Richard Taruskin, musicologist, 1945-2022

[prémont]

True, but if continuous vibrato had been an exception rather than a widespread practice, then why would have Geminiani and Leopold Mozart warned against, and condemned, it? Heck, one doesn't go at lengths taking issues with exceptions, one simply mentions them, if at all.

Depends probably upon how important one considers the issue. The warning against walking on railway tracks came, even if only a few practice it.

[prémont]

That sounds like the death sentence for hardcore HIP. 

On the contrary this means, that we have to use the historical information we have even more dilligently, if we want to play old music in a way the composer has got a minimal chance of recognizing..

[Florestan]

Depends probably upon how important one considers the issue. The warning against walking on railway tracks came, even if only a few practice it.

The analogy is far-fetched --- and you know it alright. Geminiani and Leopold Mozart could not care less about people walking on railway tracks but they cared a lot about the correct and tasteful way of playing the violin. You know, the past is a foreign country, they do things differently there.

Be it as it might, we've had this discussion before and I'm not going to revive it again. Let's just agree to disagree and RIP Richard Taruskin.

[prémont]

The analogy is far-fetched --- and you know it alright. Geminiani and Leopold Mozart could not care less about people walking on railway tracks but they cared a lot about the correct and tasteful way of playing the violin. You know, the past is a foreign country, they do things differently there.

Geminiani cared a lot about violin playing, whereas a railway official (not Geminiani) cared a lot about traffic on railway tracks. This is the analogy, which you obviously didn't understand.

Be it as it might, we've had this discussion before and I'm not going to revive it again. Let's just agree to disagree and RIP Richard Taruskin.

Agree. My intention was just to point out how hopelessly banal and outdated Taruskins ideas about HIP are. For some reason, I'm not particularly keen on reading the corresponding parts of his music history. Let him rest in peace.

[Madiel]

To get a cheap laugh - or what?

No, to understand that Hurwitz, like Taruskin, actually really likes a lot of period performers and can explain pretty articulately why other ones annoy the hell out of him for their incorrect reasoning about what music used to sound like.

In fact you seem to be using this thread to perpetuate the stuff about vibrato that particularly annoys him, even as people point out that you don't talk about vibrato if no-one is using it.

https://youtu.be/2oULPBv2vIY

[Brian]

I think the HIP argument exists outside the vibrato thing too. Probably the best evidence of our own contemporary taste affecting the HIP movement is the extreme dynamic swings associated with it - the performers' willingness to swerve between very loud and very quiet, to make dissonances and contrasts more jarring, to highlight differences between sections of music.

Personally I like this! Of course, it has influenced my taste and the movement has been influenced by the tastes of people like me. But it is clearly also a rebellion against some of the artists prevalent in the 50s-60s (like Böhm and Giulini and Karajan) who emphasized steadiness, long line, whole work structure, or in Herbie's case orchestral homogeneity.

I know an older music critic and organist whose primary complaint about today's orchestras, string quartets, and organists is that they play too loud. 

[DavidW]

the performers' willingness to swerve between very loud and very quiet, to make dissonances and contrasts more jarring, to highlight differences between sections of music.

I really think that is to adjust to the modern ear.  What sounded jarring or dissonant in Bach's time sounds pleasant to our ears.  So when those composers specifically wrote something to sound unpleasant, the modern listener doesn't hear it and then the effect is lost.

[Brian]

I really think that is to adjust to the modern ear.  What sounded jarring or dissonant in Bach's time sounds pleasant to our ears.  So when those composers specifically wrote something to sound unpleasant, the modern listener doesn't hear it and then the effect is lost.

Yeah! Manfred Honeck confesses to this in the notes to his Beethoven Eroica. In the first movement climax that listeners then found so disturbing and dissonant, he adds a new dissonance of his own composition. The idea is to replicate the subjective listening experience of that first premiere, rather than the objective sound of it. I find that really fascinating.

[DizzyD]

That sounds like the death sentence for hardcore HIP. 

I just wish the hardcore HIPsters -- and they are out there -- would come to the realization that their favorite is just another approach, no more truly "authentic" than those dismissed as "forerunners of HIP" or outright condemned as "uninformed". Personally I value beauty of sound over musicological correctness any day, and of course that's a subjective determination on my part.

[Madiel]

I just wish the hardcore HIPsters -- and they are out there -- would come to the realization that their favorite is just another approach, no more truly "authentic" than those dismissed as "forerunners of HIP" or outright condemned as "uninformed". Personally I value beauty of sound over musicological correctness any day, and of course that's a subjective determination on my part.

If you watch the video I linked to, you will see that Hurwitz' chief complaint is that there's no reason to believe people in olden days liked their music to sound ugly.

