The validity of authentic performance
Lewis Brown
Having read at length "Which Classical Music Newsgroup? (FAQ)", I am at
something of a loss to decide where to post this message, and, mindful of
that text's strictures, I have restricted myself to the two groups which
seem most appropriate. I dare not hope for a warm reception from
rec.music.early, presumably the haunt of the hardened authentic performer,
and as for rec.music.theory -- I pre-excuse my wandering from your topic,
because the "philosophy of culture", rather more than music-theory, is my
vein. It is even possible that I may be wading in the muddy waters of
political theory. However, I hope you will bear with me. Perhaps by
exchanging views on a matter which some of us may even have discussed at
length before, we may gain some new insights. But let me put aside my
inauthentic-Baroque apology for writing, attempt to moderate my prose style,
and pose my question. (In hindsight, it occurs to me also to excuse the
length and density of my article, which is unusally large for these fora;
but I hope someone, at least, will have the stamina to read through and
reply.)
It can't be denied that there's a preponderence towards the "authentic" (by
which inverted commas I intend no discourtesy) in modern performance
practice, and, musing on that recently, it occurred to me to consider why it
should be so. To put my argument succinctly, there is a wide-spread
assumption that the authentic is necessarily good, and therefore, by
implication, that anything else is bad, and I can't help wanting to
challenge that assumption. I haven't any well-rehearsed arguments to air on
this matter, but I would like to benefit from others' views.
Now, it seems to me that there are (more-or-less) two prongs to any argument
in this direction, one rather less well-conceived than the other. Let me
get the ill-conceived one off my chest first, because my inability to refute
it completely troubles me! Also, I feel it's important in the development
of the second idea. This first goes rather deeply to the heart of the
nature of performance (authentic or otherwise), I feel, and is in danger of
being a matter of faith, or at least of creed. In listening recently to the
fifth sympphony of Mahler, I was reminded that the music apparently
represents "man in the full light of day who has reached the climax of his
life". In a rather gloomy and nihilistic mood, I speculated that there
could be numerous other interpretations, or, perhaps, "allegories", which
might be applied to the music. Therefore, why should the composer's idea of
what the music is about be better than anybody else's? And so, why should
we strive so hard to recreate specifically the composer's intentions?
Moving swiftly onward, I come to what I feel is the better-developed
argument, although it has much in common with the last. Any piece of music
has been created in a particular social, political and cultural context,
which may differ greatly from the context in which we hear it. For example,
can we, living in the
late twentieth century, really claim to understand the music of, say,
Josquin des Pres, who lived in a very different thought-world from ours?
Perhaps not, we could argue (and doubtless for hours, days, weeks), setting
the godless scientific bent of modern thought against the credulous
supernaturalism of the middle ages, but it's always possible to find
something irreconcilable between two world-views. We could equally well
argue that it we can't get inside the mind of Elgar (colonialist-Empirist),
Wagner (pre-war German), Shostakovich (peculiarly oppressed by Stalinism).
Please note that my parenthesised comments are not intended to disparage or
dismiss, but to give a very rough indication of the arguments that could
undoubtledly be advanced. We could equally well argue the same about the
composers of any period not our own (or even our own, but let's not go there
right now).
Well, there we are. As I warned you at the beginning, I have no marvellous
peroration in which I unite the ideas behind the practice of authentic
performance with this idea of inauthenticity, but I would love to hear your
views. And although I would, of course, be delighted to debate at length
the impossibilty of understanding Josquin, his contemporaries and his
predecessors, the merits of describing Elgar as a colonialist-Empirist, and
numerous other such matters, my first concern remains with the
argument-at-large.
Best regards,
Lewis.
Todd Michel McComb
Lewis Brown <le...@intriq.com> wrote:
>I dare not hope for a warm reception from rec.music.early, presumably
>the haunt of the hardened authentic performer
>To put my argument succinctly, there is a wide-spread assumption
>that the authentic is necessarily good, and therefore, by implication,
>that anything else is bad, and I can't help wanting to challenge
>that assumption.
Your view is actually quite typical of those on rec.music.early. I
don't think this assumption is very widely held at all, or at least not
the "implication" part you've suggested, except possibly among rather
naive listeners.
>For example, can we, living in the late twentieth century, really
>claim to understand the music of, say, Josquin des Pres, who lived
>in a very different thought-world from ours?
This is also a typical part of Early Music aesthetic discussion.
Since your statements don't go beyond very simple acknowledgement of
what are actually common areas of discussion in the EM community, there
is really nothing with which to take issue.
Todd McComb
mcc...@medieval.org
Howard Peirce
First off, I'd say the question falls under the rubric "musicology," of which
music theory is a subset. I don't believe there's a rec.music.musicology, so
this seems a relatively safe place. Also, the question of "authenticity" shows
up in other styles of music, particularly jazz (my own chosen area), so I
wouldn't want to limit the discussion to early music.
There seems to be a growing group of us interested in cultural/social/political
issues related to music, and no established forum (either Internet or
otherwise) in which to discuss them. To be sure, you can find cultural
theorists of the Derrida/Foucault/Lacan/Gramsci stripe willing to discuss these
things tangentially, but they often lack the specific musical knowledge to make
their impact of any real musicological significance.
Perhaps academia should establish "cultural musicology" as a discipline,
parallel to music history, ethnomusicology, and music theory.
To be sure, the notion of authenticity is particularly perilous, and I believe
the cultural theorists these days contend simply that it does not exist. In the
case of early music, I would say that after decades of thick, lugubrious
quasi-Romantic treatments of Baroque and pre-Baroque works, the first
"authentic" 20th c. performances were a refreshing treat for the ears, and
helped to open people's minds musically. I think there was a conflation of
"This is good" with "This is right," which, coupled with motivations having
more to do with academic power struggles than music, led to the valuation of
authentic performance practice over contemporary ones. I do think you'd have a
hard time finding anyone (on this ng anyway) arguing that "inauthentic"
performances of early music are in any sense "wrong"; simply that authentic
performance practice often leads to new and exciting musical discoveries.
(Perhaps there is some analogy here to notions of "liberation," of liberating
early music from the "colonizing" practices of late Romanticism and early
Modernism. In some ways, authentic early music practice could be seen as a
post-Modern phenomenon, in that it violates the linear progress model of
Modernism, and allows for multiple musical realities to exist side-by-side. So
"authenticity" in early music practice may be about understanding the past at
all, but about finding *new* ways to hear.)
To speak to my own field, in jazz the authenticity question frequently boils
down to some highly charged racial issues. Particularly, the conflation of
African-American culture with African-American ethnicity leads to the notion
(rarely explicit, but often implied) that "authentic" jazz, as an African
American music, can be played only by people of self-identified African
American ethnicity. It has even been stated that while non-African-Americans
can play music that is identical to jazz in every respect, it is somehow not
jazz. Or, more commonly, that jazz which does not adhere to some recognized
body of African-American cultural heritage is somehow not jazz.
On the other hand, jazz traditionally values originality much more than
imitation, leading many to dismiss out of hand performances that hew too
closely to previous models. So, you have a situation in modern jazz where some
critics charge that jazz that strays too far from African-American tradition is
inauthentic, whereas other critics charge that jazz that resembles the music of
the 1950s and 60s too closely is inauthentic.
I don't know too much about current debate in the early music scene, but in
jazz, the debate over what is "authentic" is at the core of most critical
thought about the music today (it is also at the core of endless flame wars).
So, I certainly think these things should be discussed somewhere, and I'll
discuss it here until I'm asked to leave.
HP
Abram Plum
>
> To speak to my own field, in jazz the authenticity question frequently boils
> down to some highly charged racial issues. Particularly, the conflation of
> African-American culture with African-American ethnicity leads to the notion
> (rarely explicit, but often implied) that "authentic" jazz, as an African
> American music, can be played only by people of self-identified African
> American ethnicity. It has even been stated that while non-African-Americans
> can play music that is identical to jazz in every respect, it is somehow not
> jazz. Or, more commonly, that jazz which does not adhere to some recognized
> body of African-American cultural heritage is somehow not jazz.
>
http://www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/artleisure/jazz-race.html
Abram Plum
-
a...@cts.canberra.edu.au
> fifth sympphony of Mahler, I was reminded that the music apparently
> represents "man in the full light of day who has reached the climax of his
> life". In a rather gloomy and nihilistic mood, I speculated that there
> could be numerous other interpretations, or, perhaps, "allegories", which
> might be applied to the music. Therefore, why should the composer's idea of
> what the music is about be better than anybody else's? And so, why should
> we strive so hard to recreate specifically the composer's intentions?
This is a resurrection of the "intentional fallacy" much discussed in
literary criticism forty or so years ago. According to this, we can actually
never know what the composer's idea of the music actually was or is -- all we
have are the notes on the paper and the sounds they produce. The HIP musician
simply tries to work out what kind of sounds the composer would have
anticipated. At this point we might talk about the vitality of authentic
performance, because what HIP seems invariably to lead to is a rethinking of
how the piece might sound. This works as much for Brahms as for Buxtehude
IMHO. But it still leaves room for Webern's orchestration of the Ricercare a
6 from the Musical Offering, which 'makes it new' in quite a different way!
>
> Moving swiftly onward, I come to what I feel is the better-developed
> argument, although it has much in common with the last. Any piece of music
> has been created in a particular social, political and cultural context,
> which may differ greatly from the context in which we hear it.
Unavoidable indeed. Our ears and our minds are probably tuned very
differently. Our understanding of music is a fusion between the composer's
world -- in all *its* complexity -- and our own.
> For example,
> can we, living in the
> late twentieth century, really claim to understand the music of, say,
> Josquin des Pres, who lived in a very different thought-world from ours?
> Perhaps not, we could argue (and doubtless for hours, days, weeks), setting
> the godless scientific bent of modern thought against the credulous
> supernaturalism of the middle ages,
I think a good dose of Aquinas is needed at this point :-) :-)
> but it's always possible to find
> something irreconcilable between two world-views. We could equally well
> argue that it we can't get inside the mind of Elgar (colonialist-Empirist),
> Wagner (pre-war German), Shostakovich (peculiarly oppressed by Stalinism).
> Please note that my parenthesised comments are not intended to disparage or
> dismiss, but to give a very rough indication of the arguments that could
> undoubtledly be advanced. We could equally well argue the same about the
> composers of any period not our own (or even our own, but let's not go there
> right now).
Lewis, I note your disclaimer, but I'm afraid that the kind of crass
generalisations about colonialism, militarism and medieval Catholicism you
have cited seem to be all too commonly found. And as a means of understanding
Josquin or Wagner or the rhapsodic and melancholy if slightly long-winded
sound-world of Elgar, they are of course perfectly useless. They have the
great advantage avoiding the necessity of critical thought: all you have to
do is look up the composer's lifedates and nationality, then read the correct
answer straight from the chart!
> Well, there we are. As I warned you at the beginning, I have no marvellous
> peroration in which I unite the ideas behind the practice of authentic
> performance with this idea of inauthenticity, but I would love to hear your
> views. And although I would, of course, be delighted to debate at length
> the impossibilty of understanding Josquin, his contemporaries and his
> predecessors, the merits of describing Elgar as a colonialist-Empirist, and
> numerous other such matters, my first concern remains with the
> argument-at-large.
>
> Best regards,
> Lewis.
We have the sounds and that indefinable sense of a whole universe beyond us to
which the sounds seem to lead us. We move in an aural world of different works
with different timbres, different strengths and weaknesses. I keep coming back
to T.S. Eliot's "Tradition and the Individual talent" on this one.
Best wishes from
Andrew Clarke
who still can't sight-read ...
-----------== Posted via Deja News, The Discussion Network ==----------
http://www.dejanews.com/ Search, Read, Discuss, or Start Your Own
M. Schulter
: seem most appropriate. I dare not hope for a warm reception from
: rec.music.early, presumably the haunt of the hardened authentic performer,
Hello, there, and please let me beginning by welcoming you to
rec.music.early, and emphasizing that there is a diversity of views here
about "authenticity" and "historically-informed performance."
First of all, we might distinguish between some related but sometimes
quite separable aspects of "historically-informed" performance: (1) Actual
use of original instruments or close reconstructions; (2) Use of
historical tunings on whatever kind of instruments -- or of vocal
intonations seeking to approach historical models; (3) Familiarity
with the music theory of a given era as it may apply to performance
practices.
As someone who performs medieval and Renaissance music using synthesizer
technology, I can hardly when using this kind of instrumentation satisfy
(1), but I am acutely interested in striving toward (2) and (3). At the
same, recordings and live performances with original instruments set a
kind of standard which I seek to emulate, just as an artist writing
computer programs to draw 3-D objects may seek "photorealism" as an ideal.
It seems to me that "authenticity" can sometimes mean realizing an
interesting _possibility_ raised by the music and the concepts of a given
epoch -- recognizing that it might or might not have been done that way by
some people at the time.
