The Historically Informed Performances (HIP) debate

[Antoine Marchand]

I also know what is meant here, David, but the truth is that the modern period instrument movement has quite got away from that literalness which was so pervasive in the early days. It is hard to dismiss the charges that HIP, in its early incarnation, was indeed a showcase for museum pieces. This is no longer true though, at least among enlightened musicians, and certainly among enlightened listeners. If you look at the traditional great names, Harnoncourt, Kuijken (all of them), Hogwood etc, none of them would dream of doing something that was steeped in historic literalism. PI is well into its second phase now, and the critics of PI haven't yet caught up with it, they are still criticizing the musicians of 2000's for the sins of the 70's. Not that there aren't still some issues and throwbacks, but generally, no.

I usually listen to that criticism, Gurn; I mean the literalism of the HIP interpretations in the seventies. But when I listen to those discs on SEON -probably the most representative label of the entire movement in the 70's -, I just love them: the English Suites, the French Suites, the Musical Offering, the Four Seasons, those string quartets played by the Esterhazy Quartet, Couperin, etc., I could name twenty o thirty marvelous recordings just on that label... I think that opinion against the seventies is another of the myths of the anti-HIPsters... At least any day I would choose those fervent and combative recordings over Jacobs (one low point on SEON) or Minkovski, IMO representatives of certain kind of mainstream HIP... Well, I said it. 

[Bulldog]

From this pearl of wisdom: http://www.weta.org/fmblog/?p=2231

I'm wondering why you seem to be so keen on branding and demonising the HIP-movement as some kind of totalitarian ideology. And those who like HIP as fanatics.

I finally got around to reading that article and assume that most advocates of HIP wouldn't take kindly to it.  From by eyes, it seems that Jens wants to "have his cake and eat it too" - praise various HIP/PI performances one minute, smack the HIP movement around the next minute.

Jens criticizes the historicism of the movement, and I can't deny there's some merit there.  But the way I look at it, the historicism was largely required for a HIP movement to exist at all. 

I consider the HIP movement easily the most advantageous jolt for the world of classical music over the past 60 years or so, a jolt so strong that it had pinheads like Pinchas Zukerman running for cover while muttering that they were being shut-out of baroque music and that those musicians playing in PI bands sucked.

Although I have little interest in baroque music being played by modern-instrument orchestras, I have noted that Chailly recently recorded both the St. Matthew Passion and Brandenburg Concertos.  I do hope that other modern instrument bands follow suit so that those who want these works on modern instruments can have some variety to choose from.  Put another way, give them enough of the modern treatment to restrict their complaining. 

As many of you know, Don Vroon of American Record Guide has been on a decades-long crusade to deride and abolish the HIP movement.  The "fad" that Vroon bitches about is now the main vehicle for early and baroque music as well as gaining a significant hold on Classical and early Romantic era music.  Folks need to get over this business and realize that their preferences are of a minority position and will remain that way.   

[mc ukrneal]

The "fad" that Vroon bitches about is now the main vehicle for early and baroque music as well as gaining a significant hold on Classical and early Romantic era music.  Folks need to get over this business and realize that their preferences are of a minority position and will remain that way.   

I have no idea who Vroon is, but I do disagree with this last bit to some degree. I think HIP has been good as well, but that it starts with people like Toscanini and others who were trying to put the music back together the way the composer was originally intending. This is one branch of HIP, where you try to: 1) Authenticate the actual music as much as possible (original markings and such) and 2) Interpret it in the way that was intended (whatever that may be, and tastes will differ here). I think this part of HIP has already influenced all of classical to such a degree that most non-HIP performers are using much of the HIP learning anyway and applying it to whatever they may be playing (at least some aspects of it). So the result is a bit of ying and yang where the different philosophies compete, but at the same time are changing each other fundamentally so that in time, the postions are different than what they started from (but still intertwined), each having absorbed some aspect of each other. And I see this as a positive.

When it comes to period instruments, well I don't like the sound of particular instruments, but good music is good music. If it sounds good (and the particular instruments I dislike aren't the main sounds) then I don't even care whether it is PI or not, because it is just good music.

