It's impossible for most of us nowadays to think of what we tend to call "early music" without hearing in our mind's ear the innovative approaches to performance identified by the acronym: HIP - "Historically Informed Performance." Attempts to apply advanced scholarship to the execution of music up to and including the Classical repertoire (eventually extending into the early Romantic era) got under way in earnest in the 1960s with ensembles like the Early Music Consort of London and the Concentus Musicus Wien. Playing on replicas of period instruments and applying the latest understanding of instrumental techniques, vocal styles, rhythmic execution and embellishment, such groups changed our concept of what the music of earlier times may have sounded like in performance.
Just how true to their period our present ideas of "authentic" performance practice may be, we have no way of knowing. We can only consult the work of scholars, the design of early instruments, and our own sensibilities, and we are inevitably left with plenty of room for diverse approaches and disagreement. But we've had by now a couple of generations of performers, recordings and listeners to give us pleasure and food for thought, and most of us who have been paying attention during these years have probably formed strong feelings about how we like our Monteverdi and Purcell, our Bach and Handel, our Haydn and Mozart, and our Beethoven to sound. But what about our Chopin? Our Liszt? Our Verdi? Our Mahler? We probably have our preferences in performances of these composers as well, but what are those preferences based on?
A few well-known classical performers have made attempts to bring the HIP movement into the 19th century. We can hear Chopin and Liszt performed on period pianos, and a few conductors (for example, Roger Norrington and John Eliot Gardiner) have tried to reproduce what they suppose to have been the constitution and sonorities of 19th-century orchestras. But I must admit to being very far from persuaded by many of these admirable efforts that I'm hearing the music played in a style that Romantic era listeners would have recognized. And I have a very good reason for this skepticism: namely, the existence of recordings made by performers who were born as far back as the middle of the 19th century, and who have left us some fascinating glimpses of the way people of their generation imagined and played music we love and think we know well.
I've wanted to address this subject for a long time, but I was moved to start this thread by a fascinating video I just saw on YouTube, and which I want to share now. It's a fairly summary presentation, but I think it's enough to provoke a good deal of thought. Here it is:
I'm very interested in hearing how the ideas of musical performance presented here impress others, and how others might answer the question I've posed in the title of this thread. I'd also like to see more samples of performances by musicians from the early days of recording whose interpretations might further illuminate the topic. I have several in mind that I'll post if there's an interest in hearing them.
Just how true to their period our present ideas of "authentic" performance practice may be, we have no way of knowing. We can only consult the work of scholars, the design of early instruments, and our own sensibilities, and we are inevitably left with plenty of room for diverse approaches and disagreement. But we've had by now a couple of generations of performers, recordings and listeners to give us pleasure and food for thought, and most of us who have been paying attention during these years have probably formed strong feelings about how we like our Monteverdi and Purcell, our Bach and Handel, our Haydn and Mozart, and our Beethoven to sound. But what about our Chopin? Our Liszt? Our Verdi? Our Mahler? We probably have our preferences in performances of these composers as well, but what are those preferences based on?
A few well-known classical performers have made attempts to bring the HIP movement into the 19th century. We can hear Chopin and Liszt performed on period pianos, and a few conductors (for example, Roger Norrington and John Eliot Gardiner) have tried to reproduce what they suppose to have been the constitution and sonorities of 19th-century orchestras. But I must admit to being very far from persuaded by many of these admirable efforts that I'm hearing the music played in a style that Romantic era listeners would have recognized. And I have a very good reason for this skepticism: namely, the existence of recordings made by performers who were born as far back as the middle of the 19th century, and who have left us some fascinating glimpses of the way people of their generation imagined and played music we love and think we know well.
I've wanted to address this subject for a long time, but I was moved to start this thread by a fascinating video I just saw on YouTube, and which I want to share now. It's a fairly summary presentation, but I think it's enough to provoke a good deal of thought. Here it is:
I'm very interested in hearing how the ideas of musical performance presented here impress others, and how others might answer the question I've posed in the title of this thread. I'd also like to see more samples of performances by musicians from the early days of recording whose interpretations might further illuminate the topic. I have several in mind that I'll post if there's an interest in hearing them.