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Late Romantic HIP: What Are We Waiting For?

11K views 82 replies 26 participants last post by  Op.123 
#1 · (Edited)
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.
 
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#3 · (Edited)
I watched the video with interest but am perfectly amazed in the presentation - ie one 'old' performance and only one 'modern' one to compare it with, as if all modern performances were the same. I am completely gobsmacked that anyone of any intelligence can assume this is a scientific way of approaching things. I mean, I have a few recordings of the Liszt example and they are all differently played. So why does he pick on one and seem to assume that's the way everyone plays it? Similarly the Swan Lake. I have various performances and they play it differently. OK we realise styles change but I would have thought more telling examples would have been Rachmaninov playing his piano concertos (or his other pieces) or to compare Gardiner's and Toscanini's Verdi performances of the Requiem and Falstaff. After all, Toscanini played under Verdi so his interpretations must have a certain degree of authenticity. There is also the question of the two Mahler pupils - Walter and Klemperer - who saw Mahler quite differently.
One thing I did wince at was Patti's 'Voi che sapete' - was this warbling an example of how it should be sung? Bring on Freddie von Stade is what I say and have some decent singing!
 
#82 ·
One thing I did wince at was Patti's 'Voi che sapete' - was this warbling an example of how it should be sung? Bring on Freddie von Stade is what I say and have some decent singing!
I have never squinted so hard
 
#4 · (Edited)
Anton Rubinstein didn't want to have his piano recorded in any way, because he realized that his mistakes would get immortalized.
A former student of Liszt remarked that Tausig played more precisely than the master, and if I recall the context of this comment, it has been said as if it Liszt often playing less perfectly than other greats was a known fact.
Due to the fact that there were no recordings, and that musicians didn't have the opportunity to travel as much and compare (or remember) many different performances, much more was just left adrift in a sea of personal decisions, and the public, including critics, on average knew no better. Some traveling critics did, but much more was subjective. It makes much more sense that in those days tyrant conductors like Toscanini or Mahler, as well as primadonna instrumentalists, were succesful. Those with a superior personal interpretation were the only force that could guide musicians or lead music. Often when something went wrong, it passed unnoticed. So in the case of the Swan Lake for example, all I hear is a mismatched performance of the soloist with no concern for the orchestra, and Barbirolli didn't care. If he lived nowadays, he would, because he would be compared to other performances more---not merely to his own past ones, or performances of different works performed by the same orchestra---as was a case in older days. Back then a choice of a work was more often a novelty, and so the entire splendour of effect was split between the composer and the conductor, because few could tell how good of a job did the conductor really do.
This modern performance of the Swan Theme is far more "perfect"


I would say that modern conductors and musicians in general exceed the past ones, and there is no shame to that. Their predecessors would have been proud of them.

Historical instruments are a different beast. Sometimes music was written for something that sounds differently, and it made more sense with that instrument. Other times I really do not see the point of using a valve-less trumpet or an old piano.

Just yesterday I listened to Aram Khachaturian conducting his masquerade suite with Philharmonia Orchestra at the Kingsway Hall (1954). Compared to the reference recording of Stanley Black with the LSO (1978), the composer himself sometimes does strike various points in music more perfectly, but also has some wacky elements, like kitchy jarring trumpets, that have been tamed by Stanley Black for a more coherent sound---and sometimes Khachaturian even arguably emphasizes various points less perfectly than Black.

I've had a related discussion on another board, which reached a conclusion that composers themselves don't necessarily conduct their works the best way, not only because they cannot distance themselves enough from their creation---whereas a conductor is always a listener first, but also because some conductors are so superior in their tempos and hearing, that they can exceed the composers in the aural, physical sense. Also, because composers frequently were and are just guest conductors and do not have a relationship as established with an orchestra, and are less efficient at rehearsing as a result.

I am not yet able to judge which conductors have really been the best and whether there were some factors in the past in favour of the old legends. I like some recordings by Furtwängler, Krauss, and Toscanini, but more frequently I hear no advantage in listening to the old recordings compared to some solid more recent one.
 
#45 ·
A former student of Liszt remarked that Tausig played more precisely than the master, and if I recall the context of this comment, it has been said as if it Liszt often playing less perfectly than other greats was a known fact.
I would take this quote with a huge grain of salt; the vast majority of Liszt's pupils were taken on when he was quite elderly and often very ill. I doubt very much it reflects his pianism of 40 years earlier.
 