Speaking of good music, now listening to this (Mozart Piano Concertos 11,12,14 with ECO/Perahia):

[Que]

I usually listen to that criticism, Gurn; I mean the literalism of the HIP interpretations in the seventies. But when I listen to those discs on SEON -probably the most representative label of the entire movement in the 70's -, I just love them: the English Suites, the French Suites, the Musical Offering, the Four Seasons, those string quartets played by the Esterhazy Quartet, Couperin, etc., I could name twenty o thirty marvelous recordings just on that label... I think that opinion against the seventies is another of the myths of the anti-HIPsters... At least any day I would choose those fervent and combative recordings over Jacobs (one low point on SEON) or Minkovski, IMO representatives of certain kind of mainstream HIP... Well, I said it. 

And well said.  I think the picture is mixed and a fair amount of stuff from those days is too scholary but I have been pleasantly surprised a well by quite a few of recordings - notably by the Collegium Aureum.

Q

[The new erato]

I finally got around to reading that article and assume that most advocates of HIP wouldn't take kindly to it.  From by eyes, it seems that Jens wants to "have his cake and eat it too" - praise various HIP/PI performances one minute, smack the HIP movement around the next minute.

Jens criticizes the historicism of the movement, and I can't deny there's some merit there.  But the way I look at it, the historicism was largely required for a HIP movement to exist at all. 

I consider the HIP movement easily the most advantageous jolt for the world of classical music over the past 60 years or so, a jolt so strong that it had pinheads like Pinchas Zukerman running for cover while muttering that they were being shut-out of baroque music and that those musicians playing in PI bands sucked.

Although I have little interest in baroque music being played by modern-instrument orchestras, I have noted that Chailly recently recorded both the St. Matthew Passion and Brandenburg Concertos.  I do hope that other modern instrument bands follow suit so that those who want these works on modern instruments can have some variety to choose from.  Put another way, give them enough of the modern treatment to restrict their complaining. 

As many of you know, Don Vroon of American Record Guide has been on a decades-long crusade to deride and abolish the HIP movement.  The "fad" that Vroon bitches about is now the main vehicle for early and baroque music as well as gaining a significant hold on Classical and early Romantic era music.  Folks need to get over this business and realize that their preferences are of a minority position and will remain that way.   

A most enlightened post that also covers my position on this.

[Brian]

I'd just like to chime in, on the subject of Jens' post, that having recently sat through a regional American orchestra playing Haydn the old-fashioned way (as in no clue what HIP is let alone concessions to it), I think one of the reasons traditional big orchestras are eschewing Haydn these days is that, well, soft, fattened-up, inoffensive Haydn is boring. It's precisely that type of airy-fairy, oh-so-dainty "do I have to sit through this" dullness which caused me to be ambivalent to Haydn in the first place, and precisely the type of bucket-of-cold-water HIP rethinking that might finally bring me back around.

[jlaurson]

Jens criticizes the historicism of the movement, and I can't deny there's some merit there.  But the way I look at it, the historicism was largely required for a HIP movement to exist at all. 

I consider the HIP movement easily the most advantageous jolt for the world of classical music over the past 60 years or so, a jolt so strong that it had pinheads like Pinchas Zukerman running for cover while muttering that they were being shut-out of baroque music and that those musicians playing in PI bands sucked.

Although I have little interest in baroque music being played by modern-instrument orchestras, I have noted that Chailly recently recorded both the St. Matthew Passion and Brandenburg Concertos.  I do hope that other modern instrument bands follow suit so that those who want these works on modern instruments can have some variety to choose from.  Put another way, give them enough of the modern treatment to restrict their complaining. 

I agree with everything here. That's why the second part of that "Free Bach" article might be helpful... because it would clarify that what I mean in short is: "HIP was necessary, and historicism necessary for HIP -- now let's let HIP float without the historicist attitude part." The entire problem of HIP as I see it is not one of the performers but actually one of attitudes among the listeners and most specifically the critics. It's not what any person does on his or her Tangentenfluegel or Crumhorn, Sackbutt, or Theorbo... it's what people don't do because of the existence of the historicist attitude.

