The Historically Informed Performances (HIP) debate

[Ken B]

Not a fan, not that anyone cares.   

Although I prefer PI recordings of most early music, the one exception is solo keyboard music.  I have come close to detesting the sound of a fortepiano.  This confession comes years after forcing myself to purchase and repeatedly listen to Brautigam, Schornshieim, Beghin and all the others playing Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert on period instruments.

Baroque music fares somewhat better since many harpsichord recordings are mellow enough for me, but others are too strident and I easily grow tired of the sound.

Consequently I now prefer solo music from the Classical period on piano.

Have you heard Stockhausen on the original Sikorsky? Makes all the difference.

[Florestan]

the purpose of music is that aesthetic experience itself.

Bach strongly disagreed. 

Und soll wie aller Musik also auch des Generalbasses Finis und Endursache anders nicht als nur zu Gottes Ehre und Recreation des Gemütes sein. Wo dieses nicht in acht genommen wird, ists keine eigentliche Musik, sondern ein Teuflisches Geplerr und Geleier.

I quoted the original German not out of snobbery but because the point has beeen made here that somehow translations are not the best way of understanding the true meaning of what is said. 

[San Antone]

Have you heard Stockhausen on the original Sikorsky? Makes all the difference.

I think you are joking, but there is an issue of electronic music from the mid-20th century which is becoming increasingly impossible to play since the technology it was written for is either unavailable or unreliable.  People have resorted to attempting to re-create it using modern software synthesizers.

Something of an odd version of the PI question.

[Florestan]

Then you and Andrei are guilty of the worst kind of intellectual laziness.

Nobody's perfect.

You both assume that since I am asking questions I can only be doing so under false pretenses, to smuggle in an opinion that you think, based on nothing, that you know. So much easier than thinking about the questions, or imagining there could be other reasons for them.

Please go back to my reply, notice that I have used two emoticons, namely  and  and think hard about why I put them there.

Talk about intellectual laziness...



Oh, and I am offended by you underestimating me: "mythical legitimacy", good grief, what language... 

[prémont]

Not a fan, not that anyone cares.   

Although I prefer PI recordings of most early music, the one exception is solo keyboard music.  I have come close to detesting the sound of a fortepiano.  This confession comes years after forcing myself to purchase and repeatedly listen to Brautigam, Schornshieim, Beghin and all the others playing Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert on period instruments.

Baroque music fares somewhat better since many harpsichord recordings are mellow enough for me, but others are too strident and I easily grow tired of the sound.

Consequently I now prefer solo music from the Classical period on piano.

I have experienced exactly the opposite. Finding Mozart's sonatas and Haydn's early piano works too thin in texture for a modern grand, at least when played by the usual suspects, I focused upon the fortepiano and found that this instrument fills the thin texture out in an ideal way, and I have to come to love the sound of it, and now I have come also to prefer fortepiano for Beethoven, even if I think Beethoven stands a modern grand rendering much better than Mozart. Brautigam however is an exception, His aggressive and unsubtle playing does not fit Mozart and not even always Beethoven IMO. 

[Mandryka]

This is not because some mythical legitimacy descended upon me, but because I could see aspects of the poem that I could not before.

Given the analogy, I think Andrei's idea is that you can see aspects of the poem when it's put in modern English which were unavailable to Chaucer himself. Possibly more contemporary aspects.

[Marc]

[...] the purpose of music is that aesthetic experience itself.

Bach strongly disagreed. 

Und soll wie aller Musik also auch des Generalbasses Finis und Endursache anders nicht als nur zu Gottes Ehre und Recreation des Gemütes sein. Wo dieses nicht in acht genommen wird, ists keine eigentliche Musik, sondern ein Teuflisches Geplerr und Geleier.

Recreation des Gemütes kann aber sehr gut zusammen gehen met einer aesthetic experience.

Neulich I sat on a terrace als eine aesthetically beautiful lady vorbei ging. I sighed deeply und mein Gemüt wurde sehr rekreirt.

[Mandryka]

Bach strongly disagreed. 

Und soll wie aller Musik also auch des Generalbasses Finis und Endursache anders nicht als nur zu Gottes Ehre und Recreation des Gemütes sein. Wo dieses nicht in acht genommen wird, ists keine eigentliche Musik, sondern ein Teuflisches Geplerr und Geleier.

I quoted the original German not out of snobbery but because the point has beeen made here that somehow translations are not the best way of understanding the true meaning of what is said. 

Sometimes translations are so complex that they're hardly helpful. I remember a class I did at university on Aristotle's. Ethics, and the thing rapidly turned on the word σωφροσύνη, a concept which is really hard to explain, but it's clear that in C5 Athens it was current.

The relation to music. Well, with all due respect to Hewitt and Van Delft, I suppose playing the something fast and brilliant like the toccata from the 6th partita on a piano or a clavichord is a bit like a translation, maybe an impossible one, at least, it's not obvious you can do it. You just end up with something a parody.

