Period perf and instruments 2013

Period Performance n History of Early Music Revival. n Early Instrument Industry. • Surviving instruments – archival &

literary sources – editions – musical taste

• Part of study of ‘Historical Performance Practice’

Mendelsohn and Bach

Early Music Revival 1 n  Music Revival goes back to Mendelsohn’s

1829 revival of Bach’s St Matthew Passion and of his revivals of oratorios by Handel and Haydn. Composes Elijah and St Paul

n  The Idea that before the 19th Century people were only interested in music that was contemporary is not really true. The Academy of Ancient Music – related to the Academy of the 18th century London that aimed to maintain Corelli and Handel in the repertoire.

Messiah in the 19th century

…continued n  Handel’s Messiah has been performed

ever since it was written. Eighteenth Century Musicologists like Hawkins knew a lot about Renaissance Music and Medieval Music and were able to enlighten others.

n  Bach and Handel Societies in both England and Germany flourished in many provincial towns and cities – and fuelled the choral traditions in those countries.

Brussels Instrument Museum n  The Development of Instrument Museums

– and the playing of old instruments (Brussels and the Fetis’s Historical Concerts in the 1880s and 90s).

n  Brussels concerts on original instruments heard by Arnold Dolmetsch (1858-1940)– family tradition of instrument tuning, mending and playing – especially of Bach’s 48.

Arnold Dolmetsch (1858-1940)

Dolmetsch’s Legacy n  The apostle of retrogression – instrument

maker, performer, polemicist, scholar and teacher. Played all the instruments and believed in going back to primary sources.

n  Early Music and the Arts and Crafts Movement. The personal connection with William Morris and his emphasis on craftsmanship, do-it-yourself and the `grow your own’ earthiness traditions.

n  Haslemere, The Dolmetsch Family, the festival, recordings and BBC connections.

n  Recorder movement in schools.

Elizabethan Fever in the Edwardian Era n  Edmund Fellowes and madrigals/lute songs

(coinciding with revival of English composition – Elgar and VW).

n  Revival of Tudor Church Music – of the Oxford Movement and Surpliced choirs in all parish churches. Richard Terry & Westminster Cathedral.

n  Coincided with period when Britain was convinced of its moral superiority and empire at its height. Looking for a glorious musical past in "the land without music".

Interwar Years and the Spread of Ideas n  Interwar Years – The Schola Cantorum

Basiliensis, Schola Cantorum of Paris – Schools starting up dedicated to reviving Early Music – close connection with academics. Schools in Germany in 1920s dedicated to particular instruments, e.g. Lute .

n  Modern composers rediscover Early Music (Stravinsky, Hindemith, Busoni and others)

n  American Renaissance (Dolmetsch and Landowska in America). Hindemith at Yale. New York Pro Musica. Great scholars - Reese.

n  Thurston Dart and the scholar musician.

Thurston Dart

1960s and Post War Generation - Flamboyant Performers n  i960s and gathering pace of Baroque Opera

Revival. Baroque dance and stagecraft resurrected. DG 'Archiv' label.

n  Alfred Deller and the Countertenor renaissance.

n  Early music Subcultures – Noah Greenberg, David Munrow, Gustav Leonhardt.

n  Amateur factor. Industry started with followers and groupies

n  Early Music in Japan, Eastern Europe, Scandinavia.

Play of Daniel

Munrow

Alfred Deller

Alfred Deller

Lute Song

Instrument Making n  Cottage industry of instrument makers

making period instruments. n  Reviving old methods and techniques of

construction. Using old materials, etc. Slow and painstaking craftsmanship. Antithesis to mass production.

n  Small output and high cost. n  Makers concentrating on individual

instruments. n  Colleges to train makers and exhibitions to

sell and promote.

Dolmetsch Workshops 1920s

1980s and Beyond n  Beethoven, Brahms and Beyond – Classical

and Romantic Music on Period Instruments. Influence on Concert Programming, Musical Education and Recording Industry.

n  Historical Performance: The Dominant Musical Ideology of Our Time. Affecting the way modern classical performers play e.g. the erosion of acceptance of vibrato

n  But also questioning of the preoccupation with the past.