Symphony Orchestras--the in-concert mainstay for must classical music listeners--don't regularly play Haydn and Mozart, much less Bach. That's deadly to the musical culture and general ability of those musical bodies. On that note Brian describes a symptom, not a cause, with his unfortunate Haydn experience. Haydn is extremely difficult to play (every conductor will tell you that, and I talk with every conductor about that topic). It needs to be regularly played, and it needs to be a highlight of a concert, no the throw-away joke like in the Sunday Comics. We need to get back where Haydn can be played well again by those bands (we had been there; it's hardly impossible).

It's all a little like smoking bans. In the smoking times (thick, 'contemporist' treatment of old music), a strict smoking ban in restaurants may well have been necessary to level the playing field; to convince customers and proprietors alike of the advantages of smoke-free environments and, more to the point, genuine CHOICE.  But after a few years of a strict ban (no choice), one could well strike the ban-laws from the books again and let the free market (consumer choice) reign because so many people have enjoyed and gotten used to the advantages (social, economic, whatever) of smoke-free environments that many--perhaps most--places would not go back to (all-)smoking. Others, offering niches freely, would. I want ideological grip on music to loosen up; I want to go back (??? / forward???) to a time where HIP and historic-idealists can do their thing to the great success they've done, but a time where we can also cut mercilessly into baroque operas for performances without an feigned outcry... I want Thielemann to play the Brandenburgs every week* without critics instinctively sneering at it; I want to get rid of the "that's not how it is done" attitudes; I want a time where scholars can search for the exact horse type that the bows during Bach's time were made of and at the same time, parallel, I want people who don't think any score is sacrosanct and treat music a little bit more the way directors treat plays, and translators Shakespeare... It goes further than that, even... I want people to be allowed to clap at musically, not just socially, appropriate places in a concert. Let's treat Tchaikovsky and Chopin as the entertainment it is, not like Wagner. In a way it's my version of Historically Informed... which is to say: Let's put an end to the stifled atmosphere that classical music has navigated itself into... the seriousness and all. The historicist movement had had some part in that taking-matters-very-seriously (it can't be blamed for all; certainly not the applause behavior )... and it has made the reception of music an even more serious matter as it helped introduce cement the idea of "ought / ought not". Ironic, since some of the more recent HIP performers (say, in the last 20 years), have been on the forefront of re-introducing the idea of improvisation within the given music. Now I want to add improvisation with the music.

Damn right, I want to have the HIP-Cake and eat the non-HIP cake, too.

Also, Brian: Immediately get Krips' set of late Mozart Symphonies with the RCO, if you don't already have it.

* No. Not actually. Not every week.

[Gurn Blanston]

Here is a succinct statement for you then, Jens:

Let's get rid of the Sonic Museum (invented in the mid-19th century for those who don't know it) and put music back where it could and should be, and once was.

Not talking about the audience, probably can't go back to the nobility only, talking about the venues and the spirit of the thing. There is a Great Divide in music that came into being with the Concert Hall. Nothing before then was composed for that stage (it couldn't be, it didn't exist!). You can't free up Brahms, guys, it is already being performed in the manner for which it was written. But you can sure as hell free up pretty much everyone before that!  And the aural and visual aspects which drove the music in the beginning will do so again.

[Antoine Marchand]

Gurn, I am surprised. Do you have the Cello Suites (and Gamba Sonatas) recorded by Wieland Kuijken (and Piet) on Arcana?     

[Gurn Blanston]

Gurn, I am surprised. Do you have the Cello Suites (and Gamba Sonatas) recorded by Wieland Kuijken (and Piet) on Arcana? 

Why yes, I do. 3 disks of loveliness.

[Antoine Marchand]

Why yes, I do. 3 disks of loveliness.

Cool! Even many dedicated Bachians don't know that formidable 3-CD set. Definitely, you're smarter than the average HIPster (Yogi Bear dixit). 

[Gurn Blanston]

Cool! Even many dedicated Bachians don't know that formidable 3-CD set. Definitely, you're smarter than the average HIPster (Yogi Bear dixit). 

Yes, it IS formidable. I am particularly drawn to the gamba works. I had discounted them before now. Now I don't, they are in their own class.