For example, it's not certain whether the kind of 17-note per octave
Pythagorean keyboard described by Prosdocimus and Ugolino in the early
15th century was actually built at the time, or just how a performer might
have made intonational choices using such an instrument.
Reading these theorists, and others cited by a keen modern analyst such as
Mark Lindley, looking over the actual music of the early 15th century, and
doing some practical experimentation, I can formulate some possible
solutions which seem appealing to me and not obviously inconsistent with
my sense of the music and theory. Thus such guidelines, seasoned by
practice, might be "informed" -- but whether they are "authentic" in the
sense of what was actually done somewhere in the early 15th century
remains a matter of guessing.
You raise also matters of philosophical context or worldview as it relates
to musical "authenticity." I'm not sure if the theological and
philosophical kinship I feel with a 15th-century writer such as Bishop
Nicholas of Cusa -- who postulated, among other things, extraterrestrial
life, a heliocentric solar system, and an infinite universe -- necessarily
makes me more or less able to appreciate the musical language and
intentions of the young Dufay, for example.
If you asked me for my own ideal of "authenticity," I might say a universe
of informed explorations of the possibilities of a given musical epoch or
genre.
Having emphasized artistic latitude and tolerance, please let me also
express my indebtedness beyond words not only to the composers and
theorists, but to the modern performers who _have_ sought to use
historical instruments and techniques in as close a reconstruction as
possible. For example, how could those of us using electronic means of
sound generation say, "This registration sounds to me pleasantly like a
regal," if others had not indeed crafted regal organs and made recordings
with them to serve as a standard?
Obviously, singers and players of historical instruments will have other
experiences to contribute and viewpoints to express, whether in concord or
discord with the above, and I would like to express my appreciation both
of your inquiry and of the invaluable forum provided by rec.music.early
for such discussions.
Most respectfully,
Margo Schulter
msch...@value.net
a...@cts.canberra.edu.au
amp...@dave-world.net wrote:
> Howard Peirce wrote:
> >
> > To speak to my own field, in jazz the authenticity question frequently boils
> > down to some highly charged racial issues. Particularly, the conflation of
> > African-American culture with African-American ethnicity leads to the notion
> > (rarely explicit, but often implied) that "authentic" jazz, as an African
> > American music, can be played only by people of self-identified African
> > American ethnicity. It has even been stated that while non-African-Americans
> > can play music that is identical to jazz in every respect, it is somehow not
> > jazz. Or, more commonly, that jazz which does not adhere to some recognized
> > body of African-American cultural heritage is somehow not jazz.
Very similar to the critical line taken in the former DDR that Beethoven
performed in Leipzig was always better than Beethoven played in West Berlin,
because the latter was necessarily bourgeois imperialist Beethoven.
> >
> This article in this Sunday's New York Times seems pertinent to this:
>
> http://www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/artleisure/jazz-race.html
>
> Abram Plum
>
I am 100% in agreement with the tenor of this article, especially with respect
to the Billie Holliday cult.
With respect to HIP performances (no pun intended!) there may be a comparison
with the blues (Delta, Texas or Chicago) which is very difficult for a white
singer to perform. The nuances, inflexions and rhythms of black American
English are all important, especially in a slow blues, and most blues seem to
be a lot slower than their white imitations. So is the "cry" the gut feeling
behind it all:
"Some day
We got ham and bacon,
Next day,
Ain't nothin' shakin',
Ain't nobody's business
What I do"
Give that to Jimmy Witherspoon and you get a very memorable piece of music.
Give it (hypothetically) to Tony Bennett (a fine singer) and you get a
nothing. Give it to Jessye Norman and you get a libel suit :-) :-) :-)
I can try and sing Jospin, I can try and sing Brahms, but I cannot even begin
to sing the blues. Neither IMHO could the Rolling Stones, although I respect
them for going to the Chess studios in Chicago to give it a try. You need the
right voices, the right instruments, the right instruments to make a blues,
just as you do for an Obrecht mass or a baroque opera.
Nor can I get inside the mind of Muddy Waters or Lightening Hopkins or Sleepy
Joe Estes -- their very different worlds meet the world I live in and the
musical experience is an encounter between the two.
Andrew Clarke
Canberra
"You better -- I say you better take it while it's hot, 'cos if this thing
cools down it ain't worth a damn ... " -- Sonny Boy Williamson to his
producer.
matthew...@my-dejanews.com
[snip]
> I dare not hope for a warm reception from
> rec.music.early, presumably the haunt of the hardened authentic performer,
As Todd McComb (one of the mainstays of this group, by the way) pointed out,
there's very little in your post with which most of us on rec.music.early
wouldn't agree. The "authenticity" issue is one lovers of early music had to
deal with some time ago, actually; among other things, it has led to the use
of the acronym HIP (Historically Informed Performance) rather than
"authentic" or even "original".
[snip]
> It can't be denied that there's a preponderence towards the "authentic" (by
> which inverted commas I intend no discourtesy) in modern performance
> practice, and, musing on that recently, it occurred to me to consider why it
> should be so. To put my argument succinctly, there is a wide-spread
> assumption that the authentic is necessarily good, and therefore, by
> implication, that anything else is bad, and I can't help wanting to
> challenge that assumption. I haven't any well-rehearsed arguments to air on
> this matter, but I would like to benefit from others' views.
[snip]
> why should the composer's idea of
> what the music is about be better than anybody else's?
"Better"? This is in the ear of the beholder, surely.
> And so, why should
> we strive so hard to recreate specifically the composer's intentions?
A composer chooses her/his scoring (number and types of instruments and/or
voices) the way a visual artist chooses a medium (e.g., paint on canvas,
clay, bronze, etc.) and color(s). While one may ultimately prefer a Georgia
O'Keeffe desert landscape with a green sky, purple sand and a hot pink
buffalo skull, the colors O'Keeffe actually chose are certainly of interest
(if only to make a more informed choice); she presumably knew what she wanted
to convey in her painting and chose what she felt conveyed it best.
Over the course of the second half of the 20th century, scholars and
musicians have gradually realized that they had not had access to the "media"
and "colors" (i.e., instruments, vocal techniques, tunings, etc.) that
pre-19th- century composers had used for their works. They then set about
trying to master those instruments, techniques, etc. so as to hear and
perform (as far as possible) the sounds the composers intended to convey.
Perhaps an appropriate analogy can be drawn with Michelangelo's frescoes in
the Sistine Chapel: it was finally realized that the frescoes had been
distorted by centuries of dirt, so they were cleaned and restored -- after
which they looked very different. (Even as performances of early and Baroque
music sound very different now from the way they did sixty years ago.)
There are certainly those who prefer the look of the Sistine Chapel frescoes
before they were cleaned and those who prefer, say, Bach performed by a modern
symphony orchestra or Josquin by a 100-voice choir. But it seems instructive
that the audience for early and Baroque music has grown tremendously since the
HIP movement got started.
> Moving swiftly onward, I come to what I feel is the better-developed
> argument, although it has much in common with the last. Any piece of music
> has been created in a particular social, political and cultural context,
> which may differ greatly from the context in which we hear it. For example,
> can we, living in the
> late twentieth century, really claim to understand the music of, say,
> Josquin des Pres, who lived in a very different thought-world from ours?
Of course we can't, as many commentators have pointed out (most notably
Richard Taruskin -- musicologist, Stravinsky biographer and HIP cellist).
[snip]
> We could equally well
> argue that we can't get inside the mind of Elgar (colonialist-Empirist),
> Wagner (pre-war German), Shostakovich (peculiarly oppressed by Stalinism).
Exactly. But the music of Elgar, Wagner, and Shostakovich still has some
meaning for listeners today or they wouldn't pay to listen to it. It can't be
helped (and it may well not matter) that that meaning is necessarily different
from the meaning the music had for the composers and their contemporaries.
The general idea of the HIPsters and their fans is to try to present music
with the medium the composer had in mind and see how we like it. (We usually
do.) If one ultimately prefers Scarlatti sonatas on the marimba or
Shostakovich quartets on saxophones or recorders (or Tallis played by the
Kronos Quartet or Bach on the guitar, for that matter), fine. Just don't
forget to point out that it's an arrangement.
Welcome to rec.music.early!
Matthew Westphal
piper
<howard...@sdrc.com> wrote:
[snip]
>(Perhaps there is some analogy here to notions of "liberation," of liberating
>early music from the "colonizing" practices of late Romanticism and early
>Modernism. In some ways, authentic early music practice could be seen as a
>post-Modern phenomenon, in that it violates the linear progress model of
>Modernism, and allows for multiple musical realities to exist side-by-side. So
>"authenticity" in early music practice may be about understanding the past at
>all, but about finding *new* ways to hear.)
[snip]
Very good. You'd enjoy reading Taruskin's "The Shock of the Old,"
which originally appeared in _The New York Review of Books_, I
believe. I think it's now in the series of Taruskin essays published
in book form by Oxford U. Press.
Michael
piper
wrote:
A rant follows. Sorry, you've touched a raw nerve.
[snip]
>A composer chooses her/his scoring (number and types of instruments and/or
>voices) the way a visual artist chooses a medium (e.g., paint on canvas,
>clay, bronze, etc.) and color(s). While one may ultimately prefer a Georgia
>O'Keeffe desert landscape with a green sky, purple sand and a hot pink
>buffalo skull, the colors O'Keeffe actually chose are certainly of interest
>(if only to make a more informed choice); she presumably knew what she wanted
>to convey in her painting and chose what she felt conveyed it best.
[snip]
The problem with this analogy is that the painter is, if you like,
BOTH the composer AND performer of his/her art AT THE SAME TIME.
And then, a few hundred years later, restorers damage THE ONLY COPY OF
THE WORK, by making it conform to an anachronistic, late 20th-century
notion of what a painting is.
I regret to say that I think your analogy is very inaccurate:
>Perhaps an appropriate analogy can be drawn with Michelangelo's frescoes in
>the Sistine Chapel: it was finally realized that the frescoes had been
>distorted by centuries of dirt, so they were cleaned and restored -- after
>which they looked very different. (Even as performances of early and Baroque
>music sound very different now from the way they did sixty years ago.)
>
>There are certainly those who prefer the look of the Sistine Chapel frescoes
>before they were cleaned and those who prefer, say, Bach performed by a modern
>symphony orchestra or Josquin by a 100-voice choir.
[snip]
No, NO!
I travelled through Italy this summer with my artist father, mother,
and brother. The restorers are NOT PAINTERS, are NOT TRAINED IN
PAINTING, and are IGNORANT of how painters painted in earlier periods
of history. Yes, they know the MEDIA they used, but they don't
understand COMPOSITION. We were so UPSET! So many paintings have been
DESTROYED by these unintentional vandals called "restorers"! My
brother and I went to the Museo Nazionale d'Umbria in Perugia, and saw
paintings that supposedly had been painted by great artists like
Perugino - before they took off so much paint that they, quite
literally, look like bad 20th-century cartoons now. And more famous
museums like the Uffizi are far from immune from the vandalism. They
overclean many paintings so that there are flat areas of overly bright
color which look like some tight realist late 20th-century painting,
but could NOT have represented finished artworks at that time - people
just didn't work that way at the time of Botticelli. And in the
Vatican, my father pointed out that a fresco by Rafaello was
overcleaned to eliminate intermediate changes in tone color - EVEN
THOUGH HIS DRAWINGS FOR THAT FRESCO, WHICH HAVE THOSE SUBTLETIES OF
TONE COLOR CHANGE, ARE IN THE _VERY NEXT ROOM_, FOR ANYONE WHO'S
PAYING ATTENTION TO LOOK AT!
And yes, though the Sistine Chapel is beautiful, some sections are
overcleaned and do not fully make sense volumetrically as figures (my
father says: "anymore", since he also saw it before the cleaning),
because too much paint has been taken off of them.
I could give so many other examples, beginning with the Maesta' by
Simone Martini which was ruined and turned completely flat because of
extreme overcleaning between the first time I was in Siena (1991) and
the second time (1994).
So here's the problem with your analogy (biases and exaggerations, if
any, not apologized for; sorry, you triggered this rant :-):
(1) Musicologists are trained in composition, analysis, and
performance, for the most part, and are often performers or composers
on a professional level in addition to their musicological careers;
art historians VERY RARELY are artists, and usually do NOT know how to
analyse a painting the way an artist who's trained in traditions of
"reading space" does, because that's not part of the normal training
of an art historian. Think about it: Most musicologists have had a
musical training which involves COMPOSING PIECES according to MODELS
of various styles; how many art historians do that? Some, but not
many, I believe. Their focus is on DOCUMENTARY AND CLASSIFICATORY
HISTORY, for the most part, and they tend to know much more about
history than they do about artmaking (in a compositional sense).
(2) Restorers are technicians and know even less about artmaking in
ARTISTIC terms than art historians. They know a lot about techniques,
but little if anything about the ARTISTIC GOALS of the artists, which
would inform their choices of what constitutes "restoration", and what
constitutes A FORM OF THE PAINTING THAT NEVER EXISTED.
