The Historically Informed Performances (HIP) debate

[Ken B]

True, but I suppose the question is if there is inherent value in trying to remove the layers caked onto the original, or whether the performing tradition carries its own validity, regardless of historical context.

Personally, I can enjoy both HIP interpretations and non-HIP ones, and although I find that massive choirs/orchestras performing Handel or Bach sound strange, I'm not especially bothered by hearing the grand piano instead of the harpsichord or clavichord.

What's your opinion on Karajan and Mahler 6?

[Gurn Blanston]

This isn't about language Andrei. It's about sound . We do not need a recording to reconstruct how some things sounded, there is other evidence. We also know about the great vowel shift in English. We know that the multiple line of a Dufay score were sung simultaneously not sequentially — but your arguments insist we do not in fact know that. That shows your argument is flawed.

I've refrained from carrying on here, and now Florestan has withdrawn from the field. But the one point I would have made with him is exactly that one. There are dozens of books still very much in existence today which were written in order to teach people how to make music in the style of the day. There are also innumerable 'methods' which trained musicians on practical playing. I don't know about anyone else here, but I learned everything I know from books. And I am confident that if I was inclined to be a musician, I could take those books and learn to produce music which sounded amazingly like that produced in the 16th - 18th centuries.  What surprises me is that a person who seems to take so much on faith can't even make a dent in taking this in faith.

[Mahlerian]

What's your opinion on Karajan and Mahler 6?

It sounds little like any other Mahler performance I've heard.

[André]

I've refrained from carrying on here, and now Florestan has withdrawn from the field. But the one point I would have made with him is exactly that one. There are dozens of books still very much in existence today which were written in order to teach people how to make music in the style of the day. There are also innumerable 'methods' which trained musicians on practical playing. I don't know about anyone else here, but I learned everything I know from books. And I am confident that if I was inclined to be a musician, I could take those books and learn to produce music which sounded amazingly like that produced in the 16th - 18th centuries.  What surprises me is that a person who seems to take so much on faith can't even make a dent in taking this in faith.

Musicians have always been keen on perfecting the practice of instruments of their time, esp. when new ground was broken in terms of improving the instruments or the playing techniques. A lot of what is known about string or wind playing for example is through 17th, 18th or 19th century treatises. What is known today about HIP comes from the knowledge of the instruments, how they were built, how they were to be played to achieve the maximum effect and affect, etc.

For example, here is a pdf of a presentation at an international conference in Recife (2011) on the evolution of the recorder through 16 treatises from the period 1511-1654 :
http://flutistes.fr/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/conférence-RECIFE-2011-évolution-de-la-flûte-à-travers-les-traités.pdf

Arcane stuff to say the least, but the works are there, and some learned musicians actually go through them to improve the understanding of the instruments and how to play them. Is it useful? Depends on the importance one gives to such things. A performer might not need to know all that, but a conservatory professor would probably be familiar with the subject. I don't think it's farfetched to surmise that right now some scholar is seriously studying the effect of global warming on the sounds produced by instruments as they were known 400 years ago at the end of the Little Ice Age... 

[Gurn Blanston]

Musicians have always been keen on perfecting the practice of instruments of their time, esp. when new ground was broken in terms of improving the instruments or the playing techniques. A lot of what is known about string or wind playing for example is through 17th, 18th or 19th century treatises. What is known today about HIP comes from the knowledge of the instruments, how they were built, how they were to be played to achieve the maximum effect and affect, etc.

For example, here is a pdf of a presentation at an international conference in Recife (2011) on the evolution of the recorder through 16 treatises from the period 1511-1654 :
http://flutistes.fr/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/conférence-RECIFE-2011-évolution-de-la-flûte-à-travers-les-traités.pdf

Arcane stuff to say the least, but the works are there, and some learned musicians actually go through them to improve the understanding of the instruments and how to play them. Is it useful? Depends on the importance one gives to such things. A performer might not need to know all that, but a conservatory professor would probably be familiar with the subject. I don't think it's farfetched to surmise that right now some scholar is seriously studying the effect of global warming on the sounds produced by instruments as they were known 400 years ago at the end of the Little Ice Age... 

