The Historically Informed Performances (HIP) debate

Started by George, October 18, 2007, 08:45:36 AM

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San Antone

Quote from: Mandryka on November 20, 2018, 07:32:06 AM
Thank you. If someone can find a youtube with an example of linear dissonance I'd be very interested. You make it sound as though the dissonant chord which may result is a neutral side effect.

Some people used to think that medieval harmony was just so bad that they must have been oblivious to it -- as if they didn't hear the harmonies when they listened, they just heard the simultaneous melodies in each voice. I don't know if anyone holds that view today.

Since we have been discussing the Parrott recording of the Machaut Messe, there is a good example in the Kyrie - from 4:00 to 4:54 there are several whole steps at the secondary cadences.  You can compare this with the Musica Nova version and hear how Parrott preserves the whole steps whereas Lucien Kandel raises the pitches to create half step motion.

https://www.youtube.com/v/RDovcUQ8Kgk

Depending upon the director, the amount of this kind of pitch adjustment is wholly discretionary and becomes part of their interpretation of the music.  Nothing is so rule-bound as to be say one is right or the other wrong - although if overdone it might destroy the modal quality.

Mandryka

Thanks. I very much like the way Parrott does the cadence at the end of the final kyrie.
Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

ShineyMcShineShine

#1622
Seeing this illustration of a Schubertiade on Wikipedia reminded me of something I've suspected for some time: performances recorded in empty rooms (worse: empty churches) are not historically accurate. Look at that room: it's jam-packed with bodies; that would  certainly change the acoustics. Even a live performance in a modern hall wouldn't be near the same.

david johnson

That setting strikes me as having an interesting aroma.

Biffo

How accurate is a drawing dating from 1868?  The artist was a friend of Schubert and attended his soirees but I suspect this is a rather romanticized view.

Florestan

The number of people is not unrealistic. What is clearly romanticized is this whole concept of "Schubertiade" as an intellectual gathering centered around Schubert. This is bogus. Come on, those were aristocratic-cum-high-bourgeois salons; poor Schubert, hopelessly proletarian that he was, provided the de rigueur musical entertainment in exchange for free dinner and wine. Most probably he was never the focal point of those gatherings.

That notwithstanding, the OP has a strong point imo.
Every kind of music is good, except the boring kind. — Rossini

Biffo

#1626
Quote from: Florestan on February 15, 2020, 07:12:51 AM
The number of people is not unrealistic. What is clearly romanticized is this whole concept of "Schubertiade" as an intellectual gathering centered around Schubert. This is bogus. Come on, those were aristocratic-cum-high-bourgeois salons; poor Schubert, hopelessly proletarian that he was, provided the de rigueur musical entertainment in exchange for free dinner and wine. Most probably he was never the focal point of those gatherings.

That notwithstanding, the OP has a strong point imo.

The illustration is of an aristocratic salon. I doubt that Schubert attended many such gatherings. I always thought that his 'Schubertiade' was a gathering of a few of his like-minded friends - artists, poets etc. I may be wrong of course.

I still think the salon looks ridiculously overcrowded.

Edit: This is from Wikipedia and more like what I was thinking about -

'During the early 1820s, Schubert was part of a close-knit circle of artists and students who had social gatherings together that became known as Schubertiads. Many of them took place in Ignaz von Sonnleithner's large apartment in the Gundelhof (Brandstätte 5, Vienna)'


Florestan

Quote from: Biffo on February 15, 2020, 07:52:58 AM
Edit: This is from Wikipedia and more like what I was thinking about -

'During the early 1820s, Schubert was part of a close-knit circle of artists and students who had social gatherings together that became known as Schubertiads. Many of them took place in Ignaz von Sonnleithner's large apartment in the Gundelhof (Brandstätte 5, Vienna)'

That's exactly what I take issue with. I think the whole concept of Schubertiads is an ex post facto fabrication. There is simply no way that a nobody as Schubert could have been the focal point of a gathering in the tightly class structured Vienna back then.
Every kind of music is good, except the boring kind. — Rossini

Archaic Torso of Apollo

Quote from: Florestan on February 15, 2020, 08:06:39 AM
That's exactly what I take issue with. I think the whole concept of Schubertiads is an ex post facto fabrication. There is simply no way that a nobody as Schubert could have been the focal point of a gathering in the tightly class structured Vienna back then.

I don't know who this author "Richard" is, but he sure knows a lot about Schubert. Here (agreeing with your basic point) is his extensive analysis of the "Schubertiade" phenomenon, as well as Schubert-related biographical problems in general:

http://figures-of-speech.com/2019/06/no-circles.htm
formerly VELIMIR (before that, Spitvalve)

"Who knows not strict counterpoint, lives and dies an ignoramus" - CPE Bach

Biffo

Quote from: Florestan on February 15, 2020, 08:06:39 AM
That's exactly what I take issue with. I think the whole concept of Schubertiads is an ex post facto fabrication. There is simply no way that a nobody as Schubert could have been the focal point of a gathering in the tightly class structured Vienna back then.

Certainly not the sort of gathering in the illustration.

Apart from 'Schubert: The Complete Song Texts'  by Richard Wigmore I don't have any books completely devoted to Schubert, just ideas or impressions picked up over the years.