"Restorers" of Baroque performance practice are musicologists and
musicians who are trained in music performance and analysis, and have
a good chance of UNDERSTANDING the STRUCTURE and MEANING of the music.
Maybe some of the worst ones are just technicians and use treatises as
crutches to connect the dots, but there's no accounting for lack of
inspiration among well-trained individuals, and the best musicians in
the "Restorationist" movement take a back seat to NO-ONE in their
deep, inspired - even visionary understanding of great works.
(3) When restorers damage an artwork, the only way it can recover is
for other restorers to later attempt to add back paint, varnish, etc.,
using good photographs of the way the work looked before the damage;
when performers "damage" an artwork, its suffering is transient,
because the damage was just ONE VERSION of a performance or recording:
No-one has damaged the autograph manuscript, and that is not the only
artistically valuable copy of the piece, anyway, because the music is
meant to be HEARD by an audience, not (in most cases) VIEWED in
autograph manuscript form by them.
OK, sorry for the rant, but imagine if the only version of the Bach
Christmas Oratorio was a minimalist arrangement with electronic
sounds? Wouldn't you be outraged? That's the same thing the
"restorers" are doing everywhere there's enough money to pay for their
work. They simply don't know enough to do anything vaguely resembling
an "authentic" restoration, in most cases, and for a person like me
who loves so many of the great works which they most tend to restore -
and thus damage - it really burns me up big time.
Now, on the other hand, Harnoncourt, Norrington, Christie, and various
other musical "restorationists" are doing beautiful work - though even
in their cases, I wouldn't want theirs to be the only version. How
FORTUNATE we are that music exists in many versions!
Nothing personal. :-)
Best regards,
Michael
Dr.Matt
speaking, George Gerswhin was a "black" composer and William Grant
Still was a "white" composer, though I have to say the richness of
Wilson's compositions easily transcends any such labels.
--
Matt Fields, DMA http://listen.to/mattaj TwelveToneToyBox http://start.at/tttb
"If they can make penicillin out of moldy bread,
they can sure make something out of you."
-- Muhammad Ali | http://e-scrub.com/cgi-bin/wpoison/wpoison.cgi
Howard Peirce
> Olly Wilson said in a lecture about ten years ago: that practically
> speaking, George Gerswhin was a "black" composer and William Grant
> Still was a "white" composer, though I have to say the richness of
> Wilson's compositions easily transcends any such labels.
Funny you should mention Still, especially since the NYT article represents
Fletcher Henderson as a band that "played waltzes well." I have a 1921 recording
of the Henderson orchestra, doing a very straight "society" dance tune, arranged
by Still, according to the liner notes.
HP
Todd Michel McComb
Howard Peirce <howard...@sdrc.com> wrote:
>There seems to be a growing group of us interested in
>cultural/social/political issues related to music, and no established
>forum (either Internet or otherwise) in which to discuss them.
For the record, I'd be interested in some sort of general aesthetics
group, where obviously music would be my main point of reference.
I think that sort of broader combination might be the best start.
I spend increasingly more of my time writing about aesthetics per
se, and a good discussion forum on the topic is seeming more useful.
Todd McComb
mcc...@medieval.org
Howard Peirce
> With respect to HIP performances (no pun intended!) there may be a comparison
> with the blues (Delta, Texas or Chicago) which is very difficult for a white
> singer to perform. The nuances, inflexions and rhythms of black American
> English are all important, especially in a slow blues, and most blues seem to
> be a lot slower than their white imitations.
I once had this discussion with an African-American man (not that that matters) who
immediately countered with the example of Jimmie Rogers. Does Rogers sound like a
delta bluesman? No. But is his blues any less "authentic"? Of course not. I have
also heard traditional Texas blues performed by African Americans that is vocally
indistinguishable from white performers.
I also think that what we hear depends on what we see. Rex Stewart, the great jazz
cornetist, once said in print that he could tell whether a jazz musician was white
or black just by listening. Leonard Feather challenged him to a "blindfold test,"
and he got every single example wrong. I would respectfully suggest that the
differences you hear between white and black blues performances are powerfully
augmented by your prior knowledge of the race of the performers.
HP
Howard Peirce
> >
> This article in this Sunday's New York Times seems pertinent to this:
>
> http://www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/artleisure/jazz-race.html
[got rid of cross-post to r.m.e]
It's an interesting article; most of it touches on things I'm already familiar
with. A couple of issues: Sudhalter traces the reduction of jazz to blackness to
liberal critics. Actually, it was French critic Hugues Pannassie who really got
the ball rolling on the equation of jazz and blackness. I don't know where his
feelings lay on the French political spectrum, but he was hardly a model of
American leftism. He was an unabashed racist (of the "natural rhythm" variety),
who held that black jazz was an outgrowth of "untutored primitivism," who
regarded musical (or otherwise) education of blacks as unnecessary and
undesirable.
It was John Hammond, a classic American liberal, who first put mixed-race groups
together on stage, signing Teddy Wilson and Lionel Hampton up with Goodman. Along
with George Wein, Leonard Feather, and others writers and promoters of the
American left, he was largely responsible for the integration of jazz.
The article also touched on the nature of jazz vis a vis race in turn of the
century New Orleans. This is a topic that fascinates me. It's useful to remember,
that at that point in time in America, there were dozens if not hundreds of
"races" recognized in the American consciousness. "White" and "colored" were
legal, not racial, categories. When you look at the ethnic breakdown of so-called
black and white musicians in early New Orleans, you find that the greatest number
of "black" musicians were Creole, Haitian, or Mulatto (Armstrong went to Chicago
in part because he was too dark to get the Creole gigs); the greatest number of
"white" musicians were Irish, Sicilian, or mixed-blood Native American. In
America at this time, these were all considered separate "races": "colored"
people who were superior to blacks and undesirable whites. In other words, these
were the populations that stood at the cusp of the color line. You also had in
New Orleans a large population of Hispanics who might lie on either side of the
color line. Manual Perez was one of the greatest trumpeters of New Orleans,
slightly less legendary than Buddy Bolden, who crossed the color line with
impunity, teaching and performing with both black and white musicians with ease.
The point being, that viewing New Orleans in black-and-white is neither
historically informed (nice phrase) nor particularly illuminating.
We now live in an age where growing racial diversity in America is beginning to
erode the harsh Jim Crow dualism of the racial dialogue. With the growing
emergence of such American jazz musicians as Fred Ho (Chinese-American) or Fareed
Haque (Chilean-Pakistani-American [!]), the issue of jazz and race begins to take
on, how shall I put this, a "new irrelevance"--that is, a new _kind_ of
irrelevance that goes beyond "colorblindness," to a recognition of the
significance of race to the history of jazz, while at the same time acknowledging
that race in America today is much more complex, while still at the core of the
American experience.
HP
Michael Low
Dear Lewis and friends,
in my opinion, HIP needs to be sincerely pursued in order to (attempt) to
preserve the artistry and more importantly, the universal spirit that the
composers tried to convey in their music. The historical, cultural or
social contexts help us make the physical connection more tangible and the
music more appreciable. Here are some of my ideas regarding this topic.
MUSIC AS ART
While old music has been exposed to the phenomenon of modern
instrumentation, we need to remind ourselves that music should be
appreciated just as visual arts and literature are. Art is created in a
single moment and is only accountable to the (complex) sentiments that the
artist was attempting to convey at that moment. We may try to recreate
that moment when we play and experience the music. But it is a waste of
time to try to judge whether one piece of music (or art) is better than
another - only that one person may like that performance more than another.
Specific performances can make such big differences in the appreciation of
music.
To draw on an analogy, just as recreating a wartime painting by Emil Nolde
in oil would completely miss the spirit of his work (he used watercolour so
as to escape detection by the Nazis), performers also need to take care
when they play someone else's music. Unlike paintings, much more of the
execution of music is dependent on a mediator - the performer. The
peformer must recognize his/her role in the creative process. While not
all EM pieces were composed as art, passing off a blatantly inaccurate
performance of EM as expressing the artistry of the composer would be
irresponsible.
MUSIC, LITERATURE AND PAINTING
When you consider literature and the visual arts you will also see the
shortcomings of some of our current musical training. Whereas literature
and visual arts training dwell a great deal on learning about past artists
and have preserved direct expressions of their art, with some exceptions
music history is not treated with equal interest in today's musical
training. Much of music training seem to dwell on technical performance
and not composition. This might be compared to the journeyman task of
technical writing and "painting restoration"(or copying) as Michael Piper
mentioned earlier. Unfortunately many musicians genuinely want to do more
than go through the motions of yet another performance of XYZ. However,
without a legitimate avenue of expression, access to historical information
and freedom to improvise (just as early musicians were historically tasked
with), they can only focus on mainly technical elements.
Can you imagine how literature and painting would be today if artists were
only allowed to "improve" on these works on a technical basis? The paradox
of HIP and EM is that while one is forced to learn about the rules in those
times, those rules assume that the performer provide 50% of the creativity
and gives the musician much more freedom to express artistically.
Unfortunately, this is sometimes completely misunderstood by people who
base their judgement of EM on their expreience with music from other
repertoire.
THE NEED TO HAVE A (CLEAN) STARTING POINT
Michael Piper has already remark (what) "if the only version of the Bach
Christmas Oratorio was a minimalist arrangement with electronic
sounds?...". Much effort went into creating the music in the beginning, it
would be a mistake to not even try to preserve this for posterity. If we
do not preserve the original, the music will become unrecognizable and lost
in due course. We already have large volumes of old music that have been
lost due to wars, natural disasters and neglect. When serious musicians
interpret music, they should always start with the cleanest version of the
the composition they intend to interpret. If we lose the ability to even
have an idea of how the original sounded, how can we understand what the
spirit of the music was? At any rate, EM was usually written with minimal
embellishment. That's where you need to start if you want to interpret it
properly rather than to further interpret someone else's interpretation of
someone else's interpretation of...etc.
Whenever we make an argument (or express a sentiment) we should always
focus on the core of the discussion. For music, that core is the orginal
sentiment of the composer. If we are still talking about the same piece of
music then let's not get confused by all the meanderings (good or bad) that
have passed since. I hope this answers your question of whether the
composer's sentiments (intentions) rank better than a performer's - my
answer is that the composer's are not necessarily "better appreciated" (by
listeners) but they are cleaner to start from if you really mean to
interpret the piece. Otherwise, the whole thing becomes a mess to untangle
in time. Remember that we also have a tendency to discover new nuances to
music over time - wouldn't it be a shame if we judge the composer's
sentiments to be "inferior" by mistake, and lost it forever. To err is
human, so let's give ourselves a buffer for error in judgement. And then,
of course, there's the problem with fads. On the whole, if we are to be
prudent we should always preserve the original.
HIP AS A WORTHWHILE ATTEMPT
While it is impossible to be certain that we are accurately reproducing the
music it is essential that at least some of us try. What is important is
that they approach this task in a professional and well-prepared manner.
To not do something simply because we fear we may never be able to affirm
our accuracy strikes me as indefensible and pointless. If all people
maintained this basic attitude we would all still be living in caves. Much
of EM was intended to be played in a number of possible ways, each
according to the practices of the periods and locations. Again, (to answer
your question) what is GOOD is purely based on the enjoyment that such
performances give to any musician and/or listener. However, what is NOBLE
is that we preserve the ability of future generations to continue to enjoy
this music. Each generation of musician learns from their predecessors.
Without accurate preservation there is no hope of allowing future
generations to experience anything (BTW, that's why we write things down
and preserve them - throughout history.). Preservation is not exactly
religion although it's related, it's more of a survival instinct. All
cultures do it in one form or another (but let's not discuss cultural
preservation here).
Now, to answer your question of the futility of trying to get inside the
head of the composer: No, it is not necessary to do so. As performers, we
only need to possess the perspective of a PERFORMER that the composer had
in mind. This means that we only have to emulate the performers that the
composer was knowledgeable of - this may be amateur musicians, court
musicians or the many professional musicians of the day. This latter goal
is within our means to achieve. I might add it helps to understand the
paintings, culture, religion, architecture, history and literature of the
period to gain a better perspective on a piece of music. Does that not
sound much more fun than just listening to some jingle to kill time? For
some it is a question of quality vs. quantity. If music is really
important to you, one way to overcome this is to make some choices and just
focus on certain repertoire and program your experiences to understand them
better. That's what I generally do.
There is a lot of misinformation and established bias that exist naturally
in the musical world. Sometimes (and only sometimes) EM followers need to
be "highly-expressive" if EM ideas are to be heard and flourish.
While I personally prefer to hear the "original" versions, I also feel it
is legitimate to re-interpret this music with other instrumentation so long
as the audience is informed. As Michael Piper says, how FORTUNATE we are
that music exists in many versions!
