The Historically Informed Performances (HIP) debate

[prémont]

But, but --- if Bach was a colorist then this is all the more reason to believe he would have relished the colors of the piano or that at least he would not have mind his music being played on one. 

Actually we don't know what Bach would have minded, all we can do is to make a qualified guess. But what Bach would have minded is not that important, since he probably can't hear the pianists of to day. But I can, and I am not - for many reasons, which I have described - keen on listening to most of the pianists who play Bach today. But again I stress, that I have more against the pianists than the instrument.

[zamyrabyrd]

HIP Shakespeare would also involve ... replacing of scenography by additional non-acting people carrying signs reading, for instance, "This is a tree."

Honestly, I never heard that.

[Florestan]

The greatness of both Bach and Shakespeare resides partly in how the work remains great, throughout a wide range of variable interpretation. 

Precisely.

[zamyrabyrd]

I just found an article on Bach's tuning, not the same one I read years ago but by the same author:

http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Articles/Das_Wohltemperirte_Clavier.htm

[prémont]

Indeed, the reason I don't think Bach would have composed the same music for the modern piano. He was very sensitive to partials and tuning, the latter being the pretext for the Well Tempered Clavier. Relative tuning was still not our half tone tuning. The key themselves had different colors because of having or not having perfect fifiths. I could try and look up an excellent article on the tuning of Bach's time, haven't read it for a while, so sort of forget where it is.

Yes, this is an important point, which non-HIPs either are unaware of or deliberately ignore.

In the last years I have seen a few examples of tuning a piano in unequal temperature, but the effect will never become the same as on a harpsichord because of the modern grand's weak partials.

[Mandryka]

No doubt, but whereas performing Shakespeare with today's conventions would result in an absurdity --- a barefoot Brutus --- which the audience would laugh off the stage even without being aware of the original convention, performing Bach with today's conventions would result in... in what, exactly?

A travesty

The Shakespeare analogy is doubly faulty, now that I think of it, in that it implies not only a highly debatable analogy between music-making and speaking, but also a plainly implausible one between performing music and performing a play, ie between hearing non-verbal sounds and seeing actions described by words.

This is bluster.

[Florestan]

Honestly, I never heard that.

I must have read it somewhere but I can't remember where.

[Florestan]

A travesty

I disagree.

This is bluster.

Why have you become so aggressive as of late, I wonder?

[prémont]

The Shakespeare analogy is doubly faulty, now that I think of it, in that it implies not only a highly debatable analogy between music-making and speaking, but also a plainly implausible one between performing music and performing a play, ie between hearing non-verbal sounds and seeing actions described by words.

I missed the logic in this conclusion.

[Florestan]

I missed the logic in this conclusion.

First: music is not a language. Any analogy between words / speech, whose meanings can be unanimously agreed upon by (tens or hundreds of) millions of people, and musical bars / works, whose meaning can, and will, be debated until kingdom come, is in my opinion false.

Second: you said earlier that you prefer to close your eyes when listening to music because the bodily movements of the performers might distract you from concentrating upon music. A play performed on stage is on the contrary specifically dependent upon the bodily movements of the performers which, far from detracting the attention, actually imply it. I am confident you don't close your eyes when they perform Romeo and Juliet.

Is it any clearer now?

[Mandryka]

First: music is not a language. Any analogy between words / speech, whose meanings can be unanimously agreed upon by (tens or hundreds of) millions of people, and musical bars / works, whose meaning can, and will, be debated until kingdom come, is in my opinion false.

We're talking about the meaning of musical notation. All that stuff about the meaning of the hammerklavier that came up before is a complete red herring. We're talking about things like the meaning of a triplet sign in a score - how that sign results in a certain type of action on the part of the performer.

[Florestan]

We're talking about the meaning of musical notation. All that stuff about the meaning of the hammerklavier that came up before is a complete red herring. We're talking about things like the meaning of a triplet sign in a score - how that sign results in a certain type of action on the part of the performer.

I don't remember ever mentioning Hammerklavier in my posts.

[Mandryka]

I don't remember ever mentioning Hammerklavier in my posts.

