The Historically Informed Performances (HIP) debate

[Antoine Marchand]

... Bach was a fairly smart guy...

He was indeed.

[False_Dmitry]

OK, I'm thinking my logic on this is now wrong, but do tell.....How (besides the use or exclusion of period instruments) could you tell what is a HIP vs. non-HIP performance (blind hearing test)?

There's an amusing anecdote about Handel - that comes complete with a small lesson in HIP practice  

Handel was in Venice, enjoying the success of his opera AGRIPPINA.  As a result of the success, he was invited to participate in a concert - the first half would be Handel's music, and in the second half, Corelli himself (at the time, hugely more famous than the young Handel) would play his own concertos.  Handel was sensitive to the difficult situation, so quickly wrote some music in the French style - so that he would not seem to be competing with the legendary Corelli.  But the rehearsal was a disaster - the Leader couldn't understand the French style at all, and played everything wrongly.  Handel - by now in one of his legendary bad moods - grabbed the instrument, and himself demonstrated the bowing, dotting, notes inegales etc that were needed to bring off the music in the French manner.  But after the rehearsal, fearing he had offended the Leader, Handel asked if he would stay to listen to Corelli rehearse?  Handel himself was greatly interested to hear Corelli working with the orchestra.  "Yes, I will stay.  Because you see, Corelli - it's me. I am Corelli."

And in this we can see instantly that merely "playing what is on the page" was enough for its composer, because so much more was required in the interpretation of the stylistic elements of the piece...  even if the performer was the most famous violinist in Italy.

When we find composers like Handel, Bach, Telemann, etc writing "French" suites, it flags-up the need to perform this music with the stylistic instructions which are left by the great French composers and instrumentalists of the period.  Quantz (the famous flautist) makes this very clear, and is even heavy-handedly insistent upon it.

For those who ask about fast tempo, then let me give an example I was playing last week.  In Handel's RINALDO, the Sorceress Armida makes her entry "in a chariot which flies through the air, led by two dragons with fire-breathing mouths".  The tempo-marking is "presto furioso".  Are we supposed to believe that Handel didn't want it very fast after all?      Of course, no-one is suggesting that moving and contemplative music in Bach's Passions or other similar works should be played fast - that would be absurd and wrong.   But allegro means allegro, and not limping along

[jlaurson]

Who are these "musicologists", and on the basis of WHAT exactly do they say Bach's own performances would have been "more reflective" than performances he never heard 250 years later?  Hello?

The only point I could see being plausibly made to that extent is the technical ability of the performers and the material. (For which we need knowledge about original instruments and performance styles.)

[Philoctetes]

"Thus, for example, historicizing presentations - e.g., of music played on old instruments - are not as faithful as they seem. Rather, they are an imitation of an imitation and are thus in danger "of standing at a third remove from the truth" (Plato)."Gadamer

[jochanaan]

...I'd like to know if there is any evidence for the fast tempos of HIP performances being historically accurate. From an esthetic perspective, some of the recent performances of, for example, Bach strike me as excessively light and fast, and don't give the music the proper weight and time to unfold its thoughts and beauties.

As for Bach, his own contemporaries commented on his tendency toward fast tempos.  Regarding other composers, I haven't studied this issue a lot, but I tend to think that Beethoven's notoriously fast metronome markings for his symphonies didn't come from nowhere.

...Alternatively, from a technical rather than esthetic viewpoint, in the 18th century there were instruments more difficult to play and performance standards which may or may not have been lower than today's, depending on which duchy a musician played in...

On the other hand, it was not uncommon for musicians to perform every evening and spend the rest of the day drilling...!

[False_Dmitry]

Alternatively, from a technical rather than esthetic viewpoint, in the 18th century there were instruments more difficult to play.

[Bulldog]

I have just one concern to state. Please forgive me if this has already been addressed, as I don't currently have enough time to read through the whole thread. I'd like to know if there is any evidence for the fast tempos of HIP performances being historically accurate.

People not very familiar with all things HIP or who simply don't care for HIP tend to make the common mistake of thinking that all HIP performers and conductors use extremely fast tempos.  This is not the case.  Take Pinnock, Hogwood, Leonhardt, etc.  These conductors do not use very fast tempos, although there are other conductors who are much quicker.  It's really no different than in performances of, say, early 20th century music - some are slower than the norm, some faster.

Being a keyboard enthusiast, I've found that Bach harpsichord performances come in all shapes, including tempo.  I was listening yesterday to Belder's WTC on Brilliant Classics - he is a relatively quick performer.  However, even in his case, one finds that he's slower in Bk. 2 than Bk. 1, finding the music of Bk. 2 more amenable to a "savoring" flavor.  At the other end, David Cates in his recording of the French Suites on Music & Arts plays quite slowly and uses a constant regimen of rhythmic hesitations and staggering of musical lines; Belder infrequently goes the agogic route.