#5 ·
I'm young enough to see this position change. Honestly, cutting in the Schubert/Beethoven ages, the more modern the composition is, the less I feel the need to consider a HIP performance.

I'm really sceptical about period practice for late 19th century. I would have yet to compare for instance early 60s recordings of Brahms or Mahler symphonies to these upcoming HIP performances. Also, Kent Nagano is supposed to start recording a HIP Wagner Ring by the beginning of next decade. Here, I think playing and conducting are more into question than singing, as they would probably face against the ongoing London Philharmonic Wagner Ring conducted by Vladimir Jurowski with a known modern instrument full orchestra as has been the fashion over a century (but recorded with fuller quality than in the 20th century). If we were to compare both orchestral playings, which would we prefer? And how much will conducting incluence in our sensations? (I don't particularly have the hots for Nagano or Jurowski so far into my journey).

If there was any HIP approach for instance to Wagner, that could have to do with the timings performed during his lifetime, or which he reportedly reccommended. Harmut Haenchen has argumented and championed a Parsifal conducting that could be well compared to the once-despised timings of Pierre Boulez below 3h50m. I'm not automatically against fast Wagner conducting since sometimes Pierre Boulez made it seem natural, but unfortunately, neither Haenchen's broadcasts from Bayreuth or Thielemann's Parsifal from Salzburg leading the SKD (what a messy prelude) have ever convinced me compared to controversial Karajan performances or of course the leading 20th century interpreter Hans Knappertsbusch.

I once listened and wasn't really pleased by John Eliot Gardiner conducting Brahms symphonies, and still consider his rendition of Les Troyens as quite good. But instead of putting all the effort on orchestras, are we ever going to focus on good HIP conductors inventive enough to completely challenge 20th century's recorded legacy?
 
#11 ·
Yes, this is very interesting. I think it illustrates further some of the ideas suggested by the video in the OP which you've called (in post #3) "unscientific":

I am completely gobsmacked that anyone of any intelligence can assume this is a scientific way of approaching things. I mean, I have a few recordings of the Liszt example and they are all differently played. So why does he pick on one and seem to assume that's the way everyone plays it? Similarly the Swan Lake. I have various performances and they play it differently. OK we realise styles change but I would have thought more telling examples would have been Rachmaninov playing his piano concertos (or his other pieces) or to compare Gardiner's and Toscanini's Verdi performances of the Requiem and Falstaff. After all, Toscanini played under Verdi so his interpretations must have a certain degree of authenticity. There is also the question of the two Mahler pupils - Walter and Klemperer - who saw Mahler quite differently.
Of course you are correct in pointing out that performances have always differed from each other. The question is whether we can identify general principles or tendencies in different performance traditions. The OP video is suggesting that we can. Were performers in 1900 doing things that made them similar to each other but different from anything we hear today? It's a bit early in the conversation to dismiss that question, wouldn't you say?

One thing I did wince at was Patti's 'Voi che sapete' - was this warbling an example of how it should be sung? Bring on Freddie von Stade is what I say and have some decent singing!
This is actually a great example. I'd guess that most of us have what we think is a pretty good general idea of how Mozart should be sung. Let's listen to "Voi che sapete" as interpreted by two celebrated modern singers - von Stade (your suggestion) and Joyce DiDonato - and then by Adelina Patti, born in 1843 (and thus 62 at the time of the recording). It's important to keep in mind both Patti's age and the fact that the timbre of a soprano voice on an acoustic recording of 1905 could not be accurately captured, and that we're listening for style and interpretation only.

Von Stade:

DiDonato:

Patti:

I have to confess that I was stunned when I first heard Patti's way with this music, and that my first thought was, "No one would DARE sing this way today!" I would now amend that to say that no one today, looking at the score, could even IMAGINE it sung this way. Constant variations in tempo, detailed dynamic shading, departures from written note values, abundant portamenti (sliding) between notes - it isn't how we've been told music of the Classical period should sound. But Adelina Patti was one of the most celebrated and beloved singers of the 19th century, and Verdi considered her one of the greatest artists he had ever heard. Her approach to Mozart may not have typified Mozart's own era - maybe we're more "correct" now, or maybe not - but I think it tells us something important about the stylistic assumptions of her own time, which we call the late Romantic era.
 
#8 ·
O sorry, I just wanted to know which performances you were thinking of when you wrote this. I mean the old "glimpses " and the recent "efforts"

"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."
 
