The Historically Informed Performances (HIP) debate

[Dancing Divertimentian]

Good to hear. Are you an animal doctor? Like Doctor Doolittle?

Nope. I wouldn't be a good Dr. Doolittle.

[M forever]

So what did you do at the animal hospital?

[Dancing Divertimentian]

I was a technician, which in veterinarian terms is two occupations in one - that of a nurse and that of a technician in the traditional sense: tending to peripheral matters relating to anything and everything. 

Worked there for seven years - still have the scars to show for it.

[M forever]

Did you get attacked by a tiger?

[Dancing Divertimentian]

A few dogs and a few cats. No tiger attacks.

[M forever]

Not even an alligator?

[Marc]

I recall an interview many years ago in Fanfare Magazine with Pinchas Zukerman who was having a fit about the HIP movement.  Essentially, he said that HIP performers only took that route because they were inferior musicians who would get no exposure if they played modern instruments.

Given Zukerman's obnoxious attitude, I pledged to myself never to acquire any disc of his.  Of course, that's very easy to do since Zukerman's tastes in music rarely coincide with mine.

Hmm, I've read interviews with a lot of non-HIPPERS where a lot of downgrading is going on.
To give a few examples:
The Dutch conductor and organ player Charles de Wolff claimed the same 'truth' about HIP violinists as Zukerman (they only control a few grips and positions, that's why they can only play old music), the conductor Neeme Järvi wasn't interested in a real discussion about HIP, but mocked HIP conductors like Harnoncourt and Brüggen. As a conductor they were a scream to watch, so that's why they could not be taken seriously. Also Haitink, who at first was rather positive about HIP, went angry about 'HIP-arrogance' after Harnoncourt had conducted his Concertgebouw ensemble, because after the HIP-visits his players claimed that the chief was mistaken when he wanted his way in f.i. Mozart and Beethoven.

I really think that most of these non-HIP performers want their own way with most of the music they play, and don't want to be bothered with a lot of historical research. They learn how to play their instruments or the way to conduct from famous teachers, combine that with a personal style, and then take the score and try to analyze it in a personal way. I have no problem with that at all, because the lot of them are skilled musicians, but it sometimes seems that their anger and arrogance against HIP is mainly caused by resentment and maybe even fear.

BTW: I have vinyl and CD's of all three musicians I mentioned, and I do intend to put a ban upon them.

[Dancing Divertimentian]

Not even an alligator?

I stared 'em down. They're harmless.

[M forever]

Neeme Järvi's opinion doesn't surprise me at all (if that is what he really thinks, but I wouldn't be surprised at all if it is), after all, he is not only not "historically informed", he is generally not very well informed and often doesn't know the scores he conducts really well. That is obvious from many of his recordings which happen on a very superficial level, and I have also heard from musicians who played under him that he obviously doesn't know some of the stuff he conducts in depth. BTW, I have never seen Brüggen conduct, live or on video, but I have seen Harnoncourt many times live (and on video, too, of course) and he is far from "a scream" to watch. Although he has his mannerisms (and always comes across as so totally, totally serious - but then he really is), he is one of the best and most "communicative" conductors I have seen. And I have seen them all (I mean all the "important" and many not-so-important ones who were active in the last quarter century or so). And the musicians in top orchestras like the Concertgebouw, Wiener or Berliner Philharmoniker think so, too. So who cares what a third-rate time beater like Järvi says?

Also Haitink, who at first was rather positive about HIP, went angry about 'HIP-arrogance' after Harnoncourt had conducted his Concertgebouw ensemble, because after the HIP-visits his players claimed that the chief was mistaken when he wanted his way in f.i. Mozart and Beethoven.

If that is true (a lot of these anecdotes aren't), it is very revealing because if players in a top (and veeeeery traditional, BTW) orchestra like the Concertgebouw are convinced by what a conductor like Harnoncourt tells them, that has absolutely nothing to do with "HIP arrogance". Orchestral musicians don't just believe whatever someone who happens on the podium tells them is "right". After all, they have to actually play in that way and make it work. So they know best if it actually works musically.
Funny though that Haitink later "rethought" his concept of Beethoven and presented a slimmed down, sized down Beethoven concept, very obviously under the impression of what had happened in the "HIP" world in the meantime. But that's easy to understand because Haitink is not an independent or original musical thinker. He is a good craftsman who does whatever he is told to do and does it rather well, but he does not really critically reflect musical concepts. I heard him conduct the Haydn "clock" symphony a few months ago (with the CSO in Carnegie Hall) and there was nothing particular musical about that in any way. It was neither "HIP" nor anything else. It was just playing the dots on the paper plus a few clichéed standard nuances. But that's not "letting the music speak for itself".