Yes, my point exactly. I would venture to say MOST period performers read these treatises. Many of them are professors of music(ology) and performance. To assume they are just guessing about what they are doing is the height of insult. Also, it is a basic tenet of scientific method that one must assume constancy of certain physical conditions. If a piece of wood shaped into a recorder produced a certain sound in 1650, then a piece of similar wood shaped into a similar shape and played by the rules published in or around 1650 will sound the same way now. If one would reject this, then one must reject every bit of history and turn to the present as the only possible reality.

That said, if one wants to listen to Bach on a Steinway, I say, they bought their ticket, let 'em. 

[Gurn Blanston]

For example, here is a pdf of a presentation at an international conference in Recife (2011) on the evolution of the recorder through 16 treatises from the period 1511-1654 :
http://flutistes.fr/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/conférence-RECIFE-2011-évolution-de-la-flûte-à-travers-les-traités.pdf

Dude, you had me all excited for a minute, but then I noticed, it's all in French! That won't do, you know I'm an animal! 

[Ken B]

Dude, you had me all excited for a minute, but then I noticed, it's all in French! That won't do, you know I'm an animal! 

Florestan reads French ... 

[prémont]

Florestan reads French ... 

But such musicological arguments don't work here, since Florestan is governed by his taste, and - as he wrote - isn't willing to give up his position.

[San Antone]

I would venture to say MOST period performers read these treatises. Many of them are professors of music(ology) and performance. To assume they are just guessing about what they are doing is the height of insult.

Here is a quote from an accomplished musicologist specializing in early music on the topic of authenticity:

"My general thinking on performance practice is similar, mutatis mutandis, to that in Taruskin's 'The Pastness of the Present...' article, in that I think all claims about authenticity tell us more about modernity that about the past. This is acutely true in the middle ages, where we have even less to go on than in later periods. And given that the notation is radically under-prescriptive, I'm not sure I'd call anything that performers do 'liberties' for that's to suggest that there would be a strict version that they could perform instead. But what might be implied by such a 'strict' version would be a modern idea of notational literalism, which clearly doesn't apply to medieval notation" (Elizabeth Eva Leach in a personal communication, used with permission.)

Granted her specialty and the reason for our email exchange was concerning Machaut and Medieval notation, but her point is made concerning the larger HIP movement.

Here is Bjorn Schmelzer on the issue of authenticity:

"In 'early music', people often expect from the musicians to legitimize themselves, strangely they don't expect you to be creative, productive, imaginative. These categories are in the context of early music mostly received with suspicion and are a possible threat of the 'authenticity' of the performance."

Later "The theme or concept of 'euchronism' versus anachronism is coming back all the time, it's a thread through all our recordings. You ask what this 'euchrony' means: well, I explain it literally on the first page p.6, between brackets behind the term: "the historicist obsession with banning every single element of anachronism". What do I mean with this? Consciously or not, most early music approach operates with some sort of cliché or common sense scalpel, starting with present time and cutting off everything what is not proper or contemporary to its proper time. What we keep in the end is the result of a pseudo-historicist filleting...To say it very bluntly: where is all the dirt of time (scholars would maybe call it : the anachronisms) ? and what happens if we bring it in again (this is a very fragile work which asks for a lot of performative trial and error), creating a musical performance which is not primordially focused on historical information but on historical transference, and what, in this transference, is, intentionally or not, cut away, exorcized. In fact in this sense I fight against early music as 'modernism projected into the past' (as if in the past everything was contemporary with its own time...what a weird idea). I'm interested in the fact that there is no existing ur-text, no existing consciousness of a first group of performers who establish a normative performance practice, and that in this sense we as performers are so to say the same as all the others who came right after,...or differently expressed: it's a sort of historical absurdism to cut off some original group of completely informed and self-identifying people from a next generation who knows already less or starts to transform it, and so and so forth till now, till us, the least informed, the furthest away from truth..." (expressed in a comment on my music blog)

Again, both of these scholars (one a musicologist the other a musician/conductor whose group Graindevoix has made a group of recordings which stand out for their beauty and unusual take on the vocal repertory of the Middle Ages and Renaissance) make the same point vis a vis: the HIP style is a product of our age and obsession with historicism.  Another point Schmelzer also makes is that early music musicians are beginning to be less concerned with a claim of authenticity (since they admit it is a false claim, or at least irrelevant) than with performing the repertory with imagination, and sense of music-making dependent less on the (often vague) historical record and more about their 21st century ideas about the music.