#14 ·
Here is an attempt at Romantic HIP by Roger Norrington which is clearly the work of a late 20th-century musician who's done a bit of reading and thinks that he's now equipped to experiment on Wagner and on us.



Norrington is working from the premise that orchestral string players in Wagner's day didn't use vibrato - a controversial notion - and on the generalized impression that tempi then tended to be faster than they later became, which may be true as a broad generalization but which is subject to much qualification. The results, to my ears, are a perfect illustration of how HIP can substitute dogmatic assumptions for vital music-making and bear no resemblance to what I'd consider Romantic style, much less to Wagner's marking in the score: langsam und schmachtend (slow and yearning). We might contrast this with a deeply felt interpretation from 1928 by Karl Elmendorff:



What I notice above all with Elmendorff is the complete absence of rigidity in the tempo, which changes subtly and organically throughout, sometimes almost bar by bar, as the expression dictates. This is exactly the kind of expressive flexibility Wagner describes in his essay "On Conducting," and which seems also to have been a characteristic of Mahler's conducting. If it's indeed true that tempi tended to be quicker on early recordings, I think it's crucial to realize that this refers to the BASIC tempo, which performers would be expected to modify for expressive reasons. We can hear this in the recordings Rachmaninoff made of his piano concertos; the 3rd concerto begins at a tempo as fast as we can hear anywhere on recordings, but the composer as performer is so alert, inventive and sensitive in the application of rubato that even if we resist the tempo initially we become totally convinced as we listen.

The assumption that tempo is something to be played with freely for expressive purposes is only one aspect of Romantic music-making that distinguishes it from later 20th-century practice, but it's clearly an important one. It's especially remarkable to hear it employed in orchestral music, where it's less easily accomplished than in solo playing and singing.
 
#9 · (Edited)
By the way a similar thing came up for me a few months ago. Some pianist claimed to have found the authentic way to play Brahms based on old records. But when I listened to the old records prima facie they weren't at all like what she was doing. Of course I was only listening superficially, there may have been important performance details in common which I missed.

I'm not at home now, I'll dig out the details later.
 
#10 ·
I, for one, have little interest in HIP being applied to late romanticism. Firstly, that era wasn't that long ago and there were plenty of people who knew the styles then and lived long enough to bring their wisdom well into the 20th c. Bruno Walter, Adrian Boult, Arthur Rodzinksi, Serge Koussevitsky and many more made numerous recordings that are not significantly different from what's being done today. Second, the improvement of instrument technology were all to the good, with the possible exception of higher tension strings. The improvements in intonation, projection and playability aren't something I would want to go without.

Then there's this: does anyone really want to go back to the sloppy string playing with portamento so common? Ugh! There are some old recordings where it's prevalent and it drives me crazy. Mengelberg, for example. When it's called for, then it should be used. One example: in the Mahler 2nd, Urlicht, the composer wrote some portanmentos in the strings parts that have been and still are widely ignored or rejected by conductors. Then along comes Lorin Maazel (himself a fine violinist) who restores them, brings them to the fore and makes it into a deeply moving, heartfelt moment. But when Mahler doesn't write it, he doesn't use it - good thing! Or compare Svetlanov's two recordings of the Balakirev 1st. In the slow movement on the Melodiya recording he used portamento subtly to great, touching effect. But in his Hyperion remake he used none - and the performance seems cold, calculated and unmoving.

Not would I want HIP attitudes brought back where tampering with scores was the norm. Cuts, re-orchestrations, and other damage (ala Stokowski) should never be the norm. Did you know that for many years it was common to replace the slow movement of a lesser symphony with the slow movement from Beethoven's 7th? If that was HIP, count me out.
 
#20 ·
I wonder what the romantics make of this recording.