Getting back to the Sonic Museum thing that I introduced a bit ago, by far the best (and easily the most influential) performance of the suites was one that I saw on television when I was quite young (it was a new invention in those days... ). Pablo Casals playing the suites in old church or churches in Spain. Not in a concert hall. It was freakin' wonderful! As a totally uninitiated child, I sat spellbound through the entire performance. One of the first CD's I bought when I began collecting disks was that 2 disk set. Not PI, probably not following the letter of the law of performance, but arguably as authentic a performance as I will ever see.

[Antoine Marchand]

... a fair amount of stuff from those days is too scholary but I have been pleasantly surprised a well by quite a few of recordings - notably by the Collegium Aureum.

Yes, a bit scholary, but many of those recordings also convey a sort of strong rocker feeling, of people doing something new almost revolutionary; sometimes wrong (it's classical, f.i., the case of the "pseudo baroque trumpet"), but fighting against the establishment. And I am just talking about the 70's beucause the 50's and 60's are a marvelous story, too. 

[Gurn Blanston]

Yes, a bit scholary, but many of those recordings also convey a sort of strong rocker feeling, of people doing something new almost revolutionary; sometimes wrong (it's classical, f.i., the case of the "pseudo baroque trumpet"), but fighting against the establishment. And I am just talking about the 70's beucause the 50's and 60's are a marvelous story, too. 

Is that the famous "Bach Trumpet"?

Anyway, to your point; yes, I can sense the attitude you are talking about and as one of that generation I know exactly where it arises. I think though, that what Jens and some others are talking about is in the era directly subsequent, when a sort of snideness arose among those same people, a "we're right and you're making a shit sandwich" sort of attitude. And even if that were true (not saying if it is or isn't), that attitude turned out to be the biggest enemy of the movement. Because whatever else good or great may have come from it, the alienation felt by many other musicians and the people they influenced,  will never be forgotten. It's a pity really, because HIPness should be inclusive, not exclusive.

[Antoine Marchand]

Getting back to the Sonic Museum thing that I introduced a bit ago, by far the best (and easily the most influential) performance of the suites was one that I saw on television when I was quite young (it was a new invention in those days... ). Pablo Casals playing the suites in old church or churches in Spain. Not in a concert hall. It was freakin' wonderful! As a totally uninitiated child, I sat spellbound through the entire performance. One of the first CD's I bought when I began collecting disks was that 2 disk set. Not PI, probably not following the letter of the law of performance, but arguably as authentic a performance as I will ever see.

Yes, those things occur and the power of an image is sometimes irresistible. I recall, for example, the first time when I listened to one of my favorite Bach choral preludes, Ich ruf zu Dir, Herr Jesu Christ BWV 639. I was watching -many years ago- the original version of Solaris -the film by Tarkovsky- and when that prelude is listened to for the first time (it's used several times), well... I was completely devastated. Only some years after I learned that my beloved version was played on a synthesizer.  Currently I have a lot of versions, but still love and I am moved by that soundtrack.

Yes, it IS formidable. I am particularly drawn to the gamba works. I had discounted them before now. Now I don't, they are in their own class.

For natural reasons, I think you would love this gamba/fortepiano version (the latter is a replica after Silbermann):



(Easy to get in USA these days)

[Gurn Blanston]

Yes, those things occur and the power of an image is sometimes irresistible. I recall, for example, the first time when I listened to one of my favorite Bach choral preludes, Ich ruf zu Dir, Herr Jesu Christ BWV 639. I was watching -many years ago- the original version of Solaris -the film by Tarkovsky- and when that prelude is listened to for the first time (it's used several times), well... I was completely devastated. Only some years after I learned that my beloved version was played on a synthesizer.  Currently I have a lot of versions, but still love and I am moved by that soundtrack.

And so many of our compadres here were early on influenced by the 9th in 'A Clockwork Orange', which I believe is also played on a synthesizer, or electronic enhancement of some sort. Whatever it takes...

For natural reasons, I think you would love this gamba/fortepiano version (the latter is a replica after Silbermann):



(Easy to get in USA these days)

Oh, I'll look into that. Silbermanns have a unique sound that I find quite attractive. I know I'll enjoy it, thanks for the tip.