[Mandryka]

Leech is just wrong to say that strict  HIP version is literal, on the contrary. Has she not read Frescobaldi's prefaces? Neither is a HIP version so liberal as to allow everything. We know enough about ornaments, to single out one thing, to know that some things are kosher and some aren't. But she's talking about Machaut. We know that people used to flatten notes at the end of cadences for expressive purposes in the 13th century, so even there, it's nonsense to suggest a HIP version is literal. And I think it's a safe bet to say that they didn't use all the volume increasing, polyphony damaging, techniques of opera singers -- vibrato through the entire note, for example. So again she's wrong to suggest that for medieval music, anything goes in HIP. All due respect and all that, but that isn't a very impressive quote from Leech!

When Schmelzer says that "the HIP style is a product of our age and obsession with historicism" he's right to this extent at least, the HIP style is a product with our age getting very serious about the meaning of the marks on the score, their consequences for what the musicians do in a performance. But that's good isn't it? Because the score is the main tool for accessing the music.

[San Antone]

Leech is just wrong to say that strict  HIP version is literal, on the contrary. Has she not read Frescobaldi's prefaces? Neither is a HIP version so liberal as to allow everything. We know enough about ornaments, to single out one thing, to know that some things are kosher and some aren't. But she's talking about Machaut. We know that people used to flatten notes at the end of cadences for expressive purposes in the 13th century, so even there, it's nonsense to suggest a HIP version is literal. And I think it's a safe bet to say that they didn't use all the volume increasing, polyphony damaging, techniques of opera singers -- vibrato through the entire note, for example. So again she's wrong to suggest that for medieval music, anything goes in HIP. All due respect and all that, but that isn't a very impressive quote from Leech!

When Schmelzer says that "the HIP style is a product of our age and obsession with historicism" he's right to this extent at least, the HIP style is a product with our age getting very serious about the meaning of the marks on the score, their consequences for what the musicians do in a performance. But that's good isn't it? Because the score is the main tool for accessing the music.

I don't think she is saying that.  My understanding (from a larger conversation) is that what began as a reaction to the generation of the 30s and 40s performance of early music, a new approach began in which an attempt was made to "return the music to its sources".  But what began as a good-natured revisionist approach, after fifty years (or so) became dogma.  Both Leach and Schmelzer are saying that we are now at a point when that dogma is being questioned and recognized for what it was: a product of modernity and obsession with historicism.

It is not as if these sources did not exist in the 19th century or early 20th century.  Musicians simply did not care to "return" to them. 

My interest in this subject has to do with these issues, not whether the music should be played on a harpsichord or not (that question is closed and people do what they wish for a variety of reasons).  No, what I am talking about is the unique phenomenon of our time bringing a religious fervor for going back to the sources, and creating a faith-based belief in the rightness of their cause.

[Karl Henning]

[...] My interest in this subject has to do with these issues, not whether the music should be played on a harpsichord or not (that question is closed and people do what they wish for a variety of reasons).  No, what I am talking about is the unique phenomenon of our time bringing a religious fervor for going back to the sources, and creating a faith-based belief in the rightness of their cause.

And, whatever the viewpoint and journey of this or that GMG'er, this quasi-weaponized religious fervor is really an element in the Early Music ghetto.

[San Antone]

For me the evidence/proof for using certain period instruments instead of modern ones is not as interesting as asking why did we as a modern culture embark on this journey?  I doubt previous generations of musicians were simply less gifted than those of today, but previous generations were interested in expressing the music according to contemporary tastes for a contemporary audience.  I wonder what they would think of the modern preoccupation with reconstructing how Bach might have played his music. 

IOW I am not interested in hearing about how much we can know of performance practices and instruments from the 18th century that allows us to attempt to reconstruct the music accordingly.  Or how the music is intrinsically more suited to a period instrument as opposed to a modern one.

A more interesting question to me why is this historical aspect so important to us when it wasn't important previously.  I have my own answers but if anyone wishes to respond, I'd be interested in that discussion.  The other one has been exhausted, imo.

[Madiel]

I do actually have considerably more interest in period instruments when it comes to works for a larger ensemble, because it affects the blend of sounds and balance.