Outerwear Musical instrument Violin family Flash photography Happy




Our present-day ears have become accustomed to the
fact that in Baroque music everything which is written down vertically does not necessarily sound in a
uniform, superimposed manner. However, at the latest starting from the Classical era, and especially in
Romantic music, a return to order can be welcomed,
one which is in no way "historical". On the earliest
recordings this means that the performers do not
play together in an exact manner. That was certainly
part of the idea: a free and easy association with
tempo and notation was self-evident - anyone who
was incapable of doing this just wasn't a proper musician! The fact that Brahms had instinctively incorporated this idea into his own thinking, and the point at
which following him sometimes proved difficult for
other, appear in many written statements. Allowing
one's chamber music partner to develop without the need for intervention demands a great deal of
courage, practice, independence and tact. Drawing
close to this goal has been one of the great challenges
of this, our, version of the Brahms violin sonatas.
Neat - and thus inaudible -fingering is as unhistorical as a well-ordered interplay between the instruments. We modern violinists attempt to change position as discretely as possible because we feel the
sounds of sliding to be too affected, too Romantic.
And there's the problem: portamento is Romantic and
forms part of the expressive repertoire of this era. If
one is going to take ownership of the violinist technique of the period, one has no alternative than to
make the change of position discernible. Indeed, the
bow must be held in a position that alters neither the
pressure nor the speed through a slur. At the same
time, one must let the fingers of the left hand rest as
much as possible on the strings being played, even
when changing position. The combination of constant bow contact in the right hand and finger pressure from the left necessarily entails a portamento, no
margin being left for concealing what is thought to be
undesirable. This is why the fingerings are chosen in
order to highlight the musical sense instead of serving
the needs of comfort. Even vibrato has always been
used with economy and in general is so faint that the
ear merely registers it as animating the sonority.
"Finger legato" is to the piano what the bow is to
the violin: the fingers are left in contact with the keys
until the very last moment in order to produce a continuous, uninterrupted sound. This makes the use of the right pedal unnecessary while maintaining a
transparent sound. Another characteristic of historical performance is of breaking chords. For one thing
this renders the sound smoother, for another it
encourages the independence of the different parts
and suggests a more generous sound around pianos
which do not sound so strong by nature.
We have been assisted enormously by having
available for our use a marvellous Streicher piano -
the same model as the one owned by Brahms - as well
as a copy of a Romantic violin, with three plain gut
strings and a single wound gut string. The bow is original, from the end of the nineteenth century, and relatively light for modern hands. The sound possibilities
which all this material has opened up for us have been
most inspiring and often innovative in the questions
of balance and playing technique.
Our meetings with Clive Brown and Neal Peres
da Costa, whose Bärenreiter edition of the Brahms
Sonatas provided an additional working basis for us,
have been stimulating, productive and encouraging.
Kai Köpp also gave us significant support in matters
of interpretation. Last, but not least, we wish to think
the Stiftung Basler Orchester-Gesellschaft for having
generously supported our work
I'd be very interested to know if this claim they make is true

On the earliest
recordings this means that the performers do not
play together in an exact manner. That was certainly
part of the idea: a free and easy association with
tempo and notation was self-evident - anyone who
was incapable of doing this just wasn't a proper musician!
 
#25 · (Edited)
I wonder what the romantics make of this recording.

View attachment 124889



I'd be very interested to know if this claim they make is true
Although I've never been fond of the sound of the violin played with little or no vibrato, and I do wonder whether Leila Schayegh might profitably have applied a little more here and there, I'm very impressed with this performance, and on the basis of what we can hear on the internet (YouTube ) I'm tempted to buy the recording. Schayegh and Schultsz really are attempting to apply 19th-century ideas about articulation and sonority - rolled chords, portamento, impulsive phrasing, flexible tempi - and it all has a nice improvisatory feeling and makes for a stimulating listen. Zukerman and Barenboim sound just a bit staid and literal by comparison.

I'm inclined to agree with that last statement you quote: "On the earliest recordings this means that the performers do not play together in an exact manner. That was certainly part of the idea: a free and easy association with tempo and notation was self-evident - anyone who was incapable of doing this just wasn't a proper musician!"

I think a feeling of spontaneity was highly valued - of something being created in the moment - as it is in jazz. That statement could describe good jazz performance exactly.
 
#21 · (Edited)
And there's the Primrose Quartet's Brahms

The blurb says

Recorded in the Ehrbar Saal, Vienna on authentic pianos of the period.

As a culmination of many years of research and in preparation for our recording of the Brahms piano quartets using period pianos and gut strings, we convened a four day symposium in Birmingham to workshop, debate and discuss the latest thinking in the field with Dr. Anna Scott, Claire Holden, Dr. Kate Bennett Wadsworth, Professor Ronald Woodley, Jung Yoon Cho and Job Ter Haar.