Because one of the first insights of the whole "HIP" thing is that the music of that time was notated in a very different way, with much less detailed information, than the music of later epochs. Contemporary writers, such as Leopold Mozart, explicitly state that just playing "the notes" is not enough and he actually gives concrete examples for how good and "tasteful" music making varies the written notes. And there is tons of evidence like that. What we make of that is one thing - it is pretty astonishing though that many, even professional musicians, completely ignore all that information. We do not have any recordings of Mozart or his contemporaries - but we have rather detailed instructions about he basics of good music making from the man who taught him, published in the year of his birth. This is an incredible stroke of luck for any musician seriously interested in music from that era - but again, many ignore that and think just playing the dots on the page is enough.

[Superhorn]

   I  could  not  disagree  more  about  Jarvi.  He  is  a  very  great  musician.
The  music  of  the  Baroque  and  Classical  periods  may   not  be  his  forte,  but  he  is  wonderful  in  19th  and  20th  century  music.  I  have  just  heard   his  Chandos  set  of  the  9  Dvorak  symphonies  with  the  Royal  Scottish  orchestra,  and  these  among  the  best  Dvorak  symphony  recordings  I  have  ever  heard,  as  and a lover  of  Dvorak,  I've  heard  a  lot  of  them. 
   He  is  unbeatable  in  Scandinavian  and  Russian  music,  and  has  been  a  tireless  champion  of   neglected  by  worthy  music  by  so  many composers.
   His  vast  repertoire  and   intellectual  curiosity  make  him  a  prine  among  conductors.

[Bulldog]

Maybe I'm having a senior moment, but it seems that quite a few postings have disappeared.  Although that's one way to rid the board of unbecoming comments, its is a departure from past management practices.  So have the practices changed?

[Superhorn]

    I   don't  mind  if  HIP   musicians  try  out  their  pet  theories  of  interpretation ;  that's  fine  with  me.  It  can  sometimes  make for  interestingly  different  performances (That  is,  until  the  novelty  wears  off),  but  what  gets  my  goat  is  when  they  claim  that  they  have  found  the  one  and  only "right"  way  to  do  the  music. 
   This  is  so  arrogant  and  presumtious.  There  is  no  such  thing.  How  can  they  claim   to  know  exactly  what  the  composers  wanted ?
   Norrington  is  a  fine  musician,  but  a  terribly  misguided  one.  All  of  this   talk  about "authentic"  Elgar  is  the  purest  poppycock.
   And  do  we  really  need  HIP   Bruckner, Mahler,  and  Holst  etc ?  How  far  is  the  movement  going  to  go?  Pretty  soon  we'll  have   HIP   Till  Eulenspiegel,  Heldenleben,  Don  Juan  and  Le  Sacre  du  Printemps.  It  might  be  interesting  to  hear,  but  just  how  authentic  would it  be?
  After  all  we  have  recordings  of  Strauss  and  Stravinsky  conducting  their  own  music.  I'm  sure  Stravinsky  would   think  the idea  of  doing  Le  Sacre  with   1913  instruments   preposterous.  He  recorded  Le  Sacre  around   1960  and  didn't  mind  "Modern"  instruments.

[Brian]

Neeme Järvi's opinion doesn't surprise me at all (if that is what he really thinks, but I wouldn't be surprised at all if it is), after all, he is not only not "historically informed", he is generally not very well informed and often doesn't know the scores he conducts really well. That is obvious from many of his recordings which happen on a very superficial level,

Actually, in my experience much of what Järvi conducts is dull on the superficial level as well. The man gives mediocrity a bad name and saps energy out of concert halls (especially as he conducted sitting down for several of my years in Detroit, apparently for medical reasons). He's just plain uninspired.

[Brian]

HIP Le  Sacre  du  Printemps.

1. I don't think anyone's recorded a HIP Holst disc.
2. A HIP Sacre might be kind of fun.

[jochanaan]

1. I don't think anyone's recorded a HIP Holst disc.

Not even Sir Adrian Boult, who led the world premiere?

