The Historically Informed Performances (HIP) debate

[prémont]

Agreed but with a major correction: music is first and foremost for being listened to, not for being studied. You --- tellingly --- reverted the natural order of things.

I didn't say that score reading was preferable to performance, only that score reading may replace the musician if one is not at hand. And reading scores is good for getting to know the music.

[Florestan]

I don't feel obliged by how music was listened to hundreds of years ago when our way of listening to day serves the music much better and gives us a much richer experience.

My point exactly. Fuck HIP! 

Schiller (and Kant) are great authors but they haven't witnessed our age and their words can't be used as guidelines for how to listen to music to day under quite other circumstances than then.

My point exactly. Fuck HIP! 

Sorry, my friend, you have just shot yourself in the foot big time! 

[prémont]

My point exactly. Fuck HIP! 

My point exactly. Fuck HIP! 

Sorry, my friend, you have just shot yourself in the foot big time! 

Certainly not. My point is that we are ourselves to decide how to perform and listen to music to day. I prefer period instruments and historically informed performance (called HIP), but we can avoid all the other inconvenient "circumstances" from hundreds of years ago (wigs, candles, insufficiently heated rooms et.c) without spoiling the musical experience. Others may want to listen to music in other ways, and I don't claim that my taste is obligatory for others.

[Florestan]

we can avoid all the other inconvenient "circumstances" from hundreds of years ago (wigs, candles, insufficiently heated rooms et.c) without spoiling the musical experience.

No, we can't. Wigs, candles, insufficiently heated rooms were part and parcel of experiencing music back then and if you pretend that they had no influence at all upon how people experienced music back then, be my guest --- but I firmly think you are delusional.

[prémont]

No, we can't. Wigs, candles, insufficiently heated rooms were part and parcel of experiencing music back then and if you pretend that they had no influence at all upon how people experienced music back then, be my guest --- but I firmly think you are delusional.

I am not an orthodox HIPster in the sense that I want the past reconstructed literally (and in all its horror) and want to experience the music in every detail as it was back then. You know as well as I do that it cannot be done. I decide for myself how I want to use the means at my disposal for music enjoyment. It has also never been a wish of serious HIP supporters to reconstruct the past minutely.

[Florestan]

Heck, the very fact of listening to a recording of Bach's music is so very remote, different and strange to a Bach's contemporary, let alone to Bach himself...

[Florestan]

I am not an orthodox HIPster in the sense that I want the past reconstructed literally (and in all its horror) and want to experience the music in every detail as it was back then. You know as well as I do that it cannot be done. I decide for myself how I want to use the means at my disposal for music enjoyment. It has also never been a wish of serious HIP supporters to reconstruct the past minutely.

I know all that alright. Why then do you oppose the notion that a score is merely a recipe for performance?

[prémont]

I know all that alright. Why then do you oppose the notion that a score is merely a recipe for performance?

I have never opposed this. But  particularly Madiel were more than willing to confuse the discussion and refuse to try to understand what I meant. My point is that most composers at a certain point reach a final version of their score (what I call the definitive version which can't be improved). But he and we know well that no matter how definitive it is, the shortcomings of the notation will open up options for several different interpretations of the score. So the final version is not perfect as to interpretation but only in the sense that the score can't express the composers thoughts in a better way. This is why I used the word definitive and not the word perfect.

So you say that when any composer publishes a score it's never a definitive version of the work. How do you know this.

[Florestan]

I don't use music for entertainment

I use music for nothing else than entertainment.

[prémont]

I use music for nothing else than entertainment.

Well, that's you.

But I refrain from believing that I'm the only one to think that music has got a far larger potential than just to entertain.

[Florestan]

Well, that's you.

Me and the two people who liked my post. At the very least. 

music has got a far larger potential than just to entertain.

What can music do, besides entertaining the audience?

[Spotted Horses]

Me and the two people who liked my post. At the very least. 

What can music do, besides entertaining the audience?

Music can be a way to make a living, it can be a social activity, it can be a vehicle for disseminating one's beliefs, it can be a sort of meditation  with psychological benefits.

[Pohjolas Daughter]

I think that it also can unite people.

PD

[Florestan]

Music can be a way to make a living, it can be a social activity, it can be a vehicle for disseminating one's beliefs, it can be a sort of meditation  with psychological benefits.

Yes, sure, but in all instances the entertainment is either explicit or implicit. 

And just to clarify: by entertainment I don't mean mere aural titillation but the enjoyment of the musicking (is this a word?) as such: what the perfomer(s) play, how they play it and the whole experience of hearing it, be it live or recorded.

[Florestan]

I think that it also can unite people.

PD

Judging by the frequent polemics here on GMG, running from mild to vitriolic, I'd say it rather disunites them. 