[Antoine Marchand]

Is that the famous "Bach Trumpet"?

Yes, it is. I can't resist to post some words of Sigiswald kuijken, from the booklet of his last recording of the Brandenburgs (he had recorded them two times before these concertos), when he precisely talks about his previous recordings:

Both of these recordings clearly reflected a particular state of affairs and are thus witnesses to their times, 1976 and 1993. For example, in the first recording, the dreaded trumpet part of the Brandenburg Concerto N|. 2 was, "of course", played on what we would now call the "pseudo Baroque trumpet" (that is, indeed without valves, but with holes, wich the authentic Baroque trumpet never had and which certainly influences the sound and the playing technique; the instrument also had a "modern" mouthpiece). The LPB recording of '93-'94 plainly took issue with this still sensitive subject: for this recording I made a point of scoring this part not for trumpet but for horn (based on a manuscript from Bach's milieu). With this decision I wished to illustrate my impatience with the widespread "state of compromise" in the international Baroque-trumpet world (and "trumpet" it, as it were). This gesture did not go unnoticed , and contributed to a gradual change in thinking on the subject: little by little, some began to experiment with the truly "compromise-less" Baroque trumpet - a daunting task! This evolution is now still in full flight, and is finally starting to bear fruit. Jean-Francois Madeuf, who is playing the part in the present production, is a fervent proponent and propagator of the "original" Baroque trumpet (that is, without holes) and now teaches the instrument at the famed Schola Cantorum in Basel.

[Gurn Blanston]

Yes, it is. I can't resist to post some words of Sigiswald kuijken, from the booklet of his last recording of the Brandenburgs (he had recorded them two times before these concertos), when he precisely talks about his previous recordings:

Very interesting, thanks for that. Of course, the trumpet was, as far as I know, the only instrument, the players of which had to join a guild to become master trumpeters. I can't lay my hands on the essay right this minute, but somewhere I have an interesting paper that talks about the capabilities of master trumpeters by the mid 18th century. They could play as many as 24 harmonics, compared to modern trumpets that can handle 3 or 4 at best. The scale possibilities for them were off the charts. I strongly suspect that for a genuine master trumpeter of 1725, Brandenburg #2 would have been barely sufficient as a warm-up exercise.   

Guess I'll have to look into that set. I hope Premont doesn't slap me around for it...  



PS - That would be the set on Accent?

[Antoine Marchand]

... I can't lay my hands on the essay right this minute, but somewhere I have an interesting paper that talks about the capabilities of master trumpeters by the mid 18th century. They could play as many as 24 harmonics, compared to modern trumpets that can handle 3 or 4 at best. The scale possibilities for them were off the charts. I strongly suspect that for a genuine master trumpeter of 1725, Brandenburg #2 would have been barely sufficient as a warm-up exercise.   

It would be great to read that paper, Gurn. It seems very interesting.

I hope Premont doesn't slap me around for it...  

I have known very few people of his level of knowledge in Bach and North German Baroque music in general; it's incredible because, additionaly, Premont knows every Bach disc released during the last four or five decades.   


Finally, yes, Kuijken recorded his last version of the Brandenburgs on Accent (the previous were SEON, directed by Leonhardt, and DHM, also with La Petite Bande). 

[Superhorn]

  I take exception to the description of Pinchas Zukerman as a "pinhead". Agree with him or not,like his playing and conducting or not,he's no pinhead.
He just doesn't like HIP performances. And he's perfectly entitled to his opinions,just as the"snooty HIP fanatics" I mentioned earlier on this thread are entitled to theirs.
I could just as easily call Roger Norrington a "pinhead" for his many fatuous claims about HIP, and his arrogant claims of having found the "one right way" to perform the music of the past,as if he knows exactly what Mozart,Haydn,Beethoven,Brahms,Tchaikovsky and Mahler wanted.
  It's important to remember the immortal and inspired statement of Richard Taruskin-"Instruments don't make music,people do".
By this he meant that just using period instruments and dutifully following all the latest research into "correct" performance practice aren't enough. It's the interpretation,the spirit and not the letter that count.Just going through the motions of "authenticity" guarantees nothing.