Cheers,
Michael
--
Toronto, ON Canada [YA-NewsWatcher Mac v.2.4]
To reply or send mail to me, use the address: mtro...@interlog.com
a...@cts.canberra.edu.au
Howard Peirce <howard...@sdrc.com> wrote:
> I would respectfully suggest that the
> differences you hear between white and black blues performances are powerfully
> augmented by your prior knowledge of the race of the performers.
>
> HP
>
Also the commercial reality that 99.999% of the blues recordings available to
me here are by black musicians. To me, Jimmy Rogers is the guy who worked
with Muddy Waters, not "The singing brakeman".
Were there/are there any white Chicago blues singers? As we are getting
increasingly far from early music, an e-mail reply might be in order!
Best wishes,
Andrew Clarke
Andrew C.
piper
Low) wrote:
[snipped]
Very thoughtful and interesting post, Michael!
I will let it stand, except for one detail, on which I think you will
agree with me:
>Now, to answer your question of the futility of trying to get inside the
>head of the composer: No, it is not necessary to do so. As performers, we
>only need to possess the perspective of a PERFORMER that the composer had
>in mind.
[snip]
Except when the composer himself has made clear statements of how to
perform (his) music. For example: C.P.E. Bach, Quantz, Hotteterre. If
you want to know how to ornament Telemann's music, study his
Methodischen Sonaten. If you want to know how to ornament Quantz, look
at the example in his book on flute playing, and his explanation of
it.
There's no guarantee that performers of the time had read treatises by
the composers whose works they were playing, but that doesn't mean
that we - who are NOT contemporaries of them - should NOT read what
the composers have to say about music-making. Applying Quantz's
prescriptions in a performance of music by C.P.E. Bach is perverse,
and vice versa, because the two disagreed on almost everything; but
NOT applying C.P.E. Bach's prescriptions when performing HIS OWN music
is even MORE perverse. If the composer gives you insight into the
correct performance practice for his music, the only thing we should
do is read it, apply it sensibly, and say THANK YOU to the composer
for taking the time to communicate across the centuries.
Michael
fh...@my-dejanews.com
As a student of art history, I do have a problem with your "rant":
how do we know the way painting was done in Botticelli's
day for sure? Anyone alive today attended his workshop? If one
wants to accuse modern restorations of being anachronism or even
vandalism, isn't it better if one knows what exactly was right
in fifteenth century, other than depending on training in some
vague "tradition" whose existence was not clear at all until
200-300 years later? I am not saying that mistakes like over-cleaning
cannot happen: as long as it is not on water-proof surfaces, certain risk
is there when one starts to take things off. But to say that artists
today understand composition in exactly the same sense as they did five
hundred years (or more) ago, I for one am not convinced.
Fang Lin
In article <3691c9df...@news.interport.net>,
-----------== Posted via Deja News, The Discussion Network ==----------
Roland Hutchinson
<howard...@sdrc.com> wrote:
> Perhaps academia should establish "cultural musicology" as a discipline,
> parallel to music history, ethnomusicology, and music theory.
We've done that. Although scholars from all three of the areas you
mention have contributed, I think it's pretty much the case that,
institutionally considered, it is more-or-less a subdiscipline of
historical musicology--i.e. the people who do it in North America can be
counted on with fair certainty to be members or the American Musicological
Society. It is a very productive field at present, and a major component
of (or perhaps, depending on one's ideological slant, coextensive with)
"the new musicology". There has of course been the usual sort of
intradisciplinary squabbling, but by and large musicologists are
pragmatists rather than ideologues (with perhaps some notable
exceptions...), and are willing to test any tool that comes to hand to
shed light on what is, after all, at its core a very mysterious and
hard-to-explain realm of human activity, namely the making of music. I
think it's fair to say that some of the very best work that's been
produced is the stuff that skillfully combines the insights and methods of
both the "old" (fact-oriented) and the "new" (culture-oriented)
musicology. (And of course those categorizations are both hopelessly
crude and--more importantly--not at all as mutually exclusive as they
appear to be at first glance.)
> In some ways, authentic early music practice could be seen as a
> post-Modern phenomenon, in that it violates the linear progress model of
> Modernism, and allows for multiple musical realities to exist side-by-side. So
> "authenticity" in early music practice may be about understanding the past at
> all, but about finding *new* ways to hear.)
You got it in one.
On the other hand, it is (as usual) quite possible to draw the opposite
conclusion from the same observations, as Richard Taruskin quite notably
has done. He argues that the current early-music movement general, and
the "early-music sound" in particular, in fact reflects quitessentialy
modern (not post-modern) aesthetic: it's lean, sparse, clean, and makes an
explicit claim of "progress", presenting itself as a better approach to
the music than the supposedly "romantic" interpretations that it seeks to
displace and render obsolete. Once you have the idea to start looking for
them, it's really easy to cite example after example of current
early-music practices that are demonstrably NOT historical practices, and
usually there is a component of modern-day aesthetics (perhaps mediated by
economics) that seems to account for the difference.
> To speak to my own field, in jazz the authenticity question frequently boils
> down to some highly charged racial issues.
What is interesting to me is that the word "authenticity" seems (at least
on the surface) to have different meanings in different diciplinary
contexts. As has happened before, some of the (many) musical meanings can
be the differentest of all. The meaning of the word when applied to jazz
culture/performance is at least comprehensible to outsiders. In early
music, we seem to have painted ourselves into our own little parochial
semantic corner with this word! (as, indeed, we have even done with the
word "early").
> I don't know too much about current debate in the early music scene, but in
> jazz, the debate over what is "authentic" is at the core of most critical
> thought about the music today
It is commonly asserted in early-music circles that "authentic" is a word
that is most frequently used only as a gimmick to boost record sales.
Most practitioners would claim that even if they knew what the word meant,
"authenticity" isn't something they try to achieve. (This may or may not
have been the case 20 years ago, but it certainly is now.)
> (it is also at the core of endless flame wars).
Yeah, us, too. And not just on r.m.e. (A flame war with footnotes and
bibliography, issued by a major publisher, is still a flame war...)
--
Roland Hutchinson (Will play viola da gamba for food.)
Replies to rolands....@usa.net are heavily filtered to remove spam.
If your reply looks like spam, I may not see it.
Roland Hutchinson
(piper) wrote:
> On Tue, 05 Jan 1999 14:37:31 -0400, mtro...@fakeaddress.com (Michael
> Low) wrote:
...
> > As performers, we
> >only need to possess the perspective of a PERFORMER that the composer had
> >in mind.
> [snip]
>
> Except when the composer himself has made clear statements of how to
> perform (his) music. For example: C.P.E. Bach, Quantz, Hotteterre.
I beg leave to suggest that BOTH of these posters have betrayed themselves
as hopelessly enslaved by modern habits of thought.
The first, by asserting an essential distinction between COMPOSER and PERFORMER.
In the 18th century all competent performers were composers (not
necessarily very good ones, but that's another issue!). If you couldn't
at least crank out a few sonatas for your own instrument, for your own
use, you just would not make the cut... (In some cases, like if you were
King in Prussia or something, you could get away with having someone else
write the bass line...). IMHO, most of the things I hear that I don't
like in early-music performances (including perhaps my own!) wouldn't be
there if the perfromers had had a through training in composition and
written a drawerful of awful music for themselves. Too many of us sound
just like what we are, namely COVER BANDS.
The second poster seems to assume that the composer's view on how the
music ought to be performed are necessarily better than the views of
another competent performer. Perhaps this isn't a modernist fallacy, but
a Romantic one. We've spent most (practically all, at this point) of the
20th century disabusing ourselves of this silly notion, and we all know
much better now. :-)
Of course (getting back to the previous point), the composers knew all
along that performers could teach them things about their own music! (am I
right, Matt?)
Dr.Matt
Orlando di Hutchin <rolands....@usa.net> wrote:
>In article <3692b0a8...@news.interport.net>, pi...@interport.net
>(piper) wrote:
>Of course (getting back to the previous point), the composers knew all
>along that performers could teach them things about their own music! (am I
>right, Matt?)
Yep, as a matter of fact, recently, I recorded pi...@interport.net
playing a dance suite of mine, and he showed me a thing or two about
rhythmic flexibility in my own piece---remove the flexibility and it
doesn't swing!
>--
>Roland Hutchinson (Will play viola da gamba for food.)
Roland Hutchinson
mtro...@fakeaddress.com (Michael Low) wrote:
[A lot of thoughtful stuff in which I can't find anything to take potshots
at, and which I have therefore snipped, then the following:]
> THE NEED TO HAVE A (CLEAN) STARTING POINT
...
> When serious musicians
> interpret music, they should always start with the cleanest version of the
> the composition they intend to interpret.
...
> EM was usually written with minimal
> embellishment.
> That's where you need to start if you want to interpret it
> properly rather than to further interpret someone else's interpretation of
> someone else's interpretation of...etc.
The ideology here seems to boil down to:
1. Musicians should be serious. Music is a serious undertaking and should
never be approached with an attitude of frivolity or disrespect.
2. Editions should be clean. (Except where masters like J. S. Bach wrote
out their embellishments, in which case we make an exception, renounce
cleanliness, and worship the dirt.)
3. One of the things that matters most about a performance is the
"interpretation".
4. One important thing about an interpretation is that is should be
proper, i.e., true to the work of music.
5. Previous traditions of performance don't count. We start with the work
of music itself, which is identical to the score as it left the composer's
hand.
These widely held and extremely seductive ideas were of course all
completely foreign to the thinking of 18th-century musicians.
(And I don't mean to deny that I believe most of them myself, at least in
my heart, even if I've become such a sophisticate that I no longer grant
them unqualified intellectual consent.)
Just trying to be helpful...
--
Roland Hutchinson (Will play viola da gamba for food.)
Replies to rolands....@usa.net are heavily filtered to remove spam.
Dr.Matt
Yoyo Ma's performances of Bach seem to stem from a lack of a sense of dance,
but the worst offenses seem to stem from a lack of a sense of composition.
Michael Low
> On Tue, 05 Jan 1999 14:37:31 -0400, mtro...@fakeaddress.com (Michael
> Low) wrote:
[snip]
>
> >Now, to answer your question of the futility of trying to get inside the
> >head of the composer: No, it is not necessary to do so. As performers, we
> >only need to possess the perspective of a PERFORMER that the composer had
> >in mind.
> [snip]
>
> Except when the composer himself has made clear statements of how to
> perform (his) music. For example: C.P.E. Bach, Quantz, Hotteterre. If
> you want to know how to ornament Telemann's music, study his
> Methodischen Sonaten. If you want to know how to ornament Quantz, look
> at the example in his book on flute playing, and his explanation of
> it.
>
> There's no guarantee that performers of the time had read treatises by
> the composers whose works they were playing, but that doesn't mean
> that we - who are NOT contemporaries of them - should NOT read what
> the composers have to say about music-making. Applying Quantz's
[snip]
I agree absolutely.
I supposed it's part of the "I" in HIP that performers need to pay
attention to. The treatises by the composers are really bonuses - no
mind-reading efforts are required (albeit as "piper" noted, one still needs
to be aware of many differences in style as well as how attentive
performers were to "rules" at the time). However, for many other pieces of
music (earlier than the high Baroque), it was expected that performers
would know the proper performance practices of the time and were able to
select proper instrumentation and embellishments. Thanks for elabortaing
on this point!
Michael Low
<rolands.spamtrap...@207-172-222-10.s67.as2.nwk.erols.com>,
rolands....@usa.net (Roland Hutchinson) wrote:
> In article <3692b0a8...@news.interport.net>, pi...@interport.net
> (piper) wrote:
>
> > On Tue, 05 Jan 1999 14:37:31 -0400, mtro...@fakeaddress.com (Michael
> > Low) wrote:
> ...
> > > As performers, we
> > >only need to possess the perspective of a PERFORMER that the composer had
> > >in mind.
> > [snip]
> >
> > Except when the composer himself has made clear statements of how to
> > perform (his) music. For example: C.P.E. Bach, Quantz, Hotteterre.
>
> I beg leave to suggest that BOTH of these posters have betrayed themselves
> as hopelessly enslaved by modern habits of thought.
Well, this doesn't sound very open-minded. You hardly know us. 8-)
>
> The first, by asserting an essential distinction between COMPOSER and
PERFORMER.
> In the 18th century all competent performers were composers (not
> necessarily very good ones, but that's another issue!). If you couldn't
> at least crank out a few sonatas for your own instrument, for your own
> use, you just would not make the cut... (In some cases, like if you were
> King in Prussia or something, you could get away with having someone else
> write the bass line...). IMHO, most of the things I hear that I don't
> like in early-music performances (including perhaps my own!) wouldn't be
> there if the perfromers had had a through training in composition and
> written a drawerful of awful music for themselves. Too many of us sound
> just like what we are, namely COVER BANDS.
While all EM composers were musicians, not all composers were performers
nor were all performers composers. The issue of interpreting EM music is
of relevance to a performer regardless of he/she is able to compose. The
point is that you don't have to be an EM composer to tastefully perform EM.
However, I agree that knowing how to compose would certainly help a lot.
