for Eisenstein's Ivan the Terrible, which he faulted primarily for its political aspects (Stalin's shadow, more or less) which hindered its musical language.

I, in turn, mentioned that this score was one of Bernard Herrmann's favorite scores and, in fact, he considered it the finest film score ever composed, seconded by Karol Rathaus' score for an earlier film adaptation of The Brothers Karamazov. Taruskin was quite startled about Herrmann's adoration of the Prokofiev score and asked me how he came to this conclusion. My only response to him was that he most likely enjoyed it to the point where he paid homage to it by composing his score for "The Egyptian" (which, for those that are unfamiliar with this film, he wound up co-composing with Alfred Newman when the release date was moved up and Herrmann could not finish the score in time). Taruskin then acknowledged to me about Herrmann's residence in the UK in the last years of his life and thanked me for sharing my take on the matter.

I'm sure if Herrmann had lived long enough to read Taruskin's article in The New York Times about Prokofiev's score, you can bet that he would have offered a firm and potent rebuttal. Whether Taruskin would have been impressed or not will remain a mystery, but I can say that in our discussion I can say he was intrigued, but still bewildered how a major composer could like a score that he dismissed.

Nonetheless, Taruskin's writings will continue to intrigue many musicologists of the present day, as well as generations to come. He will be mourned by those who revered him greatly.

=======

In doing a quick run-through of the indexes of the fourth and fifth volumes of Richard Taruskin's five-volume* The Oxford History of Western Music, I noticed a number of glaring omissions and barely mentioned composers, some of them totally contemptible. Among them are...

- The fact that he ONLY mentions the Adagio from Mahler's tenth symphony. NOT once does he discuss the remainder of the draft, nor mentions Deryck Cooke's involvement with it (I don't expect him to name any other musicologists or conductors who have prepared their own editions), a cardinal sin in my book;

- That he only mentions Bernard Herrmann only once, and this is in reference to Hitchcock's Spellbound which was scored by Miklos Rozsa (In fact, this is the only time that Rozsa is mentioned as well). NOT ONCE does he mention Herrmann's involvement with the music of Charles Ives, another egregious error on his part. I'm sure he knew of it, but again pegs Herrmann as a film composer {said with a snobbish sneer} and not as a major force in American concert music in the 20th century.

That said, he mentions Max Steiner in passing (his technique of scoring), no mention of iconoclasts like Alex North, David Raksin and Leonard Rosenman, or other innovators such as Henry Mancini, Jerry Goldsmith and John Williams, but he does devote a good deal of space to Erich Wolfgang Korngold. It is obvious that the man has no real love for film scores unless they come from the likes of Copland, Walton, Vaughan Williams and Glass.

- NO MENTION OF ANY BLACK COMPOSERS! Not even Scott Joplin, Nathaniel Dett, William Grant Still, Ulysses Kay, Anthony Davis, David Baker, or even "Duke" Ellington, John Coltrane and Anthony Braxton, but he does mention Miles Davis by way of two of his albums, namely "Bitches Brew" (which is excellent) and "In a Silent Way" (also excellent). I don't know if he mentions Samuel Coleridge-Taylor in the 19th Century portion of the series, but I won't be surprised if he doesn't.

To be honest, his neglect of Jazz is abominable. You would think he would mention how this chapter of African-American music would play a significant role in influencing classical music of the last century in many ways, but I guess he decided that it's best left to jazz musicologists. Sorry, but if I had read this book while he was alive, I would have given him an eyeful with a letter. I'm sure some folks have criticized him for this, but he probably didn't give a rat's rear.

And there are other iconoclasts of the last century that are omitted including, but not limited to, Sorabji, Vermeulen, Pettersson, Oliveros, Takemitsu, Gloria Coates, Sondheim and if I omitted some names and you looked at his series, please let me know!

The bottom line is this: I agree that you can't put everyone in a book, even one this vast. Sooner or later, the writer and/or their editor will have to make it as taut and cogent as possible, but there are some folks he mentions that are also in passing that I wouldn't have put in the book, but...

Flawed? I think so. Perhaps someone else will come along with another series, and this time put some of the composers he omitted, but then you'll find other omissions and folks will scream about those as well. You can't please everyone, but I'm sure that Taruskin didn't please a whole lot of people.

============

And a friend of the friend writes: When I think of Taruskin I always think of this brilliant put down by Charles Rosen "Taruskin writes brilliantly and at the top of his voice, and his most crushing arguments are often reserved for opinions that no one really holds. He asserts: "To presume that the use of historical instruments guarantees a historical result is simply preposterous." No doubt. Still, Taruskin beats his dead horses with infectious enthusiasm, and some of them have occasional twitches of life."

[DizzyD]

The bottom line is this: I agree that you can't put everyone in a book, even one this vast. Sooner or later, the writer and/or their editor will have to make it as taut and cogent as possible, but there are some folks he mentions that are also in passing that I wouldn't have put in the book, but...

True enough, but in a book or rather multi-volume work with the expansive title of History of Western Music you can't omit that much.

[Madiel]

I'm not able from that Youtube movie to judge his academic qualifications. He might as well be an experienced music-lover who - like me - has developed his own musical taste.                 

Right, so when he specifically mentions his 2 degrees in history, you're calling him a liar.

You keep obsessing over musicologists. His point, which you apparently completely missed, is that a lot of musicologists make lousy HISTORIANS.

[Brian]

Right, so when he specifically mentions his 2 degrees in history, you're calling him a liar.

He very, very, VERY clearly did not call anyone a liar. "I am not able to judge" is exactly the opposite of such a determination.

What I took Premont to mean was not, "I question whether his academic qualifications are real," but "I am unable to judge the quality of the education received." Which surely is completely true and fair. And, as you said, a little bit beside the point.

[prémont]

Right, so when he specifically mentions his 2 degrees in history, you're calling him a liar.

You keep obsessing over musicologists. His point, which you apparently completely missed, is that a lot of musicologists make lousy HISTORIANS.

Well, I thought this was a question of his [Hurwitz's] musicological qualifications, and I still can't judge these from the video. Forgive me for writing academic qualifications above instead of musicological qualifications, which was what I meant.

I respect his degrees in history, according to Wiki he has two degrees in modern European history, and I find it a bit unclear if these per se makes him a musicologist with special knowledge about early music.

[prémont]

He [Taruskin] asserts: "To presume that the use of historical instruments guarantees a historical result is simply preposterous."

Certainly a straw man if there ever was one.

[Karl Henning]

Certainly a straw man if there ever was one.

Indeed.

[Madiel]

Well, I thought this was a question of his [Hurwitz's] musicological qualifications, and I still can't judge these from the video. Forgive me for writing academic qualifications above instead of musicological qualifications, which was what I meant.

I respect his degrees in history, according to Wiki he has two degrees in modern European history, and I find it a bit unclear if these per se makes him a musicologist with special knowledge about early music.

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.

[DizzyD]

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

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.