The Historically Informed Performances (HIP) debate

[Florestan]

No because the composer may have expected that performances would be creative in some  ways.

Or may have not. We'll never know what composer X who died that many years ago may have personally expected. All we have is a score.

To take an extreme example, the score may just consist of a figured bass and melody.

Precisely my point. How far, if at all, is one allowed to go beyond that?

One of the tasks of the HIP project is to unearth the sorts of expressive freedoms performers had.

That doesn't in the least contradicts the quote: he understands as the composer understood it implies exactly taking the sort of expressive freedoms the composer allowed, or expected, the performers to have --- not more.

[Florestan]

I don't think I'm well-enough informed to know. It seems likely that at least a substantial proportion of HIP advocates would be aiming for that.

Okay then: that substantial proportion of HIP advocates who aims for that are willy-nilly fulfilling the ultimate Romantic ideal because the quote comes from E.T.A. Hoffmann himself, one of the pillars of theoretical musical Romanticism. 

[Ken B]

It's odd to see Florestan arguing history has no value and studying it is a waste ...

[Florestan]

It's odd to see Florestan arguing history has no value and studying it is a waste ...

It's odd to see Ken B arguing history is all that there is when it comes to music...

[Elgarian Redux]

Okay then: that substantial proportion of HIP advocates who aims for that are willy-nilly fulfilling the ultimate Romantic ideal because the quote comes from E.T.A. Hoffmann himself, one of the pillars of theoretical musical Romanticism. 

Well I think that pretty much makes your point, Andrei. Hard to see how anyone could quarrel with that!

The next question is (and I ask it truly not knowing): how much does it matter? I mean, I wouldn't have expected the boundaries between the various approaches to be particularly sharp. In the visual arts the boundary edges of Romanticism are pretty blurred, and I'd expect the same to be the case in music. (I think.)

[Florestan]

Well I think that pretty much makes your point, Andrei. Hard to see how anyone could quarrel with that!

Oh, I can see it alright. Just wait. 

The next question is (and I ask it truly not knowing): how much does it matter? I mean, I wouldn't have expected the boundaries between the various approaches to be particularly sharp. In the visual arts the boundary edges of Romanticism are pretty blurred, and I'd expect the same to be the case in music. (I think.)

I don't know but I doubt that for such HIP luminaries as Christopher Hogwood or Roger Norrington it really doesn't matter. On the other hand, I agree that back then in the early 1800s and well beyond it didn't matter: not for a second did occur to anyone of Mendelssohn's contemporaries to reprimand him for his arch-Romantic, un-historical and un-HIP approach to Bach --- and this precisely because the arch-Romantic, un-historical and un-HIP concept of Werktreue was not yet firmly established. As I said, between the Romantic philosophy of music and the Romantic practice of music there is a huge gap.

[Florestan]

Mozart

Serenade No. 3 for Orchestra in D major ("Antretter"), K. 185 (K. 167a)

It was written specifically and exclusively for a one-time event; it was not expected by anyone, Mozart least of all, to be ever performed again. Performing it in a concert hall or in a recording studio more than two centuries after its "premiere" is an anachronism.

During the first (and last) performance nobody listened attentively to it from start to finish --- assuming there had been people willing to (which is absolutely doubtful), they'd have been prevented from so doing by the environment. Performing it in a concert hall for a stiff and still audience, or in a recording studio for a putatively solitary listening is an anachronism.

Given these two inescapable anachronism which inevitably grossly distort the original meaning and value of the piece, does it really matter whether it's played by the Academy of Ancient Music conducted by Hogwood as opposed to the Berlin PO conducted by Karajan?

[Gurn Blanston]

Mozart

Serenade No. 3 for Orchestra in D major ("Antretter"), K. 185 (K. 167a)

It was written specifically and exclusively for a one-time event; it was not expected by anyone, Mozart least of all, to be ever performed again. Performing it in a concert hall or in a recording studio more than two centuries after its "premiere" is an anachronism.

During the first (and last) performance nobody listened attentively to it from start to finish --- assuming there had been people willing to (which is absolutely doubtful), they'd have been prevented from so doing by the environment. Performing it in a concert hall for a stiff and still audience, or in a recording studio for a putatively solitary listening is an anachronism.

Given these two anachronism which grossly distort the meaning and value of the piece itself, does it really matter if it's played by the Academy of Ancient Music conducted by Hogwood as opposed to the Berlin PO conducted by Karajan?

It does to me, because I actually listen to it (as recently as this morning for Hogwood, BTW). Your generalizations really bother me. I won't be engaging you in any discussions because your mind is so closed it would be like hitting two coconuts together. If you want to listen to Karajan, go ahead. Surely you wouldn't actually listen to it, you would be talking with your neighbor, yes?

[Florestan]

It does to me, because I actually listen to it (as recently as this morning for Hogwood, BTW).