My point is that there is a great deal of variety of interpretation and expression among HIP performers and conductors.  So to label HIP performers as "all this or that" is just plain wrong.

[False_Dmitry]

I was looking around for some of the "musicologists" who were apparently advising that baroque music - particularly Bach's - had to be played slowly.  All I've found so far was a suggestion for Brandenburg 1,  a road-sign on the BWV-1046 road from Leipzig to Berlin, dating from the early C18th:



I wonder if any further musicological evidence for performing Bach's music very slowly has turned up yet?

[DavidRoss]

And I wonder whether the horn referred to was English or French.... 

[not edward]

People not very familiar with all things HIP or who simply don't care for HIP tend to make the common mistake of thinking that all HIP performers and conductors use extremely fast tempos.  This is not the case.  Take Pinnock, Hogwood, Leonhardt, etc.  These conductors do not use very fast tempos, although there are other conductors who are much quicker.  It's really no different than in performances of, say, early 20th century music - some are slower than the norm, some faster.

This is a very good point. HIP can't be reduced to fast tempi or whatever.

To take a very well-documented case, the fastest Eroica first movement on record is a performance that also uses hard timpani sticks. But this performance was recorded in 1958 by a 67-year-old conductor...not exactly part of the HIP movement.

[Chaszz]

As for Bach, his own contemporaries commented on his tendency toward fast tempos. 

I would love it if you could give us some leads to quotes or references on this.

[Philoctetes]

I would love it if you could give us some leads to quotes or references on this.

Long and boring link about Bach's temp:
http://www.cartage.org.lb/en/themes/arts/music/performance/bach/bachnotation.htm

A video on Bach's Tempi Science:

http://www.articlealley.com/video_212545_33.html

[Chaszz]

I have tried to read through the tempo discussion documents listed, but confess I fell asleep every time I tried. I must therefore trust that somewhere in there is relatively convincing proof that Bach's tempos were fast, because who on this board would prevaricate (now that the Shark is gone)? 

However, for anyone familiar with the allegro Cum Sancto Spiritu from the B Minor Mass, I make the following comment: there is a fleeting second near the very end, in the final trumpet flourish, where Bach wrote two triplets back to back. I grew up in the long ago 50s with a fleshed-out ponderous version by Felix Prohaska and one could hear this little gem of two triplets in all its splendor. In every HIP version I've heard, where this fast movement is played at breakneck speed, this wonderful detail is lost, blurred into the finale and unable to be heard.

[jlaurson]

Maybe just give up on the fortepiano/ Hammerklavier, Jens? 

I shouldn't try to rile the silly people if I don't like their--in the very literal sense--all-too-ignorant responses, I suppose. My fault. But it's astonishing how well it works. A little coy phrase and voila. Who cares that I like the disc. Or even got it in the first place. (Actually purchased it, mind you!)
Take it on faith, if you don't know more about me, that my taste is more catholic than probably any of you kids' and that I am an ardent champion of the harpsichord and fortepiano among the regular, mortal classical music listeners. It may seem only among the strangely strung savantists [a technical term, also not meant to insult] that I am reserved in my enthusiasm about the instrument family... just because I don't embrace everything only because it's played on an old instrument.

Thread Duty:



Blacher Blather*


B. Blacher (1903-1975)
Piano Concerto No.2 op.42
Paganini Variations op.26
Concertino for Orchestra op.10
G.Herzog / H.Kegel / Dresden Phil.
Berlin Classics

I love Blocher, but no more than a bad alliteration.

[Que]

I shouldn't try to rile the silly people if I don't like their--in the very literal sense--all-too-ignorant responses, I suppose. My fault. But it's astonishing how well it works. A little coy phrase and voila. Who cares that I like the disc. Or even got it in the first place. (Actually purchased it, mind you!)
Take it on faith, if you don't know more about me, that my taste is more catholic than probably any of you kids' and that I am an ardent champion of the harpsichord and fortepiano among the regular, mortal classical music listeners. It may seem only among the strangely strung savantists [a technical term, also not meant to insult] that I am reserved in my enthusiasm about the instrument family... just because I don't embrace everything only because it's played on an old instrument.

You can, and must, like or dislike anything you want, Jens.  Why would I argue with your taste? 

It's just that a derogatory comment like "clang-a-dang" and previous comments along the same lines on recordings of fortepianos that sounded perfectly normal and even very fine to me - in the sense that they sound as can be expected of fortepianos - does not quite compute with you being a champion of the fortepiano. The same goes, now I'm on the topic , for your dismissal of many period instrument performances and even the concept of HIP itself and the musical movement behind it.

But again, why would I argue about your views? I just tell you how I see it, so that now we know where we stand.

Q

[jlaurson]

Never wrestle with a pig. You both get dirty... and the pig likes it.*


ah, what the heck. Here we go:

[* Robert Reich]

It's just that a derogatory comment like "clang-a-dang"...

humorless crowd, classical music people.