2. A HIP Sacre might be kind of fun.

Fortunately, the composer's recording is available.  And there are several by Pierre Monteux, who led the world premiere and many early performances.  That's one advantage of "HIP contemporary;" we've got the composers' own thoughts on record--literally.

[M forever]

Maybe I'm having a senior moment, but it seems that quite a few postings have disappeared.  Although that's one way to rid the board of unbecoming comments, its is a departure from past management practices.  So have the practices changed?

Apparently. A lot of my posts in the last few days have simply vanished without comment. Including ones which did not contain any personal attacks such as a friendly exchange I had with donwyn last night. This one will be gone soon, too, I guess.

[M forever]

I   don't  mind  if  HIP   musicians  try  out  their  pet  theories  of  interpretation

Since you do not know what research is behind these theories, you shouldn't disqualify them as "pet theories". Sometimes HIP performers come up with idiosyncratic and strange ideas. But that applies to all "sorts" of performers. In many cases, there is actually a lot of research and practical experience and sound reflection behind what the better HIP people do; in Harnoncourt's case, for instance, there is more than half a century of systematic studying and playing his way through centuries of musical history behind what he does, as well as a very thorough understanding of the cultural history context of the music as well as a deep grounding in traditional performance practice. He did, after all, start out as a very "conventional" musician deeply steeped in and trained in the Viennese tradition. That is what gives many of his interpretations such a fascinating depth as they reflect intense historical studies and refflection, but at the same time, they are firmly gorunded in actual grown performance tradition. So what he does does not dismiss "conventional" performance; it enhances it. Which is why musicians in such very traditional orchestras such as the Concertgebouworkest, Wiener and Berliner Philharmoniker or Staatskapelle Dresden react so positively and cooperatively to his approach.

You are apparently not aware at all of the vast body of information about historical instruments, notation and performance conventions, and other circumstantial evidence that can be studied and incorporated to enhance our understanding of historical music and its performance. Since in the "classical" field, we mostly deal with music from the past, it should only be natural that we should be interested in these things. We should be grateful to people who devote all their energy to researching and bringing those insights to us.

Like I said before, none of that contradicts or negates other performance traditions. But it enhances the spectrum of what we can choose from.

but  what  gets  my  goat  is  when  they  claim  that  they  have  found  the  one  and  only "right"  way  to  do  the  music. 
This  is  so  arrogant  and  presumtious.  There  is  no  such  thing.  How  can  they  claim   to  know  exactly  what  the  composers  wanted ?

You keep saying that but it is simply not true in most cases. Few HIP performers claim to have found absolute musical truths but point to the work-in-progress and explorative character of their work and, usually, they also explain why they do things do make that transparent. That has noting to do with claiming to know exactly what the composer wanted. Atleast they make the information they base their interpretive choices on available for discussion.

Besides, any performer, no matter what and in what style he plays and whether or not he comments on his interpretations or not, implicitly tells us through the way he plays that he has arrived at that interpretation because it is his personal view that this is the way the music should be presented.

We don't want to listen to people just doodling out notes. No matter what interpretation we listen to, we want to have the feeling that it is worth listening to and that the performer has something to "say" about the music.

Norrington  is  a  fine  musician,  but  a  terribly  misguided  one.  All  of  this   talk  about "authentic"  Elgar  is  the  purest  poppycock.

I don't think you can judge that either. How much do you know about performance practice in Elgar's time? Probably nothing.

Norrington may come across as an arrogant prick in the way he lectures about his interpretations, but again, I would rather listen to someone who has done some kind of homework and who is convinced that what he does is right - at least at the moment. And as much as Norrington may come across as somewhat dogmatic, he has actually re-thought his approach to a number of pieces over time and admitted when earlier attempts didn't work out so well. Whatever his verbal utterances may suggest, he is also rather flexible and undogmatic in his music making. He does conduct modern orchestras as well and what he has done in Stuttgart may be somewhat peculiar, but it is all done on a very high level of craftsmanship. I have also heard him conduct very undogmatic, musically flexible performances with the Berliner Philharmoniker which actually surprised me a little bit. I had expected him to be more of a "hardliner", but the concerts I heard with him in Berlin of Mozart and Bach adapted a basic "period feel" very sensitively to the playing characteristics of that orchestra. Which in turn reacted with great playing. They like to play under his direction.

I am not entirely convinced by much of his Stuttgart work, but again, there are enough conductors who do not offer anything interesting at all, and his somewhat provocatively geared "concept" performances actually stimulate the discussion in a way which I find very welcome.

