The Historically Informed Performances (HIP) debate

[Mahlerian]

Why should he?

To make more money.  With his innate talent and understanding of composition, he could certainly have written more profitable music.  If you suggest that making money was more important to him than the artistic aspects of music, then your argument depends on explaining why he didn't write music that was more profitable than the music he wrote.

He was warned repeatedly, by his father and by various patrons, not to write such complexities, but he did so anyway, audiences be damned.

[Elgarian Redux]

I really think this money angle is a red herring. It's not resolvable. We can't even trust what the artist himself may say on the matter (witness my comment about Johnson earlier). We can't even assume that he knows.

In my ill-spent youth I use to write regularly for a computer magazine. I loved it. I got paid. If you ask me what the primary motivation was for doing it, I truly couldn't tell you.

[Florestan]

To make more money.  With his innate talent and understanding of composition, he could certainly have written more profitable music.

I think we have already agreed upon the fact that making money, although important for him, was not his main concern when writing music.

If you suggest that making money was more important to him than the artistic aspects of music

I suggest no such thing.

[Mahlerian]

I think we have already agreed upon the fact that making money, although important for him, was not his main concern when writing music.

I suggest no such thing.

But you have denied that for him music had any artistic aspect beyond its ability to reach out to a specific audience at a specific time.  Certainly, you have denied that he thought of music in terms of its innate aesthetics.

Then what is the relevance of bringing it up in connection with his publications?  You said that he wrote for a single event and its performer(s) only, and the fact that he published some of his music seems to contradict this.  I don't see how you can assume that he did this primarily or purely for financial reasons, ignoring that Mozart would have been keenly aware of the publications of other composers, having learned extensively from them.  He would have also been aware that publication represented way of joining their ranks, of putting forth an example to others from which they too could learn.

[Florestan]

I don't see how you can assume that he did this primarily or purely for financial reasons

For the third and last time: I do not assume anything like that, but by all means, keep on flogging this dead horse, seems that you delight in it.

[Florestan]

I sincerely believe that if Bach or Mozart were resurrected, they'd probably be quite puzzled with our excessive preocupation wih the musical practices of the past. "Why are you so obsessed with unearthing and reproducing practices of a long gone past", they'd possibly ask, "don't you have your own?"

[Mahlerian]

For the third and last time: I do not assume anything like that, but by all means, keep on flogging this dead horse, seems that you delight in it.

I'm trying to let you open up about your response, then.  Tell me what the relevance of your comment on money is to my remark about publications.

And please, let's refrain from ad hominem remarks.

[Florestan]

I'm trying to let you open up about your response, then.  Tell me what the relevance of your comment on money is to my remark about publications.

What I had to tell I already told. I'm done with this particular issue.

And please, let's refrain from ad hominem remarks.

I did not intend any ad hominem but if you really took offense I apologize.

[Mahlerian]

What I had to tell I already told. I'm done with this particular issue.

I'm sorry, but I must have missed you explaining the relevance of it to my initial contention.  I said that Mozart clearly thought of his works apart from the circumstances for which they were written, and you brought up financial incentives.  I am not saying that Mozart did not want to make money, I am suggesting that his reasons for publishing the works he did include wanting to have his musical output represented in print:

"I want to have [the violin sonatas K301-306] engraved....I do not want to be ashamed of my name on the title page." - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

I did not intend any ad hominem but if you really took offense I apologize.

I prefer if people do not impugn my motives for posting.  I am not trying to beat a dead horse, but rather to move discussion forward.  We all learn more if we express our views clearly.

[Florestan]

The fact that Mozart generally wrote for the "here and now", ie for specific events, performers (himself included), venues or commissions, is amply documented in his letters. It was also a common practice of his time. Acknowledging this fact does not lessen the quality of the music.

The fact that Mozart hoped and wished to make money with his music is also amply documented in his letters. It was also a common practice of his time. Acknowledging this fact does not equate with implying that the only reason he published his music was pecuniar.