[San Antone]

I have experienced exactly the opposite. Finding Mozart's sonatas and Haydn's early piano works too thin in texture for a modern grand, at least when played by the usual suspects, I focused upon the fortepiano and found that this instrument fills the thin texture out in an ideal way, and I have to come to love the sound of it, and now I have come also to prefer fortepiano for Beethoven, even if I think Beethoven stands a modern grand rendering much better than Mozart. Brautigam however is an exception, His aggressive and unsubtle playing does not fit Mozart and not even always Beethoven IMO.

I have heard those explanations, and gave it a serious effort, as I said earlier.  Brendel's Haydn set (incomplete but representative) is the one I turn to most often; I've been listening to Fazil Say's Mozart and enjoying it (although I usually don't like his recordings), but Uchida is my regular go-to set, but there are others I also enjoy, e.g. Pires and Larrocha.  My first set of Mozart was the old Eschenbach LPs.  I still listen to it, but CDs now.   There are too many Beethoven and Schubert recordings to mention.

However, gut stringed quartets are my favorite for that music, and I really like old bows and gut strings on Bach solo string music.  And small PI orchestras for the symphonic works, as well as modern groups playing with HIP style.

But it is earlier vocal music that is my primary focus, prior to Bach, so the choice of instrument issue doesn't come up. The HIP concerns are about the ensemble size and overall stylistic issues.

[Florestan]

Recreation des Gemütes kann aber sehr gut zusammen gehen met einer aesthetic experience.

Neulich I sat on a terrace als eine aesthetically beautiful lady vorbei ging. I sighed deeply und mein Gemüt wurde sehr rekreirt.

Witty! Bravo! 

[Marc]

Witty! Bravo! 

Und, wäre ich religiös, I would have praised the Lord. 0:)

[prémont]

So let me state it plainly. I think reading Chaucer in modern English is legitimate and makes sense. That is why I have done so. I also think my reading of him was enhanced by reading large chunks of him untranslated. This is not because some mythical legitimacy descended upon me, but because I could see aspects of the poem that I could not before.

I suppose you used the analogy original lamguage versus translation to illustrate the relation original instrument and informed performance versus modern instrument and less informed performance. And I agree that this analogi is better than the Rembrandt one. Well, you didn't make your own preference more clear, than both Andrei and I got it wrong, but this is of secondary importance.

[prémont]

Have you heard Stockhausen on the original Sikorsky? Makes all the difference.

Or 4'33'' in the original setup.

[Mahlerian]

Bach strongly disagreed. 

Okay, so...?

[prémont]

Recreation des Gemütes kann aber sehr gut zusammen gehen met einer aesthetic experience.

Neulich I sat on a terrace als eine aesthetically beautiful lady vorbei ging. I sighed deeply und mein Gemüt wurde sehr rekreirt.

Ja, welche mutige Bursche hat nicht die gleichen Erfahrungen gemacht?

Lob sei Gott.

[Gurn Blanston]

Drat! I mentioned the godfather but forgot to mention to mention the godson. CPE Bach is a firm favorite of mine. And btw, you might have yourself forgotten someone. Guess who. 

Well, he IS a Bonn-Boy, but you know, it's hard not to think of him as Viennese. 

[Ken B]

Given the analogy, I think Andrei's idea is that you can see aspects of the poem when it's put in modern English which were unavailable to Chaucer himself. Possibly more contemporary aspects.

That's certainly true. And it's a good reason for not insisting on HIP is valid. But I don't. My concern isn't whether all approaches are valid — they are — but what is the rationale for HIP in the first place.

[Mandryka]

That's certainly true. And it's a good reason for not insisting on HIP is valid. But I don't. My concern isn't whether all approaches are valid — they are — but what is the rationale for HIP in the first place.

If it is true that aspects of the music may be revealed only on a modern instrument, it shows independent the music is of the composer's intentions.

[San Antone]

That's certainly true. And it's a good reason for not insisting on HIP is valid. But I don't. My concern isn't whether all approaches are valid — they are — but what is the rationale for HIP in the first place.

As I've said before, I enjoy many HIP/PI performances/recordings, but not because they are historically "correct".  I enjoy them because I like the way the instruments sound.  But if I don't like how the instruments sound, as is the case with a fortepiano, then no amount of information as to how historically accurate the instrument may be for the period will cause me to like the recording more.

As it is for all music I listen to, what I enjoy is directly related to how it sounds with little interest in historical or biographical information associated with the music.

But I guess for others historical concerns are important.

[San Antone]

If it is true that aspects of the music may be revealed only on a modern instrument, it shows independent the music is of the composer's intentions.

The music is independent of the composer's intentions as soon as someone other than the composer performs it.  The music has a life of its own completely separate from the composer, and the composer's intentions are merely one among an infinite number of other intentions concerning how the music should go.

Slavishly trying to capture a composer's intentions does not equal a rewarding performance.  It might, but then again, going a way not intended or anticipated by the composer might render a greater performance.  One the composer might enjoy more than his intended version.

Performers are of equal stature, imo, to the composer.  It is a necessary partnership to realize the music.