Pianist Dr. Anna Scott made a compelling case for allowing the evidence of how members of the Schumann-Brahms circle played in early recordings to "romanticise" our very conception of Brahms. Stretching and compressing pulse within an overall tempo and free expressive use of asynchronicity, arpeggiation, rhythmic alteration, agogically inflected dynamic shapes and rubato give her own performances a rich expressivity. She is also the living proof that such playing can work on the modern piano, although most keyboard players find it easier and more natural to adopt period practice on period pianos. During the symposium the Primrose used an 1850's Wilhelm Wieck piano, having previously enjoyed access to an 1890's Blüthner in Hampshire that was factory selected by Brahms for a student, as well as to an exceptional Erard in the former Finchcocks collection.

If pianists generally embrace the sheer beauty of early pianos, modern string players have issues with gut strings that include instability of tuning and lack of power. Fortunately these problems are mitigated by the recording process and the use of smaller pianos. Diferent types of gut ofer an opportunity to characterise diferent strings with diferent colours (just as an early piano makes no apology for having diferent colours in diferent registers). String players in the Primrose regularly use gut, and have been taught, like so many in our generation, by teachers with close and direct links back to Brahms. Discussion and experimentation with expressive slides (portamento), extreme (to modern ears) time taking and speeding up, varying colours with varied vibrato, bow speed, and bow pressure was informed by Claire Holden's work on early recordings of the Vienna Philharmonic, which also revealed that orchestra's ability to come in and out of pure ensemble in order to make part playing more transparent and lines freer and more expressive where appropriate. We also heard from Dr Kate Bennett Wadsworth about her preparations for her recording of the Brahms cello sonatas, using the Bärenreiter edition that she prepared with Professor Clive Brown, considering how the fingerings and bowings of contemporary cellists had interpretational implications. This informed our own work on editions, aided by observations from friends and students when we undertook additional workshops.
but I wasn't convinced by this idea. See my next post.
 

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#22 ·
Pianist Dr. Anna Scott made a compelling case for allowing the evidence of how members of the Schumann-Brahms circle played in early recordings to "romanticise" our very conception of Brahms. Stretching and compressing pulse within an overall tempo and free expressive use of asynchronicity, arpeggiation, rhythmic alteration, agogically inflected dynamic shapes and rubato give her own performances a rich expressivity.
I'm having a problem making sense of this.

It looks like Anna Scott's thesis is based on the performance style of people who'd studied with Clara Schumann.

https://challengingperformance.com/interviews-recordings/anna-scott/

Schumann's pupils include Fanny Davies, Ilona Eibenschutz, Adelina de Lara, Natalie Janotha, and Carl Friedberg.

Here's Fanny Davies playing Schumann, it does not seem specially romantic to me, on the contrary. I can't find any recording of her playing Brahms



Neither does this recording of Ilona Eibenschutz playing a Brahms ballade



Nor this recording of a Brahms intermezzo by Carl Friedberg

 
#26 ·
The HIP movement has already progressed (is this the right term ?) to late 19th and even 20th century music . There are orchestras such as "Les Siecles " ( the centuries ) , Anima Aeterna of Belgium, and the New Queen's Hall orchestra ( which is no longer active), for example .
Jos Van Immerseel with the Animal Eterna orchestra , has recorded "authentic" versions of Carmina Burana ! and even Gershwin works such as the rhapsody in Blue .
But just how "authentic " these performance are is debatable . The French conductor Francois Xavier Roth , now music director of the city of Cologne, has done an HIP version of Stravinsky's Rite of Spring with Les Siecles , using among other thing,s the old fashioned French model horns, which are narrow bore piston valved horns unlike the usual rotary valved instrument . This performance can be seen on youtube anduis also on CD . Roth has also done HIP Debussy, Ravel, Dukas and even an HIP Also Sprach Zarathustra id Richard Strauss .
Roger Zorrington has recorded an HIP Bruckner 3rd in the much longer original version for EMI with the London Classical player,s which is no longer active . Philippe Herreweghe and Orchestre De Champs Elysees has recorded HIP version of the bruckner, 4th and 7th .
Herreweghe has even done an HIP Mahler 4th with the same orchestra . Ive heard the Herreweghe Bruckner 4 and 7 plus the Mahler 4 . There is almost no difference in sound I can detect between mainstream orchestras except for a somewhat thinner sound from the strings .
Just how far the HIP movement will go is anyone's guess . But the classic DG recording of Carmina Burana with Eugen Jochum and the chorus and orchestra of the Berlin Deutsche oper was supervised by Orff and has his stamp of approval . Is the Immerseel recording "more authentic "? It uses what are suppose dot the instruments used in the 1930s when the work was premiered .
 