The key thing for me was having two different performances of Brandenburg Concerto No.2, where the "soloists" are trumpet, recorder, oboe and violin. This combination simply ends up making far more sense with period instruments, particularly the different style of trumpet. With a performance on modern instruments one is left wondering how on earth Bach ever thought all the parts would be heard (or alternatively how on earth the recording engineer is supposed to cope with this set of instruments).

So my interest is primarily one of getting a satisfactory listening experience. For me that criterion leads to very different results when it comes to say, solo keyboard works (I really don't like fortepianos, I do need more harpsichord experience with quality players rather than a cheap and nasty set before having firm views there), compared to an orchestral work where the changes in some instruments can set everything out of whack.

[Mandryka]

A more interesting question to me why is this historical aspect so important to us when it wasn't important previously.

You may be right you may not. Czerny thought it was important to note how Beethoven played, and according to Czerny, Beethoven had carefully considered how Mozart played. Forkel thought it was important to note how Bach played. My own feeling is that it was always important because the notation doesn't give you clear directions about how to play.

Gould and Liberaci were not interested in these questions, this is true. I don't know whether the pre war musicians were.

[San Antone]

You may be right you may not. Czerny thought it was important to note how Beethoven played, and according to Czerny, Beethoven had carefully considered how Mozart played. Forkel thought it was important to note how Bach played. My own feeling is that it was always important because the notation doesn't give you clear directions about how to play.

Gould and Liberaci were not interested in these questions, this is true. I don't know whether the pre war musicians were.

Czerny was a contemporary of Beethoven.  How much Scarlatti did Czerny play, and was he concerned  as to how and on what it should be performed?  When Mendelssohn resurrected Bach from oblivion he did not do so with "period instruments" but with the Romantic period orchestra and choir of his day. 

My sense is that previous generations were not interested in music of the past since the music they heard and performed was newly written and played on the latest instruments.   

This preoccupation with the past is a relatively recent one, and has occurred  in tandem with a lack of interest/support for music currently being written.  These two phenomenons are each in contrast to what earlier generations experienced.

[Mandryka]

This preoccupation with the past is a relatively recent one, and has occurred  in tandem with a lack of interest/support for music currently being written.  These two phenomenons are each in contrast to what earlier generations experienced.

Just going from memory so don't beat me up if I'm wrong, this is explicit in the preface to Harrnoncourt's book on Music as Speech. Harnoncourt isn't interested in contemporary music, he thinks it's a great disappointment, and he thinks that old music played as the composers intended can fill the gap.

[André]

Dude, you had me all excited for a minute, but then I noticed, it's all in French! That won't do, you know I'm an animal! 

Well, there are some nice pictures...

[Gurn Blanston]

Well, there are some nice pictures...

I know, I was going to say exactly that! 

[Mandryka]

I don't think she is saying that.  My understanding (from a larger conversation) is that what began as a reaction to the generation of the 30s and 40s performance of early music, a new approach began in which an attempt was made to "return the music to its sources".  But what began as a good-natured revisionist approach, after fifty years (or so) became dogma.  Both Leach and Schmelzer are saying that we are now at a point when that dogma is being questioned and recognized for what it was: a product of modernity and obsession with historicism.

It is not as if these sources did not exist in the 19th century or early 20th century.  Musicians simply did not care to "return" to them. 

My interest in this subject has to do with these issues, not whether the music should be played on a harpsichord or not (that question is closed and people do what they wish for a variety of reasons).  No, what I am talking about is the unique phenomenon of our time bringing a religious fervor for going back to the sources, and creating a faith-based belief in the rightness of their cause.

I just saw this post about D 960 / i

Technically it's molto moderato in 2, rather than in 4, ie closer to minim = 69 than crotchet = 69.... basically Schnabel's tempo rather than Richter's. 24 minutes is closer to an adagio. But certainly can be quite enjoyable nonetheless >.>

and it struck me that this sort of consideration is, I guess, about the tempo Schubert intended. Generally pianists seem much more interested in HIP than you want to allow, and have been for the past 100 years, just think of all those "piano schools" which are supposed to hold the secret of the correct way to play Liszt and Chopin because they were founded by someone who studied with Liszt and Chopin. Edwin Fischer is relevant too, and the principles underlying his edition of the score of WTC, and indeed his performances in practice.

Does anyone know whether Clementi wrote anything about how he made his editions of Scarlatti?