>
> The second poster seems to assume that the composer's view on how the
> music ought to be performed are necessarily better than the views of
> another competent performer.Perhaps this isn't a modernist fallacy, but
> a Romantic one. We've spent most (practically all, at this point) of the
> 20th century disabusing ourselves of this silly notion, and we all know
> much better now. :-)
Well, I didn't read piper's comment that way. I thought he meant that if
we aim to play a composer's music according to the composer's intentions
then we ought to follow his/her directions if he/she _had_ in fact left
specific instructions on its performance.
OTOH, I plainly recall commenting (as well as piper) that there is nothing
wrong in having many interpretations of EM, including the use of modern
instrumentation (so long as the audience is informed and so long as we are
able to preserve the "original").
>
> Of course (getting back to the previous point), the composers knew all
> along that performers could teach them things about their own music! (am I
> right, Matt?)
I agree with you there. Of course, composers are human too - some of them
probably thought no one should mess with their music.
Michael Low
<rolands.spamtrap...@207-172-222-10.s67.as2.nwk.erols.com>,
rolands....@usa.net (Roland Hutchinson) wrote:
> In article <mtrocomm-ya0240800...@news.interlog.com>,
> mtro...@fakeaddress.com (Michael Low) wrote:
>
> [A lot of thoughtful stuff in which I can't find anything to take potshots
> at, and which I have therefore snipped, then the following:]
>
> > THE NEED TO HAVE A (CLEAN) STARTING POINT
> ...
> > When serious musicians
> > interpret music, they should always start with the cleanest version of the
> > the composition they intend to interpret.
> ...
> > EM was usually written with minimal
> > embellishment.
> > That's where you need to start if you want to interpret it
> > properly rather than to further interpret someone else's interpretation of
> > someone else's interpretation of...etc.
>
> The ideology here seems to boil down to:
>
> 1. Musicians should be serious. Music is a serious undertaking and should
> never be approached with an attitude of frivolity or disrespect.
Nope, I didn't say that. But I did say that _HIP_ (not ALL music in
general) needs to be professionally and thoughtfully executed as was
intended at the time the music was originally composed and played.
As for frivolity, I believe I did say "...it is legitimate to re-interpret
this music with other instrumentation so long as the audience is informed".
So, it's fine to have fun too.
>
> 2. Editions should be clean. (Except where masters like J. S. Bach wrote
> out their embellishments, in which case we make an exception, renounce
> cleanliness, and worship the dirt.)
Don't be silly. By clean, I mean the original manuscript or print or
facsimile of such. If the composer scribbled something on them then all
the better, those comments are gems of information, really part of the
clean copy.
>
> 3. One of the things that matters most about a performance is the
> "interpretation".
Yes.
>
> 4. One important thing about an interpretation is that is should be
> proper, i.e., true to the work of music.
Yes and No. Yes, it should be true to the composer's intent. No, it
doesn't have to be played just one way. I already said "...Much of EM was
intended to be played in a number of possible ways, each according to the
practices of the periods and locations...". EM performance practices can
vary widely and still be valid - just consider the dramatic effects of
applying passaggi and graces.
OTOH, interpretations can also be frivolous so long as it's not pretentious.
>
> 5. Previous traditions of performance don't count. We start with the work
> of music itself, which is identical to the score as it left the composer's
> hand.
No. I said editions and arrangements of the original score should no be
used for HIP. This is not the same as what you are saying here.
In many cases, our printed editions contain embellishments and edits that
reflect the modern practices or ideas. You are really at the mercy of the
editor who transcribed the music. I was merely stating the HIP musicians
should read from the "original". Knowledge of historical musical practices
is crucial in properly interpreting this material.
>
> These widely held and extremely seductive ideas were of course all
> completely foreign to the thinking of 18th-century musicians.
Absoultely, I agree with you.
There was no HIP during the 18th Century. This is probably one reason (out
of several) why early music (as well as many EM instruments) was almost
completely lost to us - from the neglect of EM prevalent during the 18th
and later centuries.
>
> (And I don't mean to deny that I believe most of them myself, at least in
> my heart, even if I've become such a sophisticate that I no longer grant
> them unqualified intellectual consent.)
>
> Just trying to be helpful...
Your views are noted and some are truly informative but you also made a few
leaping assumptions that weren't correct. However, I do agree that this
can be a highly-charged topic.
JLHughes
>On Tue, 05 Jan 1999, matthew...@my-dejanews.com wrote:
>A rant follows. Sorry, you've touched a raw nerve.
>[snip]
>>A composer chooses her/his scoring (number and types of instruments and/or
>>voices) the way a visual artist chooses a medium (e.g., paint on canvas,
>>clay, bronze, etc.) and color(s).
[snip]
>The problem with this analogy is that the painter is, if you like,
>BOTH the composer AND performer of his/her art AT THE SAME TIME.
>And then, a few hundred years later, restorers damage THE ONLY COPY OF
>THE WORK, by making it conform to an anachronistic, late 20th-century
>notion of what a painting is.
>I regret to say that I think your analogy is very inaccurate:
>>Perhaps an appropriate analogy can be drawn with Michelangelo's frescoes in
>>the Sistine Chapel: it was finally realized that the frescoes had been
>>distorted by centuries of dirt, so they were cleaned and restored -- after
>>which they looked very different.
>I travelled through Italy this summer with my artist father, mother,
>and brother. The restorers are NOT PAINTERS, are NOT TRAINED IN
>PAINTING, and are IGNORANT of how painters painted in earlier periods
>of history. Yes, they know the MEDIA they used, but they don't
>understand COMPOSITION. We were so UPSET!
[and much more in the same vein]
>I could give so many other examples, beginning with the Maesta' by
>Simone Martini which was ruined and turned completely flat because of
>extreme overcleaning between the first time I was in Siena (1991) and
>the second time (1994).
So, Michael, you clearly don't like the results of the restorers work,
but are you against ALL restoration/cleaning? I can't see the answer
for the rant (grin).
>So here's the problem with your analogy (biases and exaggerations, if
>any, not apologized for; sorry, you triggered this rant :-):
>
>(1) Musicologists are trained in composition, analysis, and
>performance, for the most part, and are often performers or composers
>on a professional level in addition to their musicological careers;
>art historians VERY RARELY are artists, and usually do NOT know how to
>analyse a painting the way an artist who's trained in traditions of
>"reading space" does, because that's not part of the normal training
>of an art historian. Think about it: Most musicologists have had a
>musical training which involves COMPOSING PIECES according to MODELS
>of various styles; ...
My musicology training didn't require any composition at all. I don't
see it as necessary, and I'll tell you why below...
>...how many art historians do that? Some, but not
>many, I believe. Their focus is on DOCUMENTARY AND CLASSIFICATORY
>HISTORY, for the most part, and they tend to know much more about
>history than they do about artmaking (in a compositional sense).
>(2) Restorers are technicians and know even less about artmaking in
>ARTISTIC terms than art historians. They know a lot about techniques,
>but little if anything about the ARTISTIC GOALS of the artists, which
>would inform their choices of what constitutes "restoration", and what
>constitutes A FORM OF THE PAINTING THAT NEVER EXISTED.
Would you allow the possibility that some restorers (or even A
restorer) might have the knowledge which you so clearly have acquired?
>"Restorers" of Baroque performance practice are musicologists and
>musicians who are trained in music performance and analysis, and have
>a good chance of UNDERSTANDING the STRUCTURE and MEANING of the music.
Why do you assume that? Some of the musicians I've heard performing
(and being paid huge sums of money to do so) clearly have no more than
a superficial understanding of structure/meaning.
[snip]
>(3) When restorers damage an artwork, the only way it can recover is
>for other restorers to later attempt to add back paint, varnish, etc.,
>using good photographs of the way the work looked before the damage;...
At last, a strong argument against cleaning/restoration! One could
argue from this that either a) restoration should be done more
carefully than at present, and only when absolutely necessary. or b)
restoration is de facto to be avoided because it interferes with the
"life" of an artwork.
>...when performers "damage" an artwork, its suffering is transient,
>because the damage was just ONE VERSION of a performance or recording:
>No-one has damaged the autograph manuscript, and that is not the only
>artistically valuable copy of the piece, anyway, because the music is
>meant to be HEARD by an audience, not (in most cases) VIEWED in
>autograph manuscript form by them.
Absolutely agree with you. The artwork in a composition has no
physical form, and so cannot be damaged by anyone's ill-conceived
meddling (or well-intentioned meddling, for that matter). Just as you
can be an informed and erudite viewer of paintings without picking up
a paintbrush, so is it possible that a non-performer/non-composer can
become an informed and erudite listener-to of music (and have
something to say about it, in fact, be a musicologist).
Your rant, entertaining as it was, boiled down to two things for me.
First, you abhor the (low) level of training an art restorer seems to
receive before entering the profession, and the lack of understanding
that seems to carry through with it. Second, you argue that a more
restrictive use of restoration ought to be required, as these are
unique works of art.
Have I misunderstood?
yrs pedRantically
Jeremy
flux aeterna music
Woodbridge.Suffolk.UK
to reply, change 'me' to 'u'.
JLHughes
>Hmmm. Just to throw in a wrench: most of what I really hate about
>Yoyo Ma's performances of Bach seem to stem from a lack of a sense of dance,
>but the worst offenses seem to stem from a lack of a sense of composition.
I applaud his sense of the medium, though. Er, mediocre. Er, median.
Dr.Matt
JLHughes <hu...@empo.me-net.com> wrote:
>On 6 Jan 1999 19:43:10 GMT, fie...@zip.eecs.umich.edu (Dr.Matt) wrote:
>
>>Hmmm. Just to throw in a wrench: most of what I really hate about
>>Yoyo Ma's performances of Bach seem to stem from a lack of a sense of dance,
>>but the worst offenses seem to stem from a lack of a sense of composition.
>
>I applaud his sense of the medium, though. Er, mediocre. Er, median.
Well, yeah, he does always make a cello sound a mile wide.
But m.181 of the prelude of the fifth suite, he adds an unwritten
tonic triad, bringing the phraseology crashing to its feet. If you want
to add more harmony there, a VI chord will do, but please, pouring
tonic there prematurely undercuts the end of the movement...yow!
piper
Hutchinson) wrote:
[snip]
>The second poster seems to assume that the composer's view on how the
>music ought to be performed are necessarily better than the views of
>another competent performer. Perhaps this isn't a modernist fallacy, but
>a Romantic one.
[snip]
And perhaps it's not a fallacy at all! I heard all about the
"intentional fallacy" in graduate school. What that's SUPPOSED to
mean, I think (if it's logical) is that you don't AUTOMATICALLY assume
that an author/composer is telling the truth about him/herself or
his/her work. What is DOESN'T mean is that what the composer says
about what his/her work means and how to perform it is no better than
what anyone else says.
Now, if C.P.E. Bach shows you in his book on the True Art of Keyboard
Playing that if you have a half note tied to an eighth note and there
is an appoggiatura slurred to the half note, it takes the full half
note value of the tied note, and you consistently ignore that because
some other musician said something different or because you just plain
feel like it, you've done something dumb.
Treatises are not road maps which we have to follow through a series
of one-way streets, but when a composer made it clear how he wanted
his music to be played, you'd be a fool to _disregard_ his comments,
or accord them no more weight than anyone else's. Violate them for
artistic reasons if you like, but at least read what he wrote and
think very seriously about it.
> We've spent most (practically all, at this point) of the
>20th century disabusing ourselves of this silly notion, and we all know
>much better now. :-)
YOU do. I _DON'T_! How LUCKY we are that some composers (including
some great ones) left method books for us! You think historical
documents are so unreliable that we should disregard them as if they
didn't exist? Just what IS your position? Quantz was a "competent
musician" and he disagreed with C.P.E. Bach on almost everything. So
should you follow Quantz when playing C.P.E. Bach and vice versa?
Wouldn't you be contrary if you did that?
>Of course (getting back to the previous point), the composers knew all
>along that performers could teach them things about their own music!
[snip]
Sure. And where did I suggest SLAVISH adherence to method books?
I do what I like, but if I see that a composer is trying to emphasize
a particular point in his treatise, I try to do it that way and see if
I learn something. Applying Hotteterre to Bach is dangerous, but
applying it to Hotteterre is RIGHT.
You would rather not learn from the masters?
As for the rest of Baroque musicians being composers, so what? Most of
them left no documents for us to learn from. That being the case, we
are left with the extant method books and such, and our OWN taste and
insight, NOT THE TASTE AND INSIGHT OF PERFORMER/COMPOSERS WHO ARE DEAD
AND LEFT NOTHING WHICH WE CAN LOOK AT TODAY!
Michael
piper
>In article <rolands.spamtrap...@207-172-222-10.s67.as2.nwk.erols.com>,
>Orlando di Hutchin <rolands....@usa.net> wrote:
>>In article <3692b0a8...@news.interport.net>, pi...@interport.net
>>(piper) wrote:
>[nothing from pi...@interport.net quoted here]
>
>>Of course (getting back to the previous point), the composers knew all
>>along that performers could teach them things about their own music! (am I
>>right, Matt?)