#27 ·
^^^ People have been using period-style instruments for quite a while. I have, and enjoy, John Eliot Gardiner's recording of the Symphonie Fantastique, which not only uses period instruments but was recorded in the very hall where the work was premiered. To me, though, the instruments are generally the least interesting and the least important part of performance practice. Whether your strings are metal or gut is much less critical than the way you play the music. Of course this isn't even a consideration with singing; as far as we can tell, the human voice hasn't changed.
 
#55 ·
^^^ People have been using period-style instruments for quite a while. I have, and enjoy, John Eliot Gardiner's recording of the Symphonie Fantastique, which not only uses period instruments but was recorded in the very hall where the work was premiered. To me, though, the instruments are generally the least interesting and the least important part of performance practice. Whether your strings are metal or gut is much less critical than the way you play the music. Of course this isn't even a consideration with singing; as far as we can tell, the human voice hasn't changed.
isn't the way you play the music heavily dependent of what kind of instrument you play/what kind of strings/bow? If I'm not mistaken Beethoven even wrote some ornamentation in function of what kind of bow the 1st violin used (I think it was Schuppanzigh in case of the Kreutzer sonata).
 
#29 · (Edited)
^ Those are really good! I have no idea whether or not they are authentic but they certainly do give us an approach to Brahms that is strikingly new (to me, anyway) and that does not in any way sell Brahms short. They do this to an almost miraculous extent. I wonder how they will seem when I know them well so that the sense of novelty has subsided (so far I've only played to whole set once and the 3rd symphony twice).

As you all know, I am no scholar and do not aspire to be, but I suppose what I like about the application of HIP thinking (in all its various guises) is its generation and exploration of new interpretive approaches. I, also, was never convinced by the idea that Romantic composers eschewed vibrato but I have never been wholly convinced by the claims made by HIP practitioners for their Baroque interpretations, either. At the same time, though, I do feel that the best Baroque recordings we have had over the last 50 years have all been ostensibly HIP ... and overall these may be getting better and better. The desire to be true to the original style seems still to be a potent driving force in the development of modern approaches to realising Baroque music.

The HIP approach to Romantic music has been far less successful to my ear but has still resulted in some strikingly good recordings - Herreweghe's Franck symphony is a case in point - as well as many (often from Gardiner!) that leave me cold or tell me nothing that is compellingly new. I like Gardiner's Schumann, for example, but don't feel it tells me much that I can't get from Sawallisch. Interpretive styles are fashions (they change) and HIP (in all its various guises) is one source of interesting ideas for how to play the Romantics. It can only be for the good that more recent developments are in themselves critical of earlier HIP attempts. At the end of the day, though, for me the whole thing comes down to my subjective feel for whether I am hearing something a little new but just as true (as musically convincing) in its way as earlier great recordings. And in this I am finding that I prefer some some interpreters to others - just as I always did - and tend not to divide my Romantic interpreters into HIP and non-HIP camps.
 
#30 · (Edited)
Studying authentic practice just gives performers some new ideas to try out. They still have to make it into music! Brahms seems to have done very well from HIP, and so has Chopin IMO. Liszt and Schumann I've explored much less. Or rather the Schumann on original instruments seemed less exciting and fresh and revealing of new things. There is a fortepiano recording of the Transcendental Etudes which I thought was thought provoking, I'll try to remember the details later.

I've never explored romantic concertos. I think that there's a HIP recording of the Chopin concertos (there's more than one isn't there?) which has a good reputation, I've never heard it.
 
#32 ·
Expecting a new view of Late Romantic music from Baroque HIPsters is making the same mistake once again: first critics made the mistake of leaving the Baroque repertoire to musicians schooled in Late Romanticism - and now we're "topsy-turvying" that mistake by leaving the Late Romantic repertoire to Baroque experts. :mad:
 
#37 ·
Who better to offer a "new view" and challenge tired, and possibly false, traditions? The accumulating legacy of recordings has given us a great range of interpretive choices, and the range is only getting wider. It isn't surprising that musicians who began exploring HIP in Baroque music decades ago should find their area of interest expanding forward in time into the 19th century, and although their efforts have been variable - just like their efforts in Baroque music - the urge to explore is all to the good. Gardiner and Harnoncourt are both versatile musicians who I think have done some nice work in Romantic repertoire. I've enjoyed them both in Schumann and Mendelssohn, and Gardiner's period-instrument Berlioz, complete with ophecleide and serpent, is great fun. I haven't heard Harnoncourt's Bruckner, but it seems to have its partisans. I'm not fond of the work of Roger Norrington in the late Romantic repertoire he's attempted; his Wagner and Tchaikovsky are anemic and even perverse, seemingly more concerned to avoid Romantic expression than to understand what it is.