And consequently, trying to make the music sound uglier to modern ears does not mean it's more historically accurate.

[DizzyD]

If you watch the video I linked to, you will see that Hurwitz' chief complaint is that there's no reason to believe people in olden days liked their music to sound ugly.

And consequently, trying to make the music sound uglier to modern ears does not mean it's more historically accurate.

That's the main thing that puzzles me about HIP. Maybe Bach wasn't all that happy at having his music played by a wheezy string quintet. I think there's evidence that he did want female singers to perform in his works but was stymied by church tradition. I don't see any particular virtue in imposing limitations that Bach himself may have hated.

And I cannot cannot CANNOT stand to hear a countertenor. Sorry.

[Brian]

If you watch the video I linked to, you will see that Hurwitz' chief complaint is that there's no reason to believe people in olden days liked their music to sound ugly.

And consequently, trying to make the music sound uglier to modern ears does not mean it's more historically accurate.

I wonder if there is any documentation or analysis of the movement's early figures reading or reacting to Adorno or the post-WWII pro-"truth" anti-"beauty" aesthetic.

[DavidW]

Yeah! Manfred Honeck confesses to this in the notes to his Beethoven Eroica. In the first movement climax that listeners then found so disturbing and dissonant, he adds a new dissonance of his own composition. The idea is to replicate the subjective listening experience of that first premiere, rather than the objective sound of it. I find that really fascinating.

That is interesting, I will have to listen to that recording!

[DavidW]

btw Bach used dissonance in some of his cantatas to express death.  That doesn't make him Richard Strauss, these are not tone poems.  But it does illustrate writing intentionally ugly music.

[Madiel]

btw Bach used dissonance in some of his cantatas to express death.  That doesn't make him Richard Strauss, these are not tone poems.  But it does illustrate writing intentionally ugly music.

A moment of dissonance is hardly what I think of as ugly music. Endless consonances are actually profoundly boring.

Conversely, a major triad will sound ugly if you play it out of tune.

[prémont]

No, to understand that Hurwitz, like Taruskin, actually really likes a lot of period performers and can explain pretty articulately why other ones annoy the hell out of him for their incorrect reasoning about what music used to sound like.

Generally the more informed musicianship also the more authentic music, but information has got its limits and for the remaining part one has got to rely on more or less qualified guesswork. No one, neither Hurwitz nor a hard core HIP-ster can claim that their guesses possess any higher value of truth.

In fact you seem to be using this thread to perpetuate the stuff about vibrato that particularly annoys him, even as people point out that you don't talk about vibrato if no-one is using it.

https://youtu.be/2oULPBv2vIY

The question of vibrato was raised by DizzyD, I just answered his post and do not use this thread for any purpose in that context.

[prémont]

That's the main thing that puzzles me about HIP. Maybe Bach wasn't all that happy at having his music played by a wheezy string quintet. I think there's evidence that he did want female singers to perform in his works but was stymied by church tradition. I don't see any particular virtue in imposing limitations that Bach himself may have hated.

And I cannot cannot CANNOT stand to hear a countertenor. Sorry.

Nor can I. And it is highly questionable if countertenors are authenticated in Bach's music.

[prémont]

I think the HIP argument exists outside the vibrato thing too. Probably the best evidence of our own contemporary taste affecting the HIP movement is the extreme dynamic swings associated with it - the performers' willingness to swerve between very loud and very quiet, to make dissonances and contrasts more jarring, to highlight differences between sections of music.

This is only true of some performers. But we don't know who are doing the right thing.

I know an older music critic and organist whose primary complaint about today's orchestras, string quartets, and organists is that they play too loud. 

Modern instruments play too loud, much louder than period instruments.

Concerning organs Bach valued a loud plenum with gravitas highly.

[Madiel]

Generally the more informed musicianship also the more authentic music, but information has got its limits and for the remaining part one has got to rely on more or less qualified guesswork. No one, neither Hurwitz nor a hard core HIP-ster can claim that their guesses possess any higher value of truth.

His argument is not about guesses. His argument is looking at the information sources and pointing out how people quote one bit out of context while completely ignoring another bit that wouldn't support what they're doing.

Information certainly does have its limits, but you seem to be presupposing that someone engaged in HIP practice has inevitably properly informed themselves. His argument is that many of them haven't.

[prémont]

His argument is that many of them haven't.

To make such a claim, and if it is to be credible, one must be among the elite of musicologists in the widest sense and even specialized in the baroque age. Maybe Taruskin was in some respects but Hurwitz hardly is. Therefore, it would be useful with practical examples if one is to convince non-musicologists. Who is it that is not sufficiently informed and what are the exact consequences for selected music examples? In the absence of this it's just an unsubstantiated claim.