Florestan

Quote from: Archaic Torso of Apollo on February 15, 2020, 08:09:57 AM
I don't know who this author "Richard" is, but he sure knows a lot about Schubert. Here (agreeing with your basic point) is his extensive analysis of the "Schubertiade" phenomenon, as well as Schubert-related biographical problems in general:

http://figures-of-speech.com/2019/06/no-circles.htm

Hah, so funny you should have posted that! I've stumbled upon his (very knowledgeable and obviously a labour of love) articles on Schubert sometimes ago --- and he did convince me that the whole Schubertiad concept is an ex post facto, pia fraus fabrication. I was going to post the selfsame link but you beat me to it.

:D

Every kind of music is good, except the boring kind. — Rossini

Biffo

Returning to the OP, I am sure that record producers are aware that the music had an audience and was performed in rooms of various sizes.

How authentic do you want to get? I had always assumed that services in Protestant Leipzig would have been very serious affairs but according to John Eliot Gardiner in his book on Bach this was not the case. Fashionable ladies would arrive late, chatter through the service and leave early with more noise. Poor Bach had to compete with all this.

To be serious, I am sure non-live recordings are usually made in conditions that exclude as much extraneous noise as possible.

Archaic Torso of Apollo

Quote from: Florestan on February 15, 2020, 08:26:29 AM
Hah, so funny you should have posted that! I've stumbled upon his (very knowledgeable and obviously a labour of love) articles on Schubert sometimes ago --- and he did convince me that the whole Schubertiad concept is an ex post facto, pia fraus fabrication. I was going to post the selfsame link but you beat me to it.

:D

LOL, should we call this "circular posting"? I only posted it because your wording reminded me of it.
formerly VELIMIR (before that, Spitvalve)

"Who knows not strict counterpoint, lives and dies an ignoramus" - CPE Bach

Florestan

Quote from: Archaic Torso of Apollo on February 15, 2020, 08:38:44 AM
LOL, should we call this "circular posting"? I only posted it because your wording reminded me of it.

8)
Every kind of music is good, except the boring kind. — Rossini

Biffo


Florestan

Quote from: Biffo on February 15, 2020, 08:35:16 AM
How authentic do you want to get? I had always assumed that services in Protestant Leipzig would have been very serious affairs but according to John Eliot Gardiner in his book on Bach this was not the case. Fashionable ladies would arrive late, chatter through the service and leave early with more noise. Poor Bach had to compete with all this.

Of course.

The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there. - L. P. Hartley


Every kind of music is good, except the boring kind. — Rossini

Archaic Torso of Apollo

Quote from: Biffo on February 15, 2020, 08:35:16 AM

How authentic do you want to get? I had always assumed that services in Protestant Leipzig would have been very serious affairs but according to John Eliot Gardiner in his book on Bach this was not the case. Fashionable ladies would arrive late, chatter through the service and leave early with more noise. Poor Bach had to compete with all this.

Yeah, if we wanted to get really HIP, concerts would have to include things like:

- applause not just between movements, but even while the music is playing
- numerous encores of the bits people really liked
- occasional improvisations
- breaking up a symphony by playing other music between its individual movements
- talking in the audience
- concert goes on for 4-6 hours, with listeners wandering in and out
formerly VELIMIR (before that, Spitvalve)

"Who knows not strict counterpoint, lives and dies an ignoramus" - CPE Bach

Florestan

Quote from: Archaic Torso of Apollo on February 15, 2020, 09:57:26 AM
Yeah, if we wanted to get really HIP, concerts would have to include things like:

- applause not just between movements, but even while the music is playing
- numerous encores of the bits people really liked
- occasional improvisations
- breaking up a symphony by playing other music between its individual movements
- talking in the audience
- concert goes on for 4-6 hours, with listeners wandering in and out

Absolutely. Drinking acoholic beverages, too.

Wel, I wouldn't mind any of the above at all. Actually, it would be a most welcome distraction from the "stiff and still" etiquette reigning supreme today.
Every kind of music is good, except the boring kind. — Rossini

JBS

Quote from: Biffo on February 15, 2020, 08:45:05 AM
Here is another romanticized painting of an event that probably never took place -

https://www.meisterdrucke.uk/fine-art-prints/Josef-Danhauser/75886/Liszt-at-the-Piano,-1840-.html

The painting is more artificial than first glance suggests.  Besides suggesting that Liszt was playing exclusively to an audience of literary and musical greats, and not to the usual round of socialites and such, it depicts Rossini and Paganini both focusing their attention on the bust of Beethoven, totally disregarding Liszt.

Hollywood Beach Broadwalk

JBS

Quote from: Florestan on February 15, 2020, 07:12:51 AM
The number of people is not unrealistic. What is clearly romanticized is this whole concept of "Schubertiade" as an intellectual gathering centered around Schubert. This is bogus. Come on, those were aristocratic-cum-high-bourgeois salons; poor Schubert, hopelessly proletarian that he was, provided the de rigueur musical entertainment in exchange for free dinner and wine. Most probably he was never the focal point of those gatherings.

That notwithstanding, the OP has a strong point imo.

But the Schwind picture shows him doing precisely that. The actual visual focus is actually the singer sitting next to Schubert (I remember he was a real singer associated with Schubert, but I forget his name).  Schubert is merely the accompianist.  What's probably least realistic is the depiction of everyone paying attention to the music.

Hollywood Beach Broadwalk