The Historically Informed Performances (HIP) debate

[Mahlerian]

Ives is a travesty on piano.

A travesty of...?

[Brian]

Okay, there is clearly a debate raging here...I want to contribute something completely different.

I feel like with some baroque pieces, I develop a "tolerance" for HIP performance practice and then move on to a more radical interpretation. Like when you start drinking alcohol, and then after years of drinking, you need more and stronger booze to get drunk.

The best example is Vivaldi Four Seasons. I started, as a kid, listening to conventional performances by big modern orchestras. Eventually I found a chamber ensemble performance, and then a HIP one - Europa Galante and Fabio Biondi. It felt like a revolution! So transformational.

But now, Europa Galante sounds pedestrian to me, and I keep seeking out faster, bolder, more eccentric versions. Yesterday I found Forma Antiqva and fell in love with their decidedly bizarre, provocative performance - complete with added transitions between each movement.

And yet some day even that might be "normal" to me and I might seek out even weirder. Similarly, I am attracted to increasingly fast and furious Bach Brandenburg Concertos.

Anybody else experience this phenomenon?

[Marc]

Okay, there is clearly a debate raging here...I want to contribute something completely different.

I feel like with some baroque pieces, I develop a "tolerance" for HIP performance practice and then move on to a more radical interpretation. Like when you start drinking alcohol, and then after years of drinking, you need more and stronger booze to get drunk.

The best example is Vivaldi Four Seasons. I started, as a kid, listening to conventional performances by big modern orchestras. Eventually I found a chamber ensemble performance, and then a HIP one - Europa Galante and Fabio Biondi. It felt like a revolution! So transformational.

But now, Europa Galante sounds pedestrian to me, and I keep seeking out faster, bolder, more eccentric versions. Yesterday I found Forma Antiqva and fell in love with their decidedly bizarre, provocative performance - complete with added transitions between each movement.

And yet some day even that might be "normal" to me and I might seek out even weirder. Similarly, I am attracted to increasingly fast and furious Bach Brandenburg Concertos.

Anybody else experience this phenomenon?

Not really.

Maybe it's a midlife crisis?

By the way: the 'ancient' Brandenburg recordings of Musica Antiqua Köln sound still fast and furious enough to me.

[amw]

In respect with dynamic variations, we have direct evidence that the composers could not have made use of them on a harpsichord except in a very limited way --- the instrument itself could not accomodate them. But what evidence do we have, direct or indirect, that the composers did really not want them

You can pretty easily do a crescendo or diminuendo on a violin or a cello, but there are no indications to do so in Bach's cello suites or violin sonatas/partitas. You can also do so with the human voice, but there are no indications to do so in any of Bach's 501923750980381 cantatas.

There may have been conventions about how things were played or sung, which we don't know about, but requiring musicians to use dynamic variations was clearly not something on Bach's mind.

[amw]

I feel like with some baroque pieces, I develop a "tolerance" for HIP performance practice and then move on to a more radical interpretation. Like when you start drinking alcohol, and then after years of drinking, you need more and stronger booze to get drunk.

I'm not sure about this, but definitely as I've listened to a lot of HIP recordings, my ears/brain/pitch have adjusted somewhat and I can now listen to and understand things that I found painfully out of tune for a very long time (e.g. Kuijken Haydn symphonies, L'Archibudelli). Some things still play too much havoc with my sense of pitch (e.g. Scott Ross, Blandine Verlet) but I expect eventually I'll acclimate to them as well.

[Que]

I actually hoped you'd ask. It's Gustav Leonhardt. 

https://www.earlymusicworld.com/gustav-leonhardt-interview

But Bach's music, along with that of other German and Dutch composers like Sweelinck, is very serious and worked out on the highest level. The opposite to that is French music, much of which is lovely, but nearly always superficial. For a long time I found this to be a deterrent, until I realized it had such marvellous qualities of sonority and refinement, although it remains essentially superficial. A truly serious work of art goes beyond qualities we can explain, whether it is Titian, or Bach, or Purcell. But the charm, the control, and the elegance of French music! All the harpsichord pieces sound so beautiful by themselves - you don't have to labour.

OMG... So much for the wisdom of old men....

I guess he remained a Calvinist at heart - if it's not stern, it's superficial....

Q

[Florestan]

I guess he remained a Calvinist at heart - if it's not stern, it's superficial....

An opinion shared by many a non-Calvinist, unfortunately.

[prémont]

I suppose it must have collapsed when the performers realized that even they didn't interpret the works in anything approaching an identical way...

Many of them closed their eyes and kept their opinion for the rest of their life, because their self-respect was at stake.

[Mandryka]

OMG... So much for the wisdom of old men....

I guess he remained a Calvinist at heart - if it's not stern, it's superficial....

Q

He may be right though, I mean I'm not knowingly a Calvinst, but he may just be right. Like, with possibly one exception, there's nothing in French music that I know with the depth of a big Weckman chorale fantasy, a Sweelinck or a Scheidt hymn, let alone a late Bach keyboard  compendium or a passion. The one possible exception is the Titelouze hymns and magnificats.

