The Historically Informed Performances (HIP) debate

[Gurn Blanston]

  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.

But Norrington IS a pinhead. So is Zukerman. So is anyone who claims to have found the one right way to do anything at all. So are paranoid conspiracy theorists. So is every fanatic on any subject whatever. For or against. So what's your point?   

[Bulldog]

  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.

It's much more than that as I detailed in an earlier posting.  So, I'm sticking with "pinhead".

[FideLeo]

I'm waiting for HIP Boulez.

HIP Boulez will probably sound a lot like the Boulez recordings you already have, particularly ones conducted by himself.

[(poco) Sforzando]

HIP Boulez will probably sound a lot like the Boulez recordings you already have, particularly ones conducted by himself.

Aha. But will this HIP Pli Selon Pli sound like Boulez's first, second, or third recording - all of which are very different?

[Opus106]

Aha. But will this HIP Pli Selon Pli sound like Boulez's first, second, or third recording - all of which are very different?

They'll do different editions.

Now, shouldn't this discussion take place in a The Moderns in Period Performance thread?

[(poco) Sforzando]

They'll do different editions.

Now, shouldn't this discussion take place in a The Moderns in Period Performance thread?

Please, no!   

[FideLeo]

Aha. But will this HIP Pli Selon Pli sound like Boulez's first, second, or third recording - all of which are very different?

It's getting a bit too hypothetical (especially on your part), I am afraid.  Try keeping your question until such a recording appears.   

[FideLeo]

They'll do different editions.

Now, shouldn't this discussion take place in a The Moderns in Period Performance thread?

Well he knows there are several Boulez threads at this forum.

[(poco) Sforzando]

It's getting a bit too hypothetical (especially on your part), I am afraid.  Try keeping your question until such a recording appears.   

It's getting a bit tongue in cheek, but not altogether irrelevant. If documentary recorded evidence by one composer can reveal such a wide range of tempi, balances, timbres, and overall style (e.g., the far more fierce and violent first PsP vs. the serene and lyrical third one), then how much can be said for certain about the intentions of composers for whom we have no such documentary evidence?

[Dancing Divertimentian]

It's getting a bit tongue in cheek, but not altogether irrelevant. If documentary recorded evidence by one composer can reveal such a wide range of tempi, balances, timbres, and overall style (e.g., the far more fierce and violent first PsP vs. the serene and lyrical third one), then how much can be said for certain about the intentions of composers for whom we have no such documentary evidence?

Interesting too is how a composer can be made to see things in a different light after hearing a work of theirs performed. Schoenberg is famous for at first dissing the Hollywood Quartet's performance of his Verklärte Nacht, yet after pressing him to listen till they reached the end Schoenberg ultimately found himself in total agreement with the Hollywood's concept. In fact, so ecstatic was Schoenberg with the Hollywood that he even went on to write the liner notes for their album of the work!

Schubert also is once to have deemed a performance of one of his quartets "lovely" overall even though he felt the tempos could have been a little quicker.

These are cases of reality trumping ideology. Just because something doesn't precisely match letter for letter what's in a composer's head doesn't mean an interpretation isn't valid.

[Superhorn]

   How about HIP performances of music of future generations which hasn't been written yet?


 


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[FideLeo]

These are cases of reality trumping ideology. Just because something doesn't precisely match letter for letter what's in a composer's head doesn't mean an interpretation isn't valid.

No two HIP recordings sound alike, even of the same work, from the same directors -- modern armchair critics often conveniently overlook that.

[FideLeo]

   How about HIP performances of music of future generations which hasn't been written yet?

Time machines may have to come first 

[FideLeo]

then how much can be said for certain about the intentions of composers for whom we have no such documentary evidence?

I think you are a bit misleading here: who ever said HIP's are for certain? 

[Dancing Divertimentian]

No two HIP recordings sound alike, even of the same work, from the same directors -- modern armchair critics often conveniently overlook that.

I think that's the point we're all trying to make. No one school of musicality possesses a stranglehold on interpretation.

[Opus106]

No one school of musicality possesses a stranglehold on interpretation.

But HIP is a better approximation to The Truth. (Said only half-jokingly, awaiting the there-is-no-one-truth-in-music argument.)

[(poco) Sforzando]

No two HIP recordings sound alike, even of the same work, from the same directors.

Whoever said they did?

[Dancing Divertimentian]

But HIP is a better approximation to The Truth.

"Approximation" = slippery, slippery term. But you knew that:

(Said only half-jokingly, awaiting the there-is-no-one-truth-in-music argument.)

So there you go.


But....just so there's no confusion regarding my feelings toward HIP:

But still, it seems to me no matter how you slice it it all falls under the umbrella of "interpretation". So seen in that light I tend to refrain from dismissing musical scholarship - HIP, romantic, or whatever - outright.

And from years ago this old chestnut of an exchange between DavidW and I (and others) on the old board (I was donwyn then):

Look here.

[Mirror Image]

I have a few stray disks of Dorati, but not the set. I don't have a big taste for prehistoric recordings like lots of people do. I like his Paris set though. Of the others, I don't have any Abbado, and like Dorati, a few Bernstein (Vienna) and Karajan. If one wants to go the modern instrument route, there is a lot more out there, some of it very good, just not to my taste.

I do have the Harnoncourt symphonies and strongly recommend them (I'm talking about Concentus Musicus Wien here, not Concertgebouw, which are doubtless good, but see above).

As you can see, even restricting my collecting to only PI versions, I still have a real hard time finding a place for everything. I am afraid that if I were to expand beyond that, I would have to sell all my Koechlin recordings to make room.    

Thanks for the follow-up about Harnoncourt's Haydn recordings. I've never been into the HIP movement, but I do enjoy Biondi's Vivaldi recordings. Academy of Ancient Music are also quite good. My philosophy regarding HIP performances is I think they're cool, but are ultimately unnecessary. I honestly don't believe that a composer like Vivaldi would have wanted his music to be played on the same instruments it was played on during his lifetime. I understand they're trying to preserve the sound of the music, but how can music move forward into modern times if it relies on period instruments?

[The new erato]

I honestly don't believe that a composer like Vivaldi would have wanted his music to be played on the same instruments it was played on during his lifetime.

Probably not, though if he' had another type of instrument, he also probably would have written a somewhat different type of music.