Go ahead! Listen to it as many times as you wish, more power to you! Just don't delude yourself into believing that you're doing what the audience back then were doing.

Your generalizations

What generalizations? I was talking about the Antretter-Serenade, not about the Oxford Symphony.

really bother me

Why an opinion expressed on an internet board should really bother you is beyond my comprehension.

I won't be engaging you in any discussions because your mind is so closed it would be like hitting two coconuts together.

Boy, did I hit a sore spot!

If you want to listen to Karajan, go ahead. Surely you wouldn't actually listen to it, you would be talking with your neighbor, yes?

No. I'd be browsing the internet, posting on GMG, having a beer, reading a book / article / doctoral dissertation or relaxing into sleep late at night --- anything else but listening in awe to a masterpiece of an immortal master, which in this specific case is bullshit on stilts. Mozart himself did not have any notion of masterpiece, nor of listening in awe, nor of immortal master --- and you know it only too well but sometimes you are a thousand times more contrarian than I will ever be.

[Elgarian Redux]

Mozart

Serenade No. 3 for Orchestra in D major ("Antretter"), K. 185 (K. 167a)

It was written specifically and exclusively for a one-time event; it was not expected by anyone, Mozart least of all, to be ever performed again. Performing it in a concert hall or in a recording studio more than two centuries after its "premiere" is an anachronism.

But in that sense, isn't every subsequent performance of a 'special' piece an anachronism?
One could say something similar about Handel's Water Music, perhaps? Or Elgar's Spirit of England (we are, after all, no longer at war). Every age recreates the past to some degree. As archaeologist Jacquetta Hawkes said: 'Every age gets the Stonehenge it deserves, or desires.' Music is part of that process: we appropriate what we need from the past, in the way that we need it.

During the first (and last) performance nobody listened attentively to it from start to finish --- assuming there had been people willing to (which is absolutely doubtful), they'd have been prevented from so doing by the environment. Performing it in a concert hall for a stiff and still audience, or in a recording studio for a putatively solitary listening is an anachronism.

It is indeed, taking the term literally. But I can't help thinking that Mozart would have preferred people to listen. I can't believe that historically authetic performance requires historically authentic listening (or rather, non-listening).

Given these two inescapable anachronism which inevitably grossly distort the original meaning and value of the piece, does it really matter whether it's played by the Academy of Ancient Music conducted by Hogwood as opposed to the Berlin PO conducted by Karajan?

Well it might matter to me (for reasons I explained above). But it wouldn't trouble me if someone else wasn't bothered by it. To go back to my earlier example: 'Dopo Notte' is a bit of mind-blowing rock and roll whether it's performed by Janet Baker and Raymond Leppard, or by Magdalena Kozena and the HIP Venice Baroque Orchestra. I'll gladly drink a glass with anyone who likes both.

Are we actually agreeing with each other in roundabout ways? Or are we aiming at different targets?

[Gurn Blanston]

As I said, I'm not going to engage you in a debate. However, this quote from Elgarian is right on the money:

But in that sense, isn't every subsequent performance of a 'special' piece an anachronism?
One could say something similar about Handel's Water Music, perhaps? Or Elgar's Spirit of England (we are, after all, no longer at war). Every age recreates the past to some degree. As archaeologist Jacquetta Hawkes said: 'Every age gets the Stonehenge it deserves, or desires.' Music is part of that process: we appropriate what we need from the past, in the way that we need it.

He even uses the same example I would have. In point of fact, at the very least, 90% of all pieces of music written before 1800 were occasional. The remainder were most likely etudes of some sort. I know Haydn's were. So if you are going to use that argument you might as well say that listening to anything written before 1800 is anachronistic and can't have any value unless it isn't listened to at all. To which I say, bullshit.

[Ken B]

So Andrei, what would you say of someone who played Gershwin on harpsichord? Very very slowly.  I'd say, you can if you want, but it seems to disregard what we know of Gershwin, and that's a loss. It might be interesting, but it ain't Gershwin. You seem to committed to the position that this is just as authentic as playing the same pianos in the same tempo as his own piano rolls.

[Florestan]

But in that sense, isn't every subsequent performance of a 'special' piece an anachronism?

Of course it is. Each and every subsequent performance of any given piece of music, special or not, is an anachronism.

Every age recreates the past to some degree.  As archaeologist Jacquetta Hawkes said: 'Every age gets the Stonehenge it deserves, or desires.' Music is part of that process: we appropriate what we need from the past, in the way that we need it.

Very good --- and precisely my point: what some people need from the past is a recreation of the past in the way they need it but which has little, if anything, to do with the past as it really was. HIP is the culmination of Romanticism performance-wise.

I can't help thinking that Mozart would have preferred people to listen.

Talk about imposing contemporary thinking on the past.

I can't believe that historically authetic performance requires historically authentic listening (or rather, non-listening).