But there is nothing in his letters nor in the common practice of his time that can warrant that he wrote his music for an abstract posterity to ponder on, and marvel at, its quality or that he was greatly concerned with the fate of his works after his death.

There, I can't express myself any clearer than that. Take it or leave it.

[prémont]

I accuse you of misplaced post-Romantic sensibility, Sir!

But seriously, the concept of swing is a modern one, I imagine. Swing, rock and roll - it is you and I who bring these to the table, I think - not the early musicians. But I wouldn't want to insist on the point. Just seems likely.

Oh well, I used the word "swing" to make it easy to understand for a modern human being, what I meant. 

I think much Early music danced, not only the dedicated dance music from the Medieval age to the Baroque, but I would also like to point to the dancing character of much other music - particularly Baroque music.

[Mahlerian]

The fact that Mozart generally wrote for the "here and now", ie for specific events, performers (himself included), venues or commissions, is amply documented in his letters. It was also a common practice of his time. Acknowledging this fact does not lessen the quality of the music.

I agree, and do not think it does.

The fact that Mozart hoped and wished to make money with his music is also amply documented in his letters. It was also a common practice of his time. Acknowledging this fact does not equate with implying that the only reason he published his music was pecuniar.

I agree, and do not think it does.

But there is nothing in his letters nor in the common practice of his time that can warrant that he wrote his music for an abstract posterity to ponder on, and marvel at, its quality or that he was greatly concerned with the fate of his works after his death.

You see, I agree with you about the above two items, but disagree here.

What about the remark I just cited about his desire for publication, or the fact that he respected and loved the "great works" of the past, of Bach, Handel, and so forth?

The fact that he did not specifically say "I am writing this so that it will be in dialogue with these works to which I respond" seems to me irrelevant.  He studied and learned from these things, put his music out into the world so that it would continue to be played (and furthermore considered those published works in some way representative of his talents), and by his actions entered into that dialogue.  The reasons why his music is studied in connection with the works that preceded and followed it are not necessarily dependent on refashioning Mozart into a heroic artist figure in the manner of the Romantics.

We can understand what he was doing using only the modes of production of his own time.

[Elgarian Redux]

I think much Early music danced, not only the dedicated dance music from the Medieval age to the Baroque, but I would also like to point to the dancing character of much other music - particularly Baroque music.

Oh I see! Sorry, I thought you meant 'Swing' in the Benny Goodman sense!

I am sure you're right about the dancing character in general (dancing in the head even if not dancing literally). I would think that dancing link goes back a very long way. All the way back to shamanic drumming!

[Florestan]

What about the remark I just cited about his desire for publication,

His desire for publication had the same motives as that of any other of his contemporaries: to make his music known to a larger public, to establish his reputation, to secure a permanent appointment and last but not least to make some money. Little, if anything at all, to do with "I want to publish these sonatas so that in 200 years time they still be available for study or performance".

Besides, did he publish all the works he composed? If hardpressed, he probably wouldn't have been able to remember them all.

or the fact that he respected and loved the "great works" of the past, of Bach, Handel, and so forth?

Well, you see that's the problem: Bach and Handel are firmly past for us; for Mozart they were only a very recent, if at all, past. Bach died only 6 years before he was born and he was three at the time of Handel's death. What did he know of the "past" beyond the early 1700s? We are living about 200 years after his death. Take 200 out of 1791 and you get 1591. What composer of that period did he know, respected and loved as well and as much as Bach or Handel?

The reasons why his music is studied in connection with the works that preceded and followed it are not necessarily dependent on refashioning Mozart into a heroic artist figure in the manner of the Romantics.

No, but they are heavily dependent on the Romantic notion of Werk and Werktreue, on the Romantic cult of the past and on the Romantic shift of paradigm from music as performance to music as disembodied art.

[Florestan]

Haydn was the most celebrated and adulated composer of his time yet he probably expressed the general contemporary feeling when he stated that a composer could consider himself lucky if he'd still be remembered 70 years after his death. He clearly entertained no Romantic notions of "the great works" or "the Western musical canon".

