"Each period has the right to interpret music to suit contemporary tastes."

[gggg...@gmail.com]

https://books.google.com/books?id=W20JAQAAMAAJ&q=%22Each+period+has+the+right+to+interpret+music+to+suit+contemporary+tastes.%22+%22american+record+guide%22&dq=%22Each+period+has+the+right+to+interpret+music+to+suit+contemporary+tastes.%22+%22american+record+guide%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjf3I3foIPPAhUJ7mMKHZHTADUQ6AEIHDAA

[gggg...@gmail.com]

On Friday, September 9, 2016 at 11:45:55 AM UTC-10, gggg...@gmail.com wrote:
> https://books.google.com/books?id=W20JAQAAMAAJ&q=%22Each+period+has+the+right+to+interpret+music+to+suit+contemporary+tastes.%22+%22american+record+guide%22&dq=%22Each+period+has+the+right+to+interpret+music+to+suit+contemporary+tastes.%22+%22american+record+guide%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjf3I3foIPPAhUJ7mMKHZHTADUQ6AEIHDAA

But shouldn't the performance of an historical work provide us more with a window into former times rather than a mirror reflecting what we happen to like at this particular moment in time?

[Raymond Hall]

Why should anyone be forced to listen to music as though they were interested in history? The question could be framed thus, "shouldn't the music be performed in a way that projects the essence of the music that is relevant and needful for the contemporary listener?"

There are many other questions that could be framed. I don't think it is necessary to be too rigid in these matters.

Ray Hall, Taree

[Matthew Silverstein]

On Friday, September 9, 2016 at 5:48:22 PM UTC-4, gggg...@gmail.com wrote:

> But shouldn't the performance of an historical work provide us more with a
> window into former times rather than a mirror reflecting what we happen to
> like at this particular moment in time?

No. My interest in music is aesthetic, not historical.

Matty

[richard...@gmail.com]

On Friday, September 9, 2016 at 5:48:22 PM UTC-4, gggg...@gmail.com wrote:

Music was meant to communicate, to reach its audience and achieve its composers intention, whether that be pure entertainment, some emotional effect, some intellectual stimulation or whatever. I think Striggio and Tallis had different goals for their music than, say, Sullivan or Raff. I have heard recordings of their music that affect me, so I'd have to say these recordings were successful.
It's the communication that matters, not HIP or modern instruments. If the performances were to be recreations operas would probably appeal to me much more, so I avoid productions where the stage director has been too 'creative'. I have been to very Spartan productions that really worked: student performances of Verdi, Poulenc and Rossini, village productions of Gilbert and Sullivan, a Don Giovanni in the Estates Theatre, Prague; and to a very grand one that also worked: Turandot at the Met with Eva Marton. La Boheme on Broadway was also a success, for me. I have been to productions that failed completely, for me. (Rhinegold at ENO a few years ago.)
Shakespeare at the Globe also works, even all-male casting, because the words come through- if the actors know how to deliver them. At that level they mostly do. A production of 'The Birds' in Greek would not work for me, because I do not understand spoken ancient Greek.
In this group the only thing we all have in common, I suppose, is that we listen to recorded classical music. Tastes clearly differ. Some conductors are anathema in some music to some of us, others see them in a very different light. I have been affected by Beethoven's 7th symphony in recordings by numerous conductors (Coates, Weingartner, Toscanini, Mengelberg, Stokowski, Klemperer, Boult . . .) so there is no single way to make the music live for me. I have been bored to death (or at least stopping the record) by others who I won't name. (I may yet see/hear what they were doing, so I try again from time to time.)
A Greek observed that you can never stick your hand in the same river twice- but he was incomplete- you are never twice the same you when you do, water flows, experience changes us.

[gggg...@gmail.com]

- The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.

L.P. Hartley

[gggg...@gmail.com]

Doesn't the following also apply to conductors when it comes to interpreting the composers of the past?:

- It has been the acknowledged right of every Marxist scholar to read into Marx the particular meaning that he himself prefers and to treat all others with indignation.

John Kenneth Galbraith

[Herman]

On Saturday, September 10, 2016 at 10:12:35 AM UTC+2, gggg...@gmail.com wrote:

>
> - The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.
>

I guess we're done with weirdo links, and right back to cliche quotes...

[gggg...@gmail.com]

On Friday, September 9, 2016 at 11:45:55 AM UTC-10, gggg...@gmail.com wrote:
> https://books.google.com/books?id=W20JAQAAMAAJ&q=%22Each+period+has+the+right+to+interpret+music+to+suit+contemporary+tastes.%22+%22american+record+guide%22&dq=%22Each+period+has+the+right+to+interpret+music+to+suit+contemporary+tastes.%22+%22american+record+guide%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjf3I3foIPPAhUJ7mMKHZHTADUQ6AEIHDAA

Was music written to be created anew in every performance, in every generation?

https://books.google.com/books?id=2Jz_AwAAQBAJ&pg=PA181&dq=%22music+was+written+to+be+created+anew+in+every+performance,+in+every+generation.%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjlwPLF1oXPAhUOxmMKHcJmDIEQ6AEIHjAA#v=onepage&q=%22music%20was%20written%20to%20be%20created%20anew%20in%20every%20performance%2C%20in%20every%20generation.%22&f=false

[gggg...@gmail.com]

Doesn't the following also apply to historical music performing styles?:

- In the years that I worked in museums, first as a summer student and eventually as a curator, one of the primary lessons I learned was this: History is shaped by the people who seek to preserve it. We, of the present, decide what to keep, what to put on display, what to put into storage, and what to discard.

Susanna Kearsley

[gggg...@gmail.com]

- It's so unfair. People suffered, worked, thought. So much wisdom, so much talent. And they're forgotten as soon as they die. We must do everything possible to keep their memories alive, because we will be treated in the same way ourselves.

Shostakovich

[gggg gggg]

On Saturday, September 10, 2016 at 12:25:21 AM UTC-7, richard...@gmail.com wrote:
> On Friday, September 9, 2016 at 5:48:22 PM UTC-4, id=W20JAQAAMAAJ&q=%22Each+period+has+the+right+to+interpret+music+to+suit+contemporary+tastes.%22+%22american+record+guide%22&dq=%22Each+period+has+the+right+to+interpret+music+to+suit+contemporary+tastes.%22+%22american+record+guide%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjf3I3foIPPAhUJ7mMKHZHTADUQ6AEIHDAA

- THERE IS NOTHING LIKE RETURNING TO A PLACE THAT REMAINS UNCHANGED TO FIND THE WAYS IN WHICH YOU YOURSELF HAVE ALTERED.

Mandela