And yet the contemporary accounts paint a very clear picture: how they listened, and what they heard, back then is not at all how we listen, and what we hear, today --- not by a long stretch.

Well it might matter to me (for reasons I explained above). But it wouldn't trouble me if someone else wasn't bothered by it. To go back to my earlier example: 'Dopo Notte' is a bit of mind-blowing rock and roll whether it's performed by Janet Baker and Raymond Leppard, or by Magdalena Kozena and the HIP Venice Baroque Orchestra. I'll gladly drink a glass with anyone who likes both.

Are we actually agreeing with each other in roundabout ways?

I think we actually are.

[Elgarian Redux]

So Andrei, what would you say of someone who played Gershwin on harpsichord? Very very slowly.  I'd say, you can if you want, but it seems to disregard what we know of Gershwin, and that's a loss. It might be interesting, but it ain't Gershwin. You seem to committed to the position that this is just as authentic as playing the same pianos in the same tempo as his own piano rolls.

I think - but am not sure, and doubtless he will tell us - that Andrei isn't saying this is so, and that is not so, but rather, he's exploring the consequences of taking some of the HIP constructions and shaking them to see if they hold up. The difficulty is that no structure will hold up if you shake it hard enough, so you end up with bits that come off - as we are seeing here.

I think I would rule out contemplating the idea of historically authentic listening, for example, as it leads merely to absurdity. That still leaves an awful lot of 'authenticity' to talk about.

[Florestan]

So Andrei, what would you say of someone who played Gershwin on harpsichord? Very very slowly.  I'd say, you can if you want, but it seems to disregard what we know of Gershwin, and that's a loss. It might be interesting, but it ain't Gershwin. You seem to committed to the position that this is just as authentic as playing the same pianos in the same tempo as his own piano rolls.

Yes, a thousand times yes, you got me right, this is indeed my position: if some harpsichordist thinks that this is the proper way to play Gershwin according to her aesthetics, artistic vision and intellectual insights then it is just as authentic as any recording made by Gerswhin himself --- authenticity is a marker of the performer and the performance, not of the score. We as listeners are free to accept or reject it and to prefer one perforrmance to the other --- but prescribing a priori how, or within what limits, a certain piece of music should be performed strikes me as intellectual and artistic totalitarianism, and frankly I'm surprised that you of all people should not understand it.

[Mahlerian]

Of course it is. Each and every subsequent performance of any given piece of music, special or not, is an anachronism.

Which does not in any way imply that any such performance is equally anachronistic.

what some people need from the past is a recreation of the past in the way they need it but which has little, if anything, to do with the past as it really was. HIP is the culmination of Romanticism performance-wise.

Or they're two separate movements that happen to share a few things on paper?

[Florestan]

I think I would rule out contemplating the idea of historically authentic listening, for example, as it leads merely to absurdity.

Actually you hit a very sore spot, I'm afraid. How on earth can historically authentic performance work absent historically authentic listening?

This is another instance of HIP being actually Romanticism on stilts: it divorces music as art from music as performance and holds the former in infinitely higher esteem than the latter --- something that would have been unthinkable to Haydn and Mozart.

[Gurn Blanston]

...I think I would rule out contemplating the idea of historically authentic listening, for example, as it leads merely to absurdity. That still leaves an awful lot of 'authenticity' to talk about.

I ruled that out for myself, and for that reason, over 20 years ago. This is why talking about it today as though people still do it (rather than postulate it as an intellectual puzzle) simply irritates the hell out of me. I completely understand exactly what I am listening to, and why, and I prefer it above realizations which are created by other standards. What irks is the thought that the ideas postulated 3 decades ago, by admittedly wacko individuals are still held to be the current beliefs of rational listeners and musicians. This idea debases the credibility of anyone who argues it.

[Florestan]

Which does not in any way imply that any such performance is equally anachronistic.

While not essentially disagreeing, I'd put it differently: it is for everyone of us to decide which of the equally anachronistic performances of any given piece of music is more to our taste than the others and to prefer it accordingly, while acknowledging the right of everybody else to disagree and have a different preference.

[Elgarian Redux]

Talk about imposing contemporary thinking on the past.

[in response to my comment that I think Mozart would have preferred people to listen]

Well yes, OK, I can't KNOW it, and don't claim to. But music that isn't listened to isn't any different to a painting hung so high in a gallery as to be almost indecipherable. Hanging 'em high is, if you like, historically authentic, but we DO know that artists preferred their works to be exhibited at eye level.

And yet the contemporary accounts paint a very clear picture: how they listened, and what they heard, back then is not at all how we listen, and what we hear, today --- not by a long stretch.

I think that's inevitable, and again one can say much the same about painting. We demonstrably do not look at them in the same way as our forebears did. I think that's alright. Different listening and different looking is fine. But not-listening and not-looking are not responses either to a piece of music, or a painting. They aren't a 'thing'.