We have to remember that Romanticism was not a static phenomenon and that performance styles certainly changed in the course of the 19th century and into the 20th. It's unlikely that Mahler's ideas on conducting would have been wholly endorsed by Mendelssohn. The important thing for any musician trying to adopt historic practices is to get beyond scholarly "correctness," find a strong sense of personal identification with the music, and play with the conviction that the new approaches she is using are illuminating the music's character as she feels it. There will always be disagreement there, leading to a diversity of results, and that's surely a good thing. After all, musicians contemporary with any music disagree about how it should be played.
 
#34 ·
Romanticizing Baroque:
For example: Karajan's recording of Bach's Brandenburg Concertos and Eugen Jochum's recording of Bach B minor mass.

"Baroquecizing" of Romantic reperoire:
For example: Gardiner's and Harnoncourt's recordings of the Schumann symphonies.
 
#36 ·
It's interesting that Karajan's earlier 1950s recording of Bach's mass was considered very progressive and almost 'HIP' in its day in regard to tempi and general leanness of approach. He himself was disappointed with his later DG recording. The EMI is worth hearing.
 
#35 ·
^ OK. I agree about Karajan and Jochum (although I still quite like the latter). I'm not so sure about the Gardiner as I don't hear much in his approach that we had not had before (even if it sounds a little different). As for Harnoncourt, I only quite like his Schumann symphonies but it is a long time since I stopped thinking of him as a Baroque specialist. He has shown us that he has many faces!
 
#41 ·
There are plenty of recordings where orchestras used instruments of the time and perceived practices on late romantic music. Here is one example:

https://www.amazon.com/Symphony-Nut...symphony+4+anima+eterna&qid=1570541433&sr=8-1

The main issue with this is there is little difference in the sound of the orchestra and there isn't the body of "evidence" for late romantic music that seems to exist for earlier music, such as that of Bach's time.

I think that evidence is faulty anyway. In the case of Vivaldi, a composer whose music to me has been ruined by historically informed practitioners, almost nothing is known about his life and music. He wrote most of it at and for a school for wayward girls. In the main he did not write for professional musicians. Yet HIP practitioners think his music should be played at 120 or presto or however you want to define it -- even though much of it was written for these girls with no musical training.

The fact is the historically informed movement is little more than a fashion like wide lapels or long skirts. Music changes fashion over time like everything else. HIP was preceded in the 1960s by literalism and by the first Baroque authenticity movement in the 1950s. Before that there was humanism and a time when conductors could do anything they wanted with scores, a fashion that was in place for a century. Leopold Stokowski was the last living relic of the era.
 
#43 ·
...In the case of Vivaldi, a composer whose music to me has been ruined by historically informed practitioners, almost nothing is known about his life and music. He wrote most of it at and for a school for wayward girls. In the main he did not write for professional musicians. Yet HIP practitioners think his music should be played at 120 or presto or however you want to define it -- even though much of it was written for these girls with no musical training.
I only know what I like. For me, Vivaldi was wallpaper until I heard Giuliano Carmignola. He brought the music to life for me.


 
#42 ·
Thanks goes out to Mandryka for posting the Brahms symphonies on Claves (that site is very nice), and the "straight" violin rendition of the Brahms sonata. I've ordered both of these.

Speaking of gut strings, The Smithsonian Players are a good way to hear what it sounds like.

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#46 ·
I've sampled some of Gardiner's Brahms recordings. As far as I can tell his approach to Brahms is quite similar to his approach to Baroque music - brisk, relatively steady tempi, emphasis on clarity of lines, minimal vibrato, etc. So it's not historically informed at all - it's just Gardiner's personal style, which is far more anachronistic in this music than the modern style. My (admittedly even more limited) sampling of other Baroque-specialist conductors doing HIP recordings of Romantic repertoire are similar. Am I missing something?

I agree that a true HIP approach to the late Romantic repertoire, drawing on the oldest recordings and piano rolls and contemporary writings, would be fascinating, but is much of it happening right now?
 
#47 · (Edited)
I agree that a true HIP approach to the late Romantic repertoire, drawing on the oldest recordings and piano rolls and contemporary writings, would be fascinating, but is much of it happening right now?
Well I've given you a bunch of examples of Brahms recordings if you look up the thread, what more do you want?