Post 1980s ideas - Instruments or Voices n  Idea that the use of instruments in

medieval music is always questionable – very little of the notation is intended for instruments, and before the 15th centuries instrumentalists would not have been musically literate. English `a capella heresy’

n  Questioning of the need for authenticity – as it is unobtainable anyway - and banning of the word.

Harry Haskell’s book on the Early Music Revival n  `Authenticity is of course the nub, the central issue, the

very raison d’etre of the early music movement. In a sense, the history of the movement is the history of the search for authenticity – or more accurately, the history of changing concepts of authenticity – in the performance of early music. A distinction must now be drawn between the early music revival, as that umbrella phrase has been rather loosely used so far in this book, and what has come to be called the historical performance movement. Clearly many of the musicians associated with the revival of early music and instruments have had little or no interest in historical modes of performance. Only recently has the attitude expressed in Landowska’s famous remark `you play Bach your way, I’ll play Bach his way’ gained general acceptance among early musicians’. Haskell, p.175

Bibliography n  Introduction to the Debate – Nicholas Kenyon’s

Authenticity and Early Music (Oxford, 1994) n  Its contribution to the development of Musicology in

the 1980s and 1990s – reference to Nicolas Cook, A Very Short Introduction (Oxford, 2000 rev. ed.)

n  The History of the Early Music Revival – Harry Haskell, The Early Music Revival (London, 1989)

n  Questions of Historical Performance Practice – Colin Lawson and Robin Stowell, The Historical Performance of Music (Cambridge, 2002)

n  Collections of primary source material - Robert Donington, The Interpretation of Early Music (Faber 1974/New Version 1989)

Historical Performance today n  Sources

n  surviving instruments n  representation in art & sculpture n  archival and literary sources - specific and

general n  original editions and manuscripts

n  Issues for performance today n  the notes - using reliable editions n  the instruments (and what they tell us) n  performance style

•  pitch & temperament, tempo, phrasing & articulation, melodic inflection, rhythmic alteration

•  ornamentation & embellishment •  venues, platform arrangement, etc

cittern/citole/gittern

Surviving Instruments n  Instruments survive in good numbers

from the sixteenth-century. Some are playable.

n  A great deal can be learnt from them and museums and collections can be a great resource.

n  However all instruments have a history that will be in part unknown and all will have been reconditioned, repaired, restored or alter to some degree over the years to conform to changing taste.

Gittern by Hans Ott – c.1450

Surviving Instruments n Can tell us a huge amount about

historical performance pratice – pitch, timbre, intensity, etc.

n Many instruments have a history that connects them with specific times, places and people. E.g. Pianos of Mozart and Beethoven.

n But always be aware of pitfalls.

archival & literary sources n  To know how music was performed in

different periods must take in accounts of performance.

n  Social documentation on musicians and their lives can help. How they worked – in what groups and ensembles.

n  Literature on performance practice written in the time is always present and invaluable.

Editions and Sources n  The original is always of importance and

understanding how the notes and performance indicators were interpreted vital.

n  Many great pieces have had several editions and understanding how the music has changed through the editions is important. Editions can vary hugely in the text – this may indicate changing musical taste and convention.

Musical Taste n This is in constant flux. n Even if you think you know all

there is to know about the performance practice conventions surrounding a piece and the time it was composed it will probably be folly to try to reproduce it all.

n We live with modern performance conventions (concerts and a paying public, varied venues, and an audience that expects to be entertained).

Last Thoughts

n Any modern performance needs to be an informed compromise that brings to bare an understanding of the whole history of performance practice in suitable way for an effective performance to take place that is true to th intentions of the composer but appropriate to that event in time and place.

Bibliography

n Haskell, Harry (1988) The Early Music Revival, London, Thames and Hudson

n Kenyon, Nicolas, (1989) Authenticity and Early Music

n Butt, John (2002) Playing with History, CUP, Cambridge

n  Lawson and Stowell, The Historical Performance of Music,