His vibratoless Stuttgart Tchaikovsky 6, for instance, struck me as somewhat odd and whether or not avoiding vibrato completely is "authentic" or not, it is interesting to hear the kind of sound quality he achieved with his very finetuned string section. It sounds awesome. It is also extremely clean in the group intonation and highly transparent. I think the phrasing overall is a little too baroque-rhetorical although in general, expressive and detailed phrasing is always welcome. But the rhythmic springiness of the playing and the sharp articulation bring out a lot of fascinating inner detail which can be seen in the score, but rarely. Chords in the winds are mostly very well balanced and outline the harmonic progessions very nicely. The soft brass chorale at the end of the first movement, for instance, has never sounded so good and so expressive. Not because there are any "HIP" secrets there, just because it is rehearsed and played so well.
So while I find the overall result, like a said, still a little odd, this is more interesting and rewarding to listen to than many other interpretations which only scratch a little on the surface of the music and then pour a thick sauce over it.

And  do  we  really  need  HIP   Bruckner, Mahler,  and  Holst  etc ?  How  far  is  the  movement  going  to  go?  Pretty  soon  we'll  have   HIP   Till  Eulenspiegel,  Heldenleben,  Don  Juan  and  Le  Sacre  du  Printemps.  It  might  be  interesting  to  hear,  but  just  how  authentic  would it  be?

That should be decided in each individual case, not through prejudices.

After  all  we  have  recordings  of  Strauss  and  Stravinsky  conducting  their  own  music.

Stravinsky wasn't much of a conductor, but Strauss was a great conductor and we are indeed fortunate to have some very "authentic" recordings of his music with him. But that has not limited the interpretation and reception of his music to just one way. In Stravinsky's case, we are equally fortunate to have great recordings with Monteux who after all conducted several of the premieres of his major works.

I'm  sure  Stravinsky  would   think  the idea  of  doing  Le  Sacre  with   1913  instruments   preposterous.

Maybe. Probably. Or maybe not. It doesn't matter. "HIP" is not about wasting time with speculating what people would have thought or not. It is about researching and exploring what they actually did.

Besides, it would indeed be highly interesting to hear exactly what kind of timbres the instruments had around the time Le Sacre was premiered. But we do actually have historical recordings which get us very close to that. Monteux' much later recording of Le Sacre with the Conservatoire orchestra, I believe, gets us very close to that.

[M forever]

I don't think anyone's recorded a HIP Holst disc.

[Gurn Blanston]

I'll be damned! Wonder if there is anything that hasn't been tried!



----------------
Listening to:
Antonio Vivaldi: Violin Sonatas - Cordaria / Walter Reiter - RV 014 Sonata in d for Violin Op 2 #3 - Prelude - Corrente - Adagio - Giga

[Superhorn]

   I'm sorry  if  any  one  is  having  difficulty  with  my  formatting.  I   am  trying  to  experiment,  but  not  currently  using  my  own  computer,  which  is  having  problems.
   Mforever,  I  am  very  familiar  with   HIP  research  and  think  that's  fine.
But  scholarship  and  the  use  of "the  correct  instruments"  do  not  guanatee  anything  in  themselves.  There  is  no  substitute  for  musicianship,  and   scholarship  and  musicianship  are  two  different  things.
   I  have  heard  a  radio  broadcast  of  the   Planets  with  Roy  Goodman  and  the  New  Queeen's  Hall  orchestra.  Frankly,  it  sounded   balnd  and  lacking  in  color  to  me.  And  Norrington's  vibratoless  performances   are  not  in  any  way  authentic.  We  know  that  string  vibrato  has  been  around  for  a  very  long  time.  In  his  violin  treatise,  Leopold  Mozart  actually   lambastes  some  players  for  using  EXCESSIVE  vibrato !  So  there !
   Interestingly  enough,  the   New  York  based  oboist   James  Roe has  an  interesting  blog   called  urbanmodern.blogspot.com.   He  was  a  friend  and  admirer  of  the  late  harpsichordist  and  conductor  Albert  Fuller,  who  was  something  of  an  HIP  snob,  although  revered  as  a  great musician.
    Roe  has  a  recent  post  about   a  group  of   string  players  he  knows  who  recently  gave  a  performance   of  Schoenberg's  "Verklarte  Nacht"  on  gut  strings,  and  he  thought  it was  wonderful.  Hmm....