[Mahlerian]

His desire for publication had the same motives as that of any other of his contemporaries: to make his music known to a larger public, to establish his reputation, to secure a permanent appointment and last but not least to make some money. Little, if anything at all, to do with "I want to publish these sonatas so that in 200 years time they still be available for study or performance".

Besides, did he publish all the works he composed? If hardpressed, he probably wouldn't have been able to remember them all.

He did not, and his own personal catalogue of works did not include his juvenilia, among them works that we would consider important today.  I don't think that the time span you are mentioning is very important, only the idea that his works would in some way survive him.

Well, you see that's the problem: Bach and Handel are firmly past for us; for Mozart they were only a very recent, if at all, past. Bach died only 6 years before he was born and he was three at the time of Handel's death. What did he know of the "past" beyond the early 1700s? We are living about 200 years after his death. Take 200 out of 1791 and you get 1591. What composer of that period did he know, respected and loved as well and as much as Bach or Handel?

See above regarding the relevance of the time frame involved.  I am not suggesting that Mozart looked forward to nameless future generations, but rather was putting his works forth in the same manner that he saw his immediate predecessors doing so.  The musical memory of the 1700s was indeed rather short compared to today, in an age where a significant amount of music from nearly a thousand years forms our history.

Make no mistake, though, Mozart was keenly aware of the aesthetic differences between Bach's and Handel's idiom and his own.  It was removed from him as, say, Stravinsky or Schoenberg from the people of this forum.  And their music, while not in the idioms of today, has certainly continued to influence today's music.

No, but they are heavily dependent on the Romantic notion of Werk and Werktreue, on the Romantic cult of the past and on the Romantic shift of paradigm from music as performance to music as disembodied art.

How?

I have not brought any of these things up.  You insist on their relevance to the discussion, but I do not see it.  I think that the link between Romanticism and HIP (which was how we got started on this) is rather tenuous.

Haydn was the most celebrated and adulated composer of his time yet he probably expressed the general contemporary feeling when he stated that a composer could consider himself lucky if he'd still be remembered 70 years after his death. He clearly entertained no Romantic notions of "the great works" or "the Western musical canon".

I think that any present day composer would agree that being remembered for so long is great fortune indeed.  If in fact Haydn was thinking about the possibility of being remembered for so long, clearly he had some notion of music outliving its original performance conditions, wouldn't you agree?

[Elgarian Redux]

I think that the link between Romanticism and HIP (which was how we got started on this) is rather tenuous.

Andrei will have his own explanation of what he means, but for my part, as I (perhaps only partially) understand him, it's not so much about there being a link between HIP and Romanticism, as it is about the inevitability of people today viewing the past through a post-Romantic lens. That is, we cannot escape the enormous impact that Romanticism had on the way we see the world, and on our perception of our situation within it. And then (so the argument goes), the HIPsters are not immune from the distorting optics of this lens when they try to reinterpret the music of the pre-Romantic past.

[Mandryka]

Let's say I have not yet found any strong evidence for it. Of course, this doesn't mean there is none.

.

Well in some cases early composers published their work in printed and widely distributed books,  occasionally with guidelines about how to play it. Does that not mean that they produced "works"?

I mean we could take an example that we all know , like Bach's first keyboard partita, or Scarlatti's first sonata.

Prima facie  these are  just as much compositions  aimed for future interpreters and audiences as anything  Beethoven or Brahms wrote.

But maybe these pieces are out of the ordinary, I don't know.

[prémont]

No, but they are heavily dependent on the Romantic notion of Werk and Werktreue, on the Romantic cult of the past and on the Romantic shift of paradigm from music as performance to music as disembodied art.

Werktreue was "en vogue"  around 60 years ago and meant a litteral interpretation of the score, but no serious informed musician thinks in this way any more.

[prémont]

And then (so the argument goes), the HIPsters are not immune from the distorting optics of this lens when they try to reinterpret the music of the pre-Romantic past.

Yes so the argument goes. But we see more and more musicians trying - and I think succeeding - to go back to the roots. What is for instance the Romantic influence upon Andrew Parrott's recording of Machaut's Messe?