>
>Yep, as a matter of fact, recently, I recorded pi...@interport.net
>playing a dance suite of mine, and he showed me a thing or two about
>rhythmic flexibility in my own piece---remove the flexibility and it
>doesn't swing!
Thanks, Matt. :-)
And I, too, have some background in composition, even if I don't do it
much anymore. :-)
Michael
piper
Low) wrote:
[snip]
> for many other pieces of
>music (earlier than the high Baroque), it was expected that performers
>would know the proper performance practices of the time and were able to
>select proper instrumentation and embellishments.
[snip]
Absolutely, and for loads of high Baroque pieces, too. That's why
we're so fortunate that at least SOME great figures took the time to
write down their thoughts for those who they couldn't talk to in
rehearsal.
Margaret: Wouldn't it be nice to have more treatises by writers of
plain chant explaining in detail what meter should be used for the
chant, and such-like? I mean, if I'm not mistaken (I could be), I
think there's still controversy about whether Gregorian Chant should
be sung in a clear meter (e.g. triple) with notes of proportionally
different lengths or not.
Michael
Roland Hutchinson
mtro...@fakeaddress.com (Michael Low) wrote:
> In article
> <rolands.spamtrap...@207-172-222-10.s67.as2.nwk.erols.com>,
> rolands....@usa.net (Roland Hutchinson) wrote:
...
> > I beg leave to suggest that BOTH of these posters have betrayed themselves
> > as hopelessly enslaved by modern habits of thought.
>
> Well, this doesn't sound very open-minded. You hardly know us. 8-)
That's precisely why I minded my nettiquite and asked permission to flame you.
> > In the 18th century all competent performers were composers
> While all EM composers were musicians, not all composers were performers
> nor were all performers composers.
Okay, maybe--JUST MAYBE--I exaggerated a little bit.
But I wonder, how much?
How many first-rate 18th century (or earlier) performers can you name who
didn't compose at least a little bit?
Okay, let's be fair: how many second- and third-rate ones can you name who
didn't compose at all?
How many composers can you name who were not performers in any way?
(And to make this really fair, if I can think of any names that fit these
categories myself, I'll post them when I think of them.)
> The issue of interpreting EM music is
> of relevance to a performer regardless of he/she is able to compose.
Most performers who don't compose "can't" compose because they have never
even thought to try. Their training doesn't encourage them to do anything
beyond exercises in two or at most three years of harmony and counterpoint
classes. Been there. Took those classes. Didn't set pen to paper again
(except as a copyist) for ten years afterwards.
> The
> point is that you don't have to be an EM composer to tastefully perform EM.
> However, I agree that knowing how to compose would certainly help a lot.
It will go along way even if a performer just starts to think about doing
it, e.g. framing the question of working out an elaborate ornamentation as
"gee, if I were composing this sonata what would I have write here (with
this bass)?"
> > The second poster seems to assume that the composer's view on how the
> > music ought to be performed are necessarily better than the views of
> > another competent performer.
>
> Well, I didn't read piper's comment that way. I thought he meant that if
> we aim to play a composer's music according to the composer's intentions
> then we ought to follow his/her directions if he/she _had_ in fact left
> specific instructions on its performance.
Well, I admit that that logic is unassailable!
But we should also bear in mind that composers change their mind about
things from day to day, month to month, and year to year. Just 'cause
someone wrote a book doesn't mean everything in the book applies with
equal force to music written twenty years earlier or twenty years
afterwards! The case where a composer has left specific instructions
about a particular piece (other than what appears in the score, natch')
is, for better or for worse, exceedingly rare.
Thanks for your thoughts!
piper
wrote:
>On Tue, 05 Jan 1999, pi...@interport.net (piper) wrote:
>So, Michael, you clearly don't like the results of the restorers work,
>but are you against ALL restoration/cleaning? I can't see the answer
>for the rant (grin).
:-)
Well, at present, I'd much rather that restoration be done only in
cases of flood damage and other severe physical destruction, but
that's only because of my very low opinion of the current state of
painting restoration. I am not against restoration; I just wish that
really was what they were doing.
[snip]
>My musicology training didn't require any composition at all. I don't
>see it as necessary, and I'll tell you why below...
And you did tell me why, but the fact remains that if you went to
school for musicology, you DID have training in composition. At the
very least, you probably had to write some fugues and other
contrapuntal works, in addition to doing exercises which though not
compositional were exercises in composition - such as adding
accompaniments to melodies, writing voice leading above a figures bass
and so on. Necessary or not, this training (if you had it) cannot help
but inform your understanding of music in some way. It helps to have
seen the process from the inside.
>Would you allow the possibility that some restorers (or even A
>restorer) might have the knowledge which you so clearly have acquired?
No, it's impossible. :-)
Seriously, sure, I hope that SOMEWHERE, SOMEONE who's involved with
restoration DOES have this knowledge.
By the way, I can SEE what's wrong with a lot of the restoration, but
I certainly DON'T know enough to supervise restorers (even if I
learned more about technical matters relating to media). I'd be
terrified! I'm not an painter, and though I've had a good informal
training in art from my artist father, and through my viewing of art
and readings, I simply don't think that my knowledge is sufficient for
me to be a trustworthy restorer.
>
>>"Restorers" of Baroque performance practice are musicologists and
>>musicians who are trained in music performance and analysis, and have
>>a good chance of UNDERSTANDING the STRUCTURE and MEANING of the music.
>
>Why do you assume that?
Assume what? Notice the expression "have a good chance" in the excerpt
above.
> Some of the musicians I've heard performing
>(and being paid huge sums of money to do so) clearly have no more than
>a superficial understanding of structure/meaning.
I agree, but don't you agree that if you're taught those things,
you're more likely to internalize them than if you're NOT taught them?
>[snip]
>
>>(3) When restorers damage an artwork, the only way it can recover is
>>for other restorers to later attempt to add back paint, varnish, etc.,
>>using good photographs of the way the work looked before the damage;...
>
>At last, a strong argument against cleaning/restoration! One could
>argue from this that either a) restoration should be done more
>carefully than at present, and only when absolutely necessary. or b)
>restoration is de facto to be avoided because it interferes with the
>"life" of an artwork.
I vote for (a)
>>...when performers "damage" an artwork, its suffering is transient,
>>because the damage was just ONE VERSION of a performance or recording:
>>No-one has damaged the autograph manuscript, and that is not the only
>>artistically valuable copy of the piece, anyway, because the music is
>>meant to be HEARD by an audience, not (in most cases) VIEWED in
>>autograph manuscript form by them.
>
>Absolutely agree with you. The artwork in a composition has no
>physical form, and so cannot be damaged by anyone's ill-conceived
>meddling (or well-intentioned meddling, for that matter). Just as you
>can be an informed and erudite viewer of paintings without picking up
>a paintbrush, so is it possible that a non-performer/non-composer can
>become an informed and erudite listener-to of music (and have
>something to say about it, in fact, be a musicologist).
I agree. Nevertheless, my statements about the musical training of
most musicologists - and lack of artistic training of most art
historians (let alone restorers) - stand.
>Your rant, entertaining as it was, boiled down to two things for me.
>First, you abhor the (low) level of training an art restorer seems to
>receive before entering the profession, and the lack of understanding
>that seems to carry through with it. Second, you argue that a more
>restrictive use of restoration ought to be required, as these are
>unique works of art.
>
>Have I misunderstood?
No, you've understood my points exactly.
Thanks for indulging me. :-)
Michael
>
>yrs pedRantically
hahaha
>Jeremy
piper
>Hmmm. Just to throw in a wrench: most of what I really hate about
>Yoyo Ma's performances of Bach seem to stem from a lack of a sense of dance,
>but the worst offenses seem to stem from a lack of a sense of composition.
I can't hear the problem, Matt. I love Yoyo Ma, including his Bach
performances. :-)
Michael
piper
>Apologies to all who find this irrelevant to early music.
>
>As a student of art history, I do have a problem with your "rant":
>how do we know the way painting was done in Botticelli's
>day for sure?
It's not just a question of how it was "done". It's a question of what
made sense in a composition. They didn't paint flat paintings without
volume in those days; certainly, great or even good artists didn't.
We may not know exactly how Bach composed, but we know that he didn't
write atonal music, didn't use drum machines, and didn't use tubas in
his orchestras. My objections are much more basic than an
understanding of the PROCESS. It's the GOAL of the artist(s), RESULT
they attained, and LIMITS OF ACCEPTABILITY IN A STYLE that need to be
understood better in order to prevent absurd things from being done by
restorers. Is it hard to really know all this with certainty? YOU BET
YOUR BUNS IT IS! All the more reason for restorers to be very cautious
and conservative, rather than overzealous and destructive.
> Anyone alive today attended his workshop? If one
>wants to accuse modern restorations of being anachronism or even
>vandalism, isn't it better if one knows what exactly was right
>in fifteenth century, other than depending on training in some
>vague "tradition" whose existence was not clear at all until
>200-300 years later?
Do you want to base your "restorations" on understanding of techniques
only, or are you also interested in understanding the content and
intent of the artist? If you want to understand someone's paintings,
study his drawings. You don't need to depend on a modern artist to do
that. Why aren't the restorers and their supervisors doing that? I've
seen clear instances where they weren't.
> I am not saying that mistakes like over-cleaning
>cannot happen: as long as it is not on water-proof surfaces, certain risk
>is there when one starts to take things off. But to say that artists
>today understand composition in exactly the same sense as they did five
>hundred years (or more) ago, I for one am not convinced.
I didn't say that. I _did_ say that understanding composition is
vital. Artists who are well-trained (and many are not, nowadays) have
to take a course in Models. If you took such a course, you might have
learned how to paint in the style of, say Coptic, Pompeian,
Romanesque, Gothic, Renaissance, Mannerist, Baroque, Neo-Classic,
Romantic, Impressionist, Cubist, Expressionist (etc.) art. If you
_DID_ that, you probably understand things about those styles of art
that you could not have understood otherwise.
I can tell you that I gained a degree of not only understanding but
additional appreciation for late Baroque music composition through
writing a suite for solo keyboard in homage to Bach, Handel and
Telemann. I have also written things like a ragtime a la Scott Joplin
and an Arabesque a la Debussy. It's hard to do these things, but if
you do them well, you do get some insight into those masters' process
of composition.
Do you disagree?
And do you disagree that, when in doubt, restorers should LAY OFF
whenever possible?
Regards,
Michael
piper
Hutchinson) wrote:
>In article <mtrocomm-ya0240800...@news.interlog.com>,
>mtro...@fakeaddress.com (Michael Low) wrote:
>> Well, I didn't read piper's comment that way. I thought he meant that if
>> we aim to play a composer's music according to the composer's intentions
>> then we ought to follow his/her directions if he/she _had_ in fact left
>> specific instructions on its performance.
>
>Well, I admit that that logic is unassailable!
Thank you.
>But we should also bear in mind that composers change their mind about
>things from day to day, month to month, and year to year. Just 'cause
>someone wrote a book doesn't mean everything in the book applies with
>equal force to music written twenty years earlier or twenty years
>afterwards!
That's true, and it's a fair point.
> The case where a composer has left specific instructions
>about a particular piece (other than what appears in the score, natch')
>is, for better or for worse, exceedingly rare.
True.
>Thanks for your thoughts!
Thanks for YOURS.
Michael
A440A
>I can tell you that I gained a degree of not only understanding but
additional appreciation for late Baroque music composition through
writing a suite for solo keyboard in homage to Bach, Handel and
Telemann. <<
Very interesting. May I ask what temperament you were using?
Regards,
Ed Foote
Precision Piano Works
Nashville, Tenn. USA
http://www.uk-piano.org/edfoote/index.html
Dr.Matt
piper <pi...@interport.net> wrote:
>On 6 Jan 1999 17:48:27 GMT, fie...@zip.eecs.umich.edu (Dr.Matt) wrote:
>
>>In article <rolands.spamtrap...@207-172-222-10.s67.as2.nwk.erols.com>,
>>>In article <3692b0a8...@news.interport.net>, pi...@interport.net
>>>(piper) wrote:
>>[nothing from pi...@interport.net quoted here]
>>
>>>Of course (getting back to the previous point), the composers knew all
>>>along that performers could teach them things about their own music! (am I
>>>right, Matt?)
>>
>>Yep, as a matter of fact, recently, I recorded pi...@interport.net
>>playing a dance suite of mine, and he showed me a thing or two about
>>rhythmic flexibility in my own piece---remove the flexibility and it
>>doesn't swing!
>
>Thanks, Matt. :-)
>
>And I, too, have some background in composition, even if I don't do it
>much anymore. :-)
>
>Michael
But I should add that I've also heard Roland play gamba (last time was 11
years ago, whew!), and he brings flexibility as well as virtuosity to that.