And you are not arguing with my taste, you are making statements about alleged taste (or biases you perceive) which are mindbogglingly unfounded in fact.

your dismissal... even the concept of HIP itself and the musical movement behind it.

Where did that ignorant morsel come from?

...and previous comments along the same lines on recordings of fortepianos that sounded perfectly normal and even very fine to me - in the sense that they sound as can be expected of fortepianos...

quod erat...

Because we actually "know" what we can expect them to sound like? That's the first mistake: Hubris.

...The same goes, now I'm on the topic , for your dismissal of many period instrument performances and even the concept of HIP itself and the musical movement behind it.

Believe you me, I dismiss many more non-period instrument performances than I dismiss period instrument performances.  Why don't you come out and suggest I'm biased against those, too? Every instance I don't like HIP is "anti-HIP", every instance I am for something that happens to be HIP it's ignored or incidental. Those are the signs of someone who is in for the ideology, not truth or music.

If you bothered at all to read what I write, or cared to not purposely misunderstand what I say, you'd have figured out that I criticize them not because they are HIP (or not), but because they don't meet certain technical, musical, interpretive expectations.

If I dismiss the Quatuor Festetics in the same breadth as I praise the Quatuor Mosaiques I'm not "anti-HIP", I'm anti-bad intonation. I'm not pro-Mosaiques because their being in tune is somehow "closer to non-HIP", just as I don't prefer Braeutigam in Beethoven over Melvin Tan because B's instruments sound  "less HIP" but because they sound more pleasing and Brautigam knows how to play them better.

Let's not even get into Bach where I cherish even performance based on a silly ideology so long as they have musical merit.

[Que]

I'm not getting into the pig anology, I myself like to keep my hands clean, Jens...

Where did that ignorant morsel come from?

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.

Because we actually "know" what we can expect them to sound like? That's the first mistake: Hubris.

Just listen to a lot of fortepianos and you'd know what to generally expect. Turning the expection you happen to like into the way things should sound, isn't very realistic.

Believe you me, I dismiss many more non-period instrument performances than I dismiss period instrument performances.  Why don't you come out and suggest I'm biased against those, too? Every instance I don't like HIP is "anti-HIP", every instance I am for something that happens to be HIP it's ignored or incidental. Those are the signs of someone who is in for the ideology, not truth or music.

I'm not suggested that you're biased, just that there seem to be conflicting messages.

If you bothered at all to read what I write, or cared to not purposely misunderstand what I say, you'd have figured out that I criticize them not because they are HIP (or not), but because they don't meet certain technical, musical, interpretive expectations.

I put to you that your expectations of HIP might not correspond with what it quintessentially offers. That's what it all seems to boil down to, IMO.

Q

[jlaurson]

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

I agree that that essay is--mostly because of the still-missing second part*--more misleading than it was intended to be. But you did get beyond the headline, did you?

...This is not the beginning of an article bashing historically informed performances or its practitioners.  I love them. The interpretive laziness they've put an end to, alone! Thank goodness for the Bach cantatas of Philippe Herreweghe, the Mozart operas of René Jacobs, the Haydn Creation of McCreesh, Adrian Chandler's Vivaldi, Marc Minkowski's Handel, or John Elliot Gardiner's Brahms. It is not their wonderful work that has done any damage per se, but the historicism behind it ...

* Itself an apologia for the Rheinberger/Reger transcription of the Goldberg Variations.

[DavidRoss]

historicism ... happens to go against the very grain of the music it purports to save: It kills off improvisatory interpretation.

FWIW, Jens, I understand your use of "historicism" as akin to Alan's use of "scientism."  And the quote above helps clarify how much "historicism" is at odds with the spirit of HIPsterism. 

Also, the joy you find in good HIP recordings has long been obvious to me.  In fact, our shared taste for Minkowski, Jacobs, Qt Mosaïques, Brautigam, Herreweghe,and many others is one reason I usually find your comments engaging and helpful.  Of course, a srong sense of humor with no propensity to take yourself too seriously helps as well!

However--it looks as if you'd best get cracking on part II of that essay!

Whops!  Thread duty:

[Gurn Blanston]

FWIW, Jens, I understand your use of "historicism" as akin to Alan's use of "scientism."  And the quote above helps clarify how much "historicism" is at odds with the spirit of HIPsterism. 

Also, the joy you find in good HIP recordings has long been obvious to me.  In fact, our shared taste for Minkowski, Jacobs, Qt Mosaïques, Brautigam, Herreweghe,and many others is one reason I usually find your comments engaging and helpful.  Of course, a srong sense of humor with no propensity to take yourself too seriously helps as well!

However--it looks as if you'd best get cracking on part II of that essay!

Whops!  Thread duty:

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.

Now listening to:
Opus X Ensemble / Mattson  Miklos Spanyi (Tangentenflügel) Bach, CPE Wq 26 Concerto in a for Keyboard 2nd mvmt - Andante