[Spotted Horses]

Yes, sure, but in all instances the entertainment is either explicit or implicit. 

And just to clarify: by entertainment I don't mean mere aural titillation but the enjoyment of the musicking (is this a word?) as such: what the perfomer(s) play, how they play it and the whole experience of hearing it, be it live or recorded.

Fine, by that definition everything is entertainment.

[Spotted Horses]

Heck, the very fact of listening to a recording of Bach's music is so very remote, different and strange to a Bach's contemporary, let alone to Bach himself...

It seems like you want to portray the HIP movement as composed of ascetics who think that the only valid way to perform music is to recreate the performance practice of the composer, and that it is somehow illegitimate to perform music any other way. I don't think this has anything to do with the attitudes of most people who perform or listen to HIP performances or recordings.

A pianist in his or her study will sit at his or her piano and experiment, perhaps performing a little faster, a little slower, more legato, more staccato, emphasizing a different melodic line, etc.

Well, musicians can also experiment by using a different instrument. It says oboe on the page, but the oboe I see in the museum looks different. I wonder how that would sound? How do I even play this thing? Here's a textbook about violin playing written in the 18th century. Oooh, I'm supposed to hold the bow like that? Look how flat the bridge is, I bet that makes it easier to play triple stops, I wouldn't have to arpeggiate them. Why is bore on that horn so narrow, oooh, it sounds so strange. Let's get together and play something by Bach. Wow, that sound different, it is so much easier to balance the strings with the winds. Hmm, it says here that Brahms performed his 4th symphony with 10 first violins and a proportionally smaller string section, and he refused when they offered to bring in more players. Hmm, I wonder what it would sound like if we did it that way.

HIP is just another way to find the music in the notation. You can say that modern instruments are technically superior. Fine. Bach might have loved them. But I think he would have written different music for them. He was a practical musician who wrote music to sound well on the instruments he had at his disposal. I find that HIP recordings often bring out an aspect of the music that is lost on a different ensemble. I enjoy HIP/PI recordings and I enjoy recordings on modern instruments. If it sound good it is good. But I often find that HIP performance brings the music to life in a way that modern instruments don't.

[Florestan]

Fine, by that definition everything is entertainment.

Well, I am not entertained by harpishord music. 

Seriously now, let's say that, ideally, everything should be. 

[Florestan]

It seems like you want to portray the HIP movement as composed of ascetics who think that the only valid way to perform music is to recreate the performance practice of the composer, and that it is somehow illegitimate to perform music any other way. I don't think this has anything to do with the attitudes of most people who perform or listen to HIP performances or recordings.

Well, the claim has indeed been made here on GMG, that playing Bach on the piano is an abomination (that is an exact quote) and that the only correct and legitimate way to play it is on harpsichord.

I don't object to HIP per se, only to such totalitarian claims. HIP is just one of the myriad equally valid ways to perform the music.

A pianist in his or her study will sit at his or her piano and experiment, perhaps performing a little faster, a little slower, more legato, more staccato, emphasizing a different melodic line, etc.

Well, musicians can also experiment by using a different instrument. It says oboe on the page, but the oboe I see in the museum looks different. I wonder how that would sound? How do I even play this thing? Here's a textbook about violin playing written in the 18th century. Oooh, I'm supposed to hold the bow like that? Look how flat the bridge is, I bet that makes it easier to play triple stops, I wouldn't have to arpeggiate them. Why is bore on that horn so narrow, oooh, it sounds so strange. Let's get together and play something by Bach. Wow, that sound different, it is so much easier to balance the strings with the winds. Hmm, it says here that Brahms performed his 4th symphony with 10 first violins and a proportionally smaller string section, and he refused when they offered to bring in more players. Hmm, I wonder what it would sound like if we did it that way.

HIP is just another way to find the music in the notation. You can say that modern instruments are technically superior. Fine. Bach might have loved them. But I think he would have written different music for them. He was a practical musician who wrote music to sound well on the instruments he had at his disposal. I find that HIP recordings often bring out an aspect of the music that is lost on a different ensemble.

I disagree with nothing of the above.

I enjoy HIP/PI recordings and I enjoy recordings on modern instruments.

So do I.

If it sound good it is good.

Precisely --- and that takes us back to the entertainment factor.

[Spotted Horses]

Well, the claim has indeed been made here on GMG, that playing Bach on the piano is an abomination (that is an exact quote) and that the only correct and legitimate way to play it is on harpsichord.

I'd like to see that quote.

It's no abomination, but a piano is not a different version of a harpsichord. They have very little in common besides that layout of the keyboard. It seems to me that playing harpsichord music on a piano is a transcription, like playing trumpet music on a clarinet.