Michael Low
<rolands.spamtrap...@207-172-202-133.s6.as3.nwk.erols.com>,
rolands....@usa.net (Roland Hutchinson) wrote:
> In article <mtrocomm-ya0240800...@news.interlog.com>,
> mtro...@fakeaddress.com (Michael Low) wrote:
>
> > In article
> > <rolands.spamtrap...@207-172-222-10.s67.as2.nwk.erols.com>,
> > rolands....@usa.net (Roland Hutchinson) wrote:
> ...
> > > I beg leave to suggest that BOTH of these posters have betrayed themselves
> > > as hopelessly enslaved by modern habits of thought.
> >
> > Well, this doesn't sound very open-minded. You hardly know us. 8-)
>
> That's precisely why I minded my nettiquite and asked permission to flame you.
Well, I'm not interested in flaming so let's not go there.
>
> > > In the 18th century all competent performers were composers
>
> > While all EM composers were musicians, not all composers were performers
> > nor were all performers composers.
>
> Okay, maybe--JUST MAYBE--I exaggerated a little bit.
>
> But I wonder, how much?
>
> How many first-rate 18th century (or earlier) performers can you name who
> didn't compose at least a little bit?
>
I agree that first-rate performers would understand something about good
compositions. I have implied this in my earlier postings. However, that
was not my point. I meant to say that EM performers should understand how
to improvise and embellish EM but most would not call themselves composers.
> Okay, let's be fair: how many second- and third-rate ones can you name who
> didn't compose at all?
>
> How many composers can you name who were not performers in any way?
>
> (And to make this really fair, if I can think of any names that fit these
> categories myself, I'll post them when I think of them.)
>
I think the issue of composers performing is of interest whenever a
composer composes for instrumentation/voices that he/she does not perform
on. But I will resist the temptation to discuss further on this point.
>
> Most performers who don't compose "can't" compose because they have never
> even thought to try. Their training doesn't encourage them to do anything
> beyond exercises in two or at most three years of harmony and counterpoint
> classes. Been there. Took those classes. Didn't set pen to paper again
> (except as a copyist) for ten years afterwards.
OK, if that's your opinion.
>
> It will go along way even if a performer just starts to think about doing
> it, e.g. framing the question of working out an elaborate ornamentation as
> "gee, if I were composing this sonata what would I have write here (with
> this bass)?"
>
Yes, that's it.
>
> Well, I admit that that logic is unassailable!
>
> But we should also bear in mind that composers change their mind about
> things from day to day, month to month, and year to year. Just 'cause
> someone wrote a book doesn't mean everything in the book applies with
> equal force to music written twenty years earlier or twenty years
> afterwards! The case where a composer has left specific instructions
> about a particular piece (other than what appears in the score, natch')
> is, for better or for worse, exceedingly rare.
People can change their minds but I do think it's not a bad idea to apply a
composer's view on performing a sample of his/her work. Most EM
publications short of the scribblings you mention on some manuscripts do
not contain performance directions from the composers.
fh...@my-dejanews.com
I understand this as a matter of exercising judgments and taste.
Ditto for the results one may get from studying the drawings. Now,
when one says that one has learned to write music in the style of
Bach and Joplin, who's there to say it's truthfully done? Bach or
Joplin? Botticelli may not have painted in an entirely flat style,
but he may not have painted as roundly as some in posterity think
he did. If you were the restorer, you bet some audience would
think you had not done enough cleaning.
Fang Lin
ps. Nowadays art historian don't just use their eyes and brains in
working through their materials; they use hands and make transcriptions
whenever necessary. The medium may not be authentic (we don't use tempera)
but the "concetto" comes through somewhat in the process.
In article <369450a3...@news.interport.net>,
pi...@interport.net (piper) wrote:
> On Wed, 06 Jan 1999 16:42:39 GMT, fh...@my-dejanews.com wrote:
>
> >Apologies to all who find this irrelevant to early music.
> >
> >As a student of art history, I do have a problem with your "rant":
> >how do we know the way painting was done in Botticelli's
> >day for sure?
>
> It's not just a question of how it was "done". It's a question of what
> made sense in a composition. They didn't paint flat paintings without
> volume in those days; certainly, great or even good artists didn't.
>
> We may not know exactly how Bach composed, but we know that he didn't
> write atonal music, didn't use drum machines, and didn't use tubas in
> his orchestras. My objections are much more basic than an
> understanding of the PROCESS. It's the GOAL of the artist(s), RESULT
> they attained, and LIMITS OF ACCEPTABILITY IN A STYLE that need to be
> understood better in order to prevent absurd things from being done by
> restorers. Is it hard to really know all this with certainty? YOU BET
> YOUR BUNS IT IS! All the more reason for restorers to be very cautious
> and conservative, rather than overzealous and destructive.
>
> > Anyone alive today attended his workshop? If one
> >wants to accuse modern restorations of being anachronism or even
> >vandalism, isn't it better if one knows what exactly was right
> >in fifteenth century, other than depending on training in some
> >vague "tradition" whose existence was not clear at all until
> >200-300 years later?
>
> Do you want to base your "restorations" on understanding of techniques
> only, or are you also interested in understanding the content and
> intent of the artist? If you want to understand someone's paintings,
> study his drawings. You don't need to depend on a modern artist to do
> that. Why aren't the restorers and their supervisors doing that? I've
> seen clear instances where they weren't.
>
> > I am not saying that mistakes like over-cleaning
> >cannot happen: as long as it is not on water-proof surfaces, certain risk
> >is there when one starts to take things off. But to say that artists
> >today understand composition in exactly the same sense as they did five
> >hundred years (or more) ago, I for one am not convinced.
>
> I didn't say that. I _did_ say that understanding composition is
> vital. Artists who are well-trained (and many are not, nowadays) have
> to take a course in Models. If you took such a course, you might have
> learned how to paint in the style of, say Coptic, Pompeian,
> Romanesque, Gothic, Renaissance, Mannerist, Baroque, Neo-Classic,
> Romantic, Impressionist, Cubist, Expressionist (etc.) art. If you
> _DID_ that, you probably understand things about those styles of art
> that you could not have understood otherwise.
>
> I can tell you that I gained a degree of not only understanding but
> additional appreciation for late Baroque music composition through
> writing a suite for solo keyboard in homage to Bach, Handel and
> Telemann. I have also written things like a ragtime a la Scott Joplin
> and an Arabesque a la Debussy. It's hard to do these things, but if
> you do them well, you do get some insight into those masters' process
> of composition.
>
> Do you disagree?
>
> And do you disagree that, when in doubt, restorers should LAY OFF
> whenever possible?
>
> Regards,
>
fh...@midway.uchicago.edu
>
> It's not just a question of how it was "done". It's a question of what
> made sense in a composition. They didn't paint flat paintings without
> volume in those days; certainly, great or even good artists didn't.
One additional point: Artists using pattern books was not such an unusual
phenomenon in Renaissance, and modelling was certainly not as
common or necessary as some would think in the studio practices back then.
Copying was important even in matters like giving volume to drawn figures.
>
> We may not know exactly how Bach composed, but we know that he didn't
> write atonal music, didn't use drum machines, and didn't use tubas in
> his orchestras. My objections are much more basic than an
> understanding of the PROCESS. It's the GOAL of the artist(s), RESULT
> they attained, and LIMITS OF ACCEPTABILITY IN A STYLE that need to be
> understood better in order to prevent absurd things from being done by
> restorers. Is it hard to really know all this with certainty? YOU BET
> YOUR BUNS IT IS! All the more reason for restorers to be very cautious
> and conservative, rather than overzealous and destructive.
>
YOU BET YOUR BUNS such things are essentially unknowable; relative lack
of volume is NOT unique to the style of twentieth century only. What if
Botticelli painted in a style that was more Gothic than you thought?
If your sense of the authentic style cannot be so authentic, who is so
righteous as to accuse the overzealots and destructors of sin?
> > Anyone alive today attended his workshop? If one
> >wants to accuse modern restorations of being anachronism or even
> >vandalism, isn't it better if one knows what exactly was right
> >in fifteenth century, other than depending on training in some
> >vague "tradition" whose existence was not clear at all until
> >200-300 years later?
>
> Do you want to base your "restorations" on understanding of techniques
> only, or are you also interested in understanding the content and
> intent of the artist? If you want to understand someone's paintings,
> study his drawings. You don't need to depend on a modern artist to do
> that. Why aren't the restorers and their supervisors doing that? I've
> seen clear instances where they weren't.
>
> > I am not saying that mistakes like over-cleaning
> >cannot happen: as long as it is not on water-proof surfaces, certain risk
> >is there when one starts to take things off. But to say that artists
> >today understand composition in exactly the same sense as they did five
> >hundred years (or more) ago, I for one am not convinced.
>
> I didn't say that. I _did_ say that understanding composition is
> vital. Artists who are well-trained (and many are not, nowadays) have
> to take a course in Models. If you took such a course, you might have
> learned how to paint in the style of, say Coptic, Pompeian,
> Romanesque, Gothic, Renaissance, Mannerist, Baroque, Neo-Classic,
> Romantic, Impressionist, Cubist, Expressionist (etc.) art. If you
> _DID_ that, you probably understand things about those styles of art
> that you could not have understood otherwise.
>
> I can tell you that I gained a degree of not only understanding but
> additional appreciation for late Baroque music composition through
> writing a suite for solo keyboard in homage to Bach, Handel and
> Telemann. I have also written things like a ragtime a la Scott Joplin
> and an Arabesque a la Debussy. It's hard to do these things, but if
> you do them well, you do get some insight into those masters' process
> of composition.
>
> Do you disagree?
>
> And do you disagree that, when in doubt, restorers should LAY OFF
> whenever possible?
>
> Regards,
>
Rosie Salas
wrote:
>Perhaps an appropriate analogy can be drawn with Michelangelo's frescoes in
>the Sistine Chapel: it was finally realized that the frescoes had been
>distorted by centuries of dirt, so they were cleaned and restored -- after
>which they looked very different. (Even as performances of early and Baroque
>music sound very different now from the way they did sixty years ago.)
>
Hi there
The above is exactl the reason my baroque group is called
"Restoration".
The closest I can claim to finding affinity with a listener from an
earlier era was after a year's total immersion in preclassical (even
mostly pre-baroque) music. This was a year of study at the old
London Early Music Centre, when i listened to nothing else, sang
nothing else, and talked about nothing else - except a blowout on
Verdi, once (practising!) and a wonderful concert of Irsih folk music.
When I heard a piece of Mozart for the first time after this time, I
had a completely different appreciation - it sounded so *modern*! It
was a real pardigm shift, as they say, and gave a completely different
insight into the sound world of the classical era and beyond. That
was valuable - but with it also cam the realisation that a twentieth
century listener can never apprecitate fully the soundworld of a
previous time. we can only ever approximate it, thus to call it an
"authentic" performance is inaccurate. "Authentic" to me means
somethingabout integrity of the performer's intention - to realise the
composer's intention of moving the listener, if you like. Not
actually directly to do with what I call period performance (HIP), but
I believe that a reasonable performance on baroque strings of Handel
concerti grossi far surpasses one on modern strings - because the
instruments bowing styles realise the brightness and lively
articulation of Handel's music far better than a modern rendition.
However a wonderful 'nonauthentic' performance may easily surpass an
indifferent one on period instruments. eg the old Dietrich
Fischer-Dieskau/ Karl Richter recording of Bach BWV 82 - i also love
David Thomas's version, but the hard to beat.
I will always argue for informed performance, of anything, but I will
also always argue that the involvement of the performer at great
depth both emotionally and spiritually is paramount. In my own
performing experience, the former often aids the latter - the more I
know about the music and its context, the greater the chance of my
communicate in performance.
Regards
Rosie Salas
piper
>Well what might appear "totally flat" to you may not do to others;
>I understand this as a matter of exercising judgments and taste.
If you could look at the paintings in the Museo Nazionale Umbrese and
not think that they were totally flat and cartoonish, I don't know
what you are capable of seeing. Things are very extreme out there.
>Ditto for the results one may get from studying the drawings. Now,
>when one says that one has learned to write music in the style of
>Bach and Joplin, who's there to say it's truthfully done? Bach or
>Joplin?
So what's your suggestion, that we give up and stop trying to learn
anything? If you think all efforts are futile, give up and become an
accountant or do something else technical like auto repair; don't be
an art historian. I think this thread _IS_ related to the other
thread.
> Botticelli may not have painted in an entirely flat style,
>but he may not have painted as roundly as some in posterity think
>he did.
And how would you prove that? Nothing personal, but arguments that the
way all previous centuries of artists who did copies of Renaissance
paintings were all wrong and people looking back at Renaissance
paintings within the context of Milton Avery and Pop Art are getting
it right, and that because somehow chiaroscuro and volume are no
longer important in the Renaissance in someone's opinion, we should
radically rework all artwork from that period based on the tendentious
idea that it's more like modern art than any previous period of
restorers and artists thought it was is just the kind of illogical and
indefensible bunk that underlies all the vandalism that the
"restorers" are committing. And it's because of art historians who say
stuff like you're saying, I'm afraid.