No but it came up. Karl I think and someone else brought it up.
Re HIP Shakespeare, you know this was explored when The Globe was rebuilt in London. When they first started out they had a main director and actor who was wonderful, Mark Rylance.  I saw the best history plays I've ever seen there, a Richard III. And a wonderful Tempest and Twelfth Night. Gender bending too. Since he left it's not as interesting IMO.

You had to stand, if it rained you got wet, it had to be in daylight hours, boys and transvestites for the female parts . . .

[Mahlerian]

I think it's generally agreed that music doesn't have semantic content like a language, but there are analogies to language in the fact that music is said to communicate and that its communication is dependent to some degree on context and on a receiver who is able to decipher what is communicated.

[Mandryka]

I think it's generally agreed that music doesn't have semantic content like a language, but there are analogies to language in the fact that music is said to communicate and that its communication is dependent to some degree on context and on a receiver who is able to decipher what is communicated.

Whether music has a semantic content is irrelevant, the issue is about musical notation.

[(poco) Sforzando]

Honestly, I never heard that.

Honestly, me neither. Sets in our modern sense did not exist in Elizabethan theatre; instead, the dialogue and context would convey the setting implied. E.g.:

But pardon, and gentles all,
The flat unraised spirits that have dared
On this unworthy scaffold to bring forth
So great an object: can this cockpit hold
The vasty fields of France? or may we cram
Within this wooden O the very casques
That did affright the air at Agincourt?
O, pardon! since a crooked figure may
Attest in little place a million;
And let us, ciphers to this great accompt,
On your imaginary forces work.
Suppose within the girdle of these walls
Are now confined two mighty monarchies,
Whose high upreared and abutting fronts
The perilous narrow ocean parts asunder:
Piece out our imperfections with your thoughts;
Into a thousand parts divide on man,
And make imaginary puissance;
Think when we talk of horses, that you see them
Printing their proud hoofs i' the receiving earth; (etc.)

[Ken B]

The notes are probably not to be interpreted in the same way as we would do, if the music was composed to day. Our musicologists try to encode this. There are f.i. some shorthand involved in Bach's notation. This is why Mandryka's Shakespeare example is good. The signs in the score are like words, which have changed their meaning during the last 250 years or so.

Or look at a 13th century black note manuscript...

[Florestan]

We're talking about things like the meaning of a triplet sign in a score - how that sign results in a certain type of action on the part of the performer.

The only way to know how a triplet sign was played in Bach's time is to get in a time machine and hear those people playing. Since this is well-nigh impossible all that we are left are conjectures, hypotheses and speculations.

But imho opinion the crux of the matter lies besides technicalities and is this: if the value of any given piece of music is strictly dependent on a certain historical context, certain techniques and certain instruments then that universality of which Karl spoke in relationship with Bach or Shakespeare is completely lost; the work becomes literally a relic of the past, an object not of music and performance but of archaeology and excavation.

[Mahlerian]

Whether music has a semantic content is irrelevant,

I agree.

the issue is about musical notation.

And I think you're absolutely correct that people have interpreted notation in different ways over the centuries, and contemporary norms are not the same as those of 220-300 years ago.

I think the question, though, is whether or not this is an important issue.  Because we know that the interpretation of these things was different, is there any obligation on us as performers/listeners to adjust the way we think of the music?  Florestan says no.  I remain agnostic about the matter, but I'm interested in seeing what you have to say.

[Ken B]

Ever hear of the antikythera mechanism? It's in pieces. A HIP mechanic might try, using research and experiment, to try to build a working example, to understand (he fondly imagines) or even enjoy (he fondly imagines) how it actually worked.
BUT some will say, perhaps we can imagine it better now without that pointless "scholarship ".  We have learned so much, advanced so far since. Perhaps, had he lived now, the maker might have preferred to leave it in pieces. Who can be sure? Plus we have much better calculating instruments now, why shouldn't we just avail ourselves of them? All approaches are equal! Putting it in a trash compactor is equally legitimate with assembling it, there is nothing special about the supposed "original intent".