My dear fellow music enthusiasts, the time has come to at least murmur a bit about historical accuracy. Conversations on this topic almost always take an unpleasant turn, I must warn you. So please keep your scathing comments to a respectful minimum. When talking about historical accuracy in music, one usually refers to music from the Baroque or Classical eras, before composers were meticulous about notating everything. I'll give you an example of one very famous (in nerdly circles) debate: how many people sang in JS Bach's ensemble? Seems like an easy question, right? If you only knew the scads of essays, angry letters and other pretentious treatises written on the subject. The main scholars in this debate are Joshua Rifkin and Andrew Parrott, both well-respected as musicians and historians. Rifkin says Bach's vocal music should be performed with one singer per part. He also claims that the St. Matthew Passion was originally performed with this complement. The debate exists because actual evidence regarding first "performances" (this is back when sacred music was written for actual sacred services) and personnel lists for St. Thomas, where Bach worked, is sparse and inconsistent. Still, Rifkin and Parrott go around and around on this topic. Granted, it is a noble pursuit to try to discover as much about the music as possible in order to give a thoughtful, respectful performance. But the way I see it, after having read ever so many Rifkin/Parrott essays that grew more and more adolescent in their personal attacks, the whole subject comes down to one question in the end.
Should this piece be performed the way it was originally performed or the way it was intended to be performed by the composer?
This question isn't meant to over simplify the situation at all. After all, how can we always know how a piece was meant to be performed? Still, the question is valid, I think. For the sake of consistency, let's consider Bach. He did not have many musicians at his disposal most of the time. At St. Thomas, he did have a boys choir he got to train, which I'm sure was very useful. Perhaps Bach could only find one good singer to represent each vocal part...does that mean we should perform it as such these days? Anyone who has studied Bach from a performance perspective knows how important textural clarity is to Bach so maybe the Mormon Tabernacle Choir wouldn't be appropriate for a performance of Komm, Jesu, Komm. But couldn't one use a 16-voice ensemble? This is a lot to think about and opinions are constantly changing. It's a bit hard to keep up