> If you were the restorer, you bet some audience would
>think you had not done enough cleaning.
And that would be WONDERFUL! Not doing "enough" cleaning is like not
having "enough" salt in a dish. And you know what happens when there's
too much salt in a dish. It becomes GARBAGE!
>
>Fang Lin
>
>ps. Nowadays art historian don't just use their eyes and brains in
>working through their materials; they use hands and make transcriptions
>whenever necessary. The medium may not be authentic (we don't use tempera)
>but the "concetto" comes through somewhat in the process.
Well, I hope you did get the concept, though your remarks here leave
room for doubt in my mind.
Now, please answer the following question; I want to know what your
answer is:
It takes a tremendous amount of ego for anyone to think they know
better than the artist and should perform radical surgery on the work
that's come down to us.
Michael
piper
>In article <369450a3...@news.interport.net>,
> pi...@interport.net (piper) wrote:
>
>>
>> It's not just a question of how it was "done". It's a question of what
>> made sense in a composition. They didn't paint flat paintings without
>> volume in those days; certainly, great or even good artists didn't.
>
>One additional point: Artists using pattern books was not such an unusual
>phenomenon in Renaissance, and modelling was certainly not as
>common or necessary as some would think in the studio practices back then.
>Copying was important even in matters like giving volume to drawn figures.
Whatever. You're arguing on the margins when extreme things are going
on.
>
>>
>> We may not know exactly how Bach composed, but we know that he didn't
>> write atonal music, didn't use drum machines, and didn't use tubas in
>> his orchestras. My objections are much more basic than an
>> understanding of the PROCESS. It's the GOAL of the artist(s), RESULT
>> they attained, and LIMITS OF ACCEPTABILITY IN A STYLE that need to be
>> understood better in order to prevent absurd things from being done by
>> restorers. Is it hard to really know all this with certainty? YOU BET
>> YOUR BUNS IT IS! All the more reason for restorers to be very cautious
>> and conservative, rather than overzealous and destructive.
>>
>
>YOU BET YOUR BUNS such things are essentially unknowable; relative lack
>of volume is NOT unique to the style of twentieth century only. What if
>Botticelli painted in a style that was more Gothic than you thought?
>If your sense of the authentic style cannot be so authentic, who is so
>righteous as to accuse the overzealots and destructors of sin?
You really don't believe in letting well enough alone, do you? Your
ego is so big that you are sure you know better, and that
"restoration" should be radical and ambitious rather than conservative
and only what is necessary. You are part of the problem.
Michael
Roland Hutchinson
(Dr.Matt) wrote:
> But I should add that I've also heard Roland play gamba (last time was 11
> years ago, whew!), and he brings flexibility as well as virtuosity to that.
I think it sounds pretty much the same now, except that maybe if you
listen VERY carefully you may be able to hear my bones starting to creak
with age.
And of course my taste has improved considerably... indeed, if it
continues to improve at this rate, in another 11 years I shall perhaps be
old enough to hang out my shield as a certifiable curmudgeon, and assert
that I can't abide anyone's playing but my own. Or if my already
exquisite taste improves sufficiently, I shall in fact not be able abide
my own playing, either, and I shall be able to devote my efforts more
fully to trying to figure out whether I can learn to compose worth beans
or not.
Or I could just spend the next 11 years practicing and--who knows?--maybe
I can figure out how to play in tune with all these verkakte frets!!!
Dr.Matt
Roland Hutchinson <rolands....@usa.net> wrote:
>I can figure out how to play in tune with all these verkakte frets!!!
Looks like German; sounds like German; tastes like Yiddish!
fh...@midway.uchicago.edu
you want to know what I think, then I will call it quits.
"Restoration" starts long before late twentieth century: paintings,
murals, and even drawings (yes even drawings) got repainted, retouched,
traced all the time. Do you believe what you see (or saw) in a master
work comes solely from "the artist" that you so admire? Let me use
an analogy that you used before: in art, the composer and the performer
are one. Well, what you may not have said or thought of here is that
when you think you're seeing the demonstration of an individual genius,
it may actually be the result of a duo, trio or an ensemble. If one
starts to restore an old master painting, s/he's faced with the tricky
question of filtering out not just dirt but traces of other hands as
well. Where would you let off?? So that the master's true hand be buried
under? Either you clean or you don't. All-safe conservatism is far less
viable than you think here.
Fang Lin
ps. I have heard about posterior tempering with revered master's music
mss. too. You see the analogy.
In article <3695b38f...@news.interport.net>,
> >In article <369450a3...@news.interport.net>,
> > pi...@interport.net (piper) wrote:
>
> >> And do you disagree that, when in doubt, restorers should LAY OFF
> >> whenever possible?
>
> It takes a tremendous amount of ego for anyone to think they know
> better than the artist and should perform radical surgery on the work
> that's come down to us.
>
> Michael
>
-----------== Posted via Deja News, The Discussion Network ==----------
Dr.Matt
to realize his designs. Where's that fit on the composer-performer scale?
MegaMole
<fie...@zip.eecs.umich.edu> writes
>In article <rolands.spamtrap...@207-172-205-43.s43.as1.nwk.erols.c
>om>,
>Roland Hutchinson <rolands....@usa.net> wrote:
>>I can figure out how to play in tune with all these verkakte frets!!!
> ^^^^^^^^
>
>Looks like German; sounds like German; tastes like Yiddish!
>
I suppose I'd better get relevant here, and say that I personally agree
with Rosie Salas about the performance of Handel concerti grossi
sounding better (to MY ears only) with gut strings and "historically-
informed" bowing techniques.
Similarly, the vocal and choral techniques evolved for singing early
music in the most recent quarter-century, while NOT conclusively
"correct" (the most usual translation of Tosi, for example, is both
antediluvian and sometimes misleading), are at least based on
interpretations of documents which show what the performers (or
teachers) of the time actually _did_ and give this mole at least a
better idea of the melodic line, harmonic structure and ornamentation of
these pieces.
IANA music theorist; I perform a bit, and listen a lot. And I would
hesitate to correct or even dispute with some of the eminent
practitioners here, even if I went to school with some of them (hi,
William). But I must reiterate that the variety of performance styles
is in itself A Good Thing, and allows all (or most) of us to reach some
sort of preferred conclusion. I _personally_ would recoil from hearing
large-scale Handel or Bach, or Gabrieli on modern brass... but that's
just my opinion.
--
MegaMole
Roland Hutchinson
<PSmit...@countertenor.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> I must reiterate that the variety of performance styles
> is in itself A Good Thing, and allows all (or most) of us to reach some
> sort of preferred conclusion.
Hear, hear!
As elsewhere in music, it is all to easy in early music nowadays to
achieve a state of bland, unthinking, internationally acceptable orthodoxy
of interpretation that can do as much to obscure understanding of the
music as to promote it.
Little pockets of divergent approaches (whether achieved through survival
of older traditions or through self-conscious attempts at revival or
through innovation) are precious--and fragile!! (And of course some of
them, after much imitation and dilution, will inevitably become the source
of the next era's bland orthodoxies, while today's retreat into
"endangered species" status. Such is life.)
piper
>I will simply here write in response to the last point since
>you want to know what I think, then I will call it quits.
>"Restoration" starts long before late twentieth century: paintings,
>murals, and even drawings (yes even drawings) got repainted, retouched,
>traced all the time. Do you believe what you see (or saw) in a master
>work comes solely from "the artist" that you so admire?
[snip]
No, but keep in mind that most artists had apprentices who did vital
things which were necessary for the painting to make sense. Getting
rid of everything but what someone thinks the "artist" did is very
often a recipe for creating what can most charitably be called an
"uncompleted" version of the painting.
Also, I severely question the idea that restorations that were done
earlier (i.e. closer in time to when the painting was created) are
necessarily worse than what people are doing today. In many cases, I'm
sure they were better and more informed. The idea that some people
have, to the effect that we now know more about, say, the 18th century
than people did in the 19th century is perverse. Unless new documents
and artifacts have been found, those closer to a period are probably
more likely, in general, to have received something closer to a living
memory (or passed-down tradition) about it than we are. Things may
indeed have been distorted, but the contrary assumption is dangerous.
I don't believe in the inexorable "progress" of the "science" of
history. Skepticism and caution are always good qualities in a
historian, in my opinion.
> Let me use
>an analogy that you used before: in art, the composer and the performer
>are one. Well, what you may not have said or thought of here is that
>when you think you're seeing the demonstration of an individual genius,
>it may actually be the result of a duo, trio or an ensemble. If one
>starts to restore an old master painting, s/he's faced with the tricky
>question of filtering out not just dirt but traces of other hands as
>well. Where would you let off??
Where the painting still makes sense, and that's a judgment that
requires knowledge not only of the history of techniques and media,
but also an artist's eye. Really, there is no substitute for that.
Just think what great music would sound like if people who had
untrained ears tried to play it.
> So that the master's true hand be buried
>under? Either you clean or you don't. All-safe conservatism is far less
>viable than you think here.
We disagree strongly. There's no need to present the art as it never
existed, i.e., with only what someone decides was the contribution of
the master - and how are they so sure? One can and, I am convince,
should logically deduce that when you take a painting by Botticelli
which has a variety of tones throughout so that it turns and moves and
is volumetric, he would not have left a large flat area of single-tone
very bright color (and I'm not talking about a halo) and considered it
a finished painting. If one really believes (and I rather don't) that
Botticelli didn't finish the painting, then someone from his atelier
did, under his supervision, and that paint should have been left
there.
>Fang Lin
>
>ps. I have heard about posterior tempering with revered master's music
>mss. too. You see the analogy.
There's no real analogy, though, is there? How do you know what the
original form of the painting is, other than by judging through
evidence and one's eye what constituted a completed painting at the
time, and looking at drawings? On the other hand, it's much easier to
determine what an autograph manuscript looked like - it's a diagram,
not a work of art in itself in the same way as a painting is, and,
besides, recognizing handwriting isn't really difficult, I believe.
You're not suggesting that people forged a composer's handwriting on
his own manuscript, are you? I haven't heard of such a case.
Michael
piper
>Umm, Michaelangelo often worked as designer with a studio of assistants
>to realize his designs. Where's that fit on the composer-performer scale?
Thanks, Matt. That's a big part of my objection to this "one original
artist only" excuse for butchering paintings in "restoring" them to a
shape they never had.
Michael
M. Schulter
: I will always argue for informed performance, of anything, but I will
: also always argue that the involvement of the performer at great
: depth both emotionally and spiritually is paramount. In my own
: performing experience, the former often aids the latter - the more I
: know about the music and its context, the greater the chance of my
: communicate in performance.
Hello, there, and thank you for a message inviting much further
discussion.
First, a curious point about the impossibility of an "authentic"
performance in the sense of a performance reflecting precisely the musical
context of the composer.
For me, one of the main complications here is that in seeking to interpret
an early 15th-century keyboard piece, for example, I am aware of having
been exposed to both 13th-14th century Gothic music and to Renaissance
music of the later 15th and 16th centuries. These styles can set off
associations which -- at least in the case of later Renaissance music --
would obviously not have been a factor for a composer around 1430-1460.
Similarly, the area of theory, I generally have no problem in following
something like the Vicentino-Lusitano debate on chromaticism in 1551, or
the Artusi-Monteverdi controversy of around 1600-1607, since the musical
styles are familiar, and indeed Monteverdi sounds radically "modern" to
me.
However, the factor of "inauthenticity" under the above kind of definition
becomes clear when I consider my knowledge of _medieval_ music and how it
might have been brought to some of these debates.
For example, seeking examples of the fourth above the bass as an
independent concord, Zarlino in his own cultural tradition apparently can
offer only a single instance where Josquin uses an unaccompanied fourth,
although he turns to the Greek Orthodox music sung at Venice for another
example.
In contrast, I might immediately cite a number of examples from the
Buxheimer organ book, maybe pieces dating to around 1450, which Zarlino
could well have turned to for practical vindication of his proposal that
the sonority of outer major sixth with fourth below and major third above
might be treated as more of a full concord.
In short, the simple fact that I am familiar with more medieval and
Renaissance/Manneristic music than any one composer would likely be
acquainted with at any given epoch must make my viewpoint "inauthentic"
under this definition.
Here I might guess that the fact that I often play _both_ 13th-century and
16th-century music, using Pythagorean tuning for one and 1/4-comma
meantone for the other, might be actually be a serious "contamination" to
my "pure authenticity" than the post-1650 European and related styles
which I can hardly avoid hearing now and then, or for that matter the
Japanese gagaku and other world musics which I seek out from time to time
(if it has lots of fifths and fourths, it's likely to please me <grin>).
However, if "authenticity" means a performance at once informed and
spirited, then this more attainable ideal can indeed inspire our efforts.
Most appreciatively,
Margo Schulter
msch...@value.net