I was trying to avoid keyboard, just to make it more interesting, but nevertheless, here are some Chopin examples.
 
#48 · (Edited)
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A ground breaking recording of the 3rd sonata and other things here by Edoardo Torbianelli, who is the sort of scholar/performer which is common in early music, but rarer in 19th century music. He has taken inspiration not only from the physical sound quality of Chopin's piano, but also by contemporary bel canto singing practice. The booklet essay by Jeanne Roudet is stimulating.

inally, nothing is as vivid in Chopin's pianistic
art as the similarity of his technique and performative style to the bel canto school of singing, inherited
from the art of the eighteenth-century castrati and
perpetuated in the 1800s by the great Italian singers
admired by the pianist from the moment he arrived
in Paris. This comparison has long remained theoretical, an observation made trite by the absence of concrete elements that could help to apply it in performance. The study of this lost vocal school is at the
heart of recent researches into performance practice;
its application to the piano progressively reveals the
previously unsuspected degree to which both disciplines are related. Edoardo Torbianelli's research and
his pianistic art focus on the questions surrounding
the piano's vocality, thus shedding new light on the
aesthetic quarrels and differences between nineteenth-century schools of performance and teaching.
If Chopin and Liszt's artistic personalities differ so
starkly, it is because the two pianists did not sing on
the instrument in the same way. Liszt endorsed a style
of declamation aimed at progressively breaking off
from the bel canto tradition to which he was born. By
making the voices heavier in order to give them more
strength in all registers, he foreshadows twentiethcentury vocal technique and a conception of good
singing which is drastically different from Chopin's
ideal. The accounts of Chopin's pupils and their own
students, largely made available today thanks to the
pioneering work of Jean-Jacques Eigeldinger, outline
the technical parametres typical of the Chopinian
school. First, the quality of sound-production and
the perfect control of a rich palette of dynamic
inflections are essential tools for singing on the
piano, just as they are for the singer: "The fingers
must sink, must somehow be engulfed in the depths
of the piano, both when playing forte and piano; one
must pull an extended, melancholy sonority out of the instrument; despite it not being a singing instrument (for this one must not let the keys lift too
quickly) one must release from it a song that aims to
imitate the Italian singers, in Chopin's own terms"
(Cecylia Dzialynska, 1892). The comparison of these
descriptions with singing methods and the vast pedagogical corpus dedicated to the instruments allows
one to patiently reconstruct forgotten technical gestures; historical recordings have also provided inestimable help, as have the collaborations with modern-day singers and restorers of historical pianos.
Chopin's notation is tirelessly scrutinised in a novel
way that departs from the philological method
aimed at producing an ideal score with numerous
variants, often somewhat unpalatable for the pianist.
Rather than serving to determine the most authentic indication, or that which is most relevant to us in
the twenty-first century, Chopin's variants-as well
as those of his contemporary editors-are examined
in order to reconstruct a palette of sounds and meanings corresponding to a variety of signs which have
since evolved or been forgotten. For example, the use
of accents on the piano suggests different types of
vocalisation and effects which one can bring back to
sonorous life. This indefatigable research on sound
and meaning clarifies parameters which musical
notation is incapable of describing with any sort of
precision: punctuation, phrasing, a type of rubato that frees the melody from the notated rhythm,
tempo inflections that accompany the varied writing
like narrative vagaries, the use of the pedal. If all of
Chopin's music is examined within this aural aesthetic, the definition of pianistic genres and of the soundscapes they transmit is crucial in order to play his
music. The emergence of the nocturne and barcarolle
as pianistic genres highlights the mechanisms of
musical exoticism and the creation of an italianité
that has its roots in the eighteenth century. Its relevant aspects here are the link between the learned
and the popular, between bel canto and folklore, the
latter never having shunned the expressive tools of
classically trained voices in Italy. Thus, it is no surprise that within the pantheon of great musicians
Chopin is the uncontested master of the nocturne and
the author of one of the most beautiful barcarolles in
the piano's repertoire. The genre of the barcarolle resonates with the great Romantic themes embodied by
the composer in exile: the blurring of borders
between time and space, nature and civilisation, the
scholarly and popular; all the while preserving
improvisation, the role of recollection and memory
as well as the vast spectrum of emotions belonging to
the field of melancholy at the heart of his work.
 
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