It's always been a mystery to me why he was so keen on playing French music. He recorded three Forqueray CDs - that's probably more than anyone else! Forqueray! A friend of mine reckons he did it to relax, to kick back after doing the serious work of playing Bach and Bohm and Scheidemann.

[prémont]

I prefer Bach on harpsichord, but also listen to piano. There are great artists who record piano only. Schaffer, Hewitt.
Ives is a travesty on piano.

If you mean Hans Georg Schäfer, I agree that he is exceptional - and on piano. One feature is, that he does not use equal tuning.

[prémont]

Anybody else experience this phenomenon?

No, not at all. I can still enjoy the the Barchet / Münchinger Four seasons and old "slow" recordings of the Brandenburgs e.g. Prohaska.

[Ken B]

"romantic", without further definition, means nothing at all.

As a divorced man, I can tell you this is wrong. 

[Ken B]

If you mean Hans Georg Schäfer, I agree that he is exceptional - and on piano. One feature is, that he does not use equal tuning.

I actually meant Schiff. I usually lose when autocorrect and I have a disagreement.

[Mandryka]

Did you know that Schiff is a keen clavichord player? He says that clavichord technique has really formed his style in the French Suites, which he's convinced is clavichord music primarily. This is from a video on YouTube somewhere.

[prémont]

I actually meant Schiff. I usually lose when autocorrect and I have a disagreement.

So let me use the occasion to recommend Hans Georg Schäfer, WTC available at Amazon.de.

[Florestan]

But Bach's music, along with that of other German and Dutch composers like Sweelinck, is very serious and worked out on the highest level. The opposite to that is French music, much of which is lovely, but nearly always superficial.

Actually this reminds me it's high time to make a confession in all earnest: it's not that I listen to Bach on the piano on a regular basis; truth is, I don't listen to Bach on a regular basis at all, he's my least favorite of the Late Baroque composers. I vastly prefer the Italians and the French (including for sacred music) and of the Germans, Haendel and Telemann, and the first was not much of a German when it comes to music, anyway. I am the exact opposite of Leonhardt in that I firmly believe seriousness and profundity are either hugely overrated or (which basically amounts to the same) defined and appraised in exclusively Northern Germanic, ie Protestant and Calvinist, terms and guises.

There, I said it. Stone me to death.

[Ken B]

So let me use the occasion to recommend Hans Georg Schäfer, WTC available at Amazon.de.

Indeed!

Did you know that Schiff is a keen clavichord player? He says that clavichord technique has really formed his style in the French Suites, which he's convinced is clavichord music primarily. This is from a video on YouTube somewhere.

I did. He says it's impractical for concerts though.

But he's a good example of semi-HIP isn't he, just using a piano.

[Florestan]

But he's a good example of semi-HIP isn't he, just using a piano.

I love his Schubert and Mozart discs played on fortepiano.

[Gurn Blanston]

Actually this reminds me it's high time to make a confession in all earnest: it's not that I listen to Bach on the piano on a regular basis; truth is, I don't listen to Bach on a regular basis at all, he's my least favorite of the Late Baroque composers. I vastly prefer the Italians and the French (including for sacred music) and of the Germans, Haendel and Telemann, and the first was not much of a German when it comes to music, anyway. I am the exact opposite of Leonhardt in that I firmly believe seriousness and profundity are either hugely overrated or (which basically amounts to the same) defined and appraised in exclusively Northern Germanic, ie Protestant and Calvinist, terms and guises.

There, I said it. Stone me to death.

I won't throw the first stone: I could have written that myself. I didn't because I thought that after 15 years here y'all knew that about me already. Except for the French stuff, of course. But if you truly love Austrian music from the 18th century (and I do), you can't be a true believer in German anything, because they are polar opposites. Which should make you wonder at the credibility of anyone who calls music before the 19th century "Austro-German". 

[Mandryka]

Actually this reminds me it's high time to make a confession in all earnest: it's not that I listen to Bach on the piano on a regular basis; truth is, I don't listen to Bach on a regular basis at all, he's my least favorite of the Late Baroque composers. I vastly prefer the Italians and the French (including for sacred music) and of the Germans, Haendel and Telemann, and the first was not much of a German when it comes to music, anyway. I am the exact opposite of Leonhardt in that I firmly believe seriousness and profundity are either hugely overrated or (which basically amounts to the same) defined and appraised in exclusively Northern Germanic, ie Protestant and Calvinist, terms and guises.

There, I said it. Stone me to death.

It's hard for me to say why I feel slightly differently, but it's something like this. What I really like with music is a combination of heart and head -- I like to feel both my intellect and my emotions are being engaged and challenged. I get this less with Francois Couperin, Lully, Rameau and other so called classical French composers, or with Scarlatti, Corelli, Vivaldi and other Italian late baroque composers. 


I get it most with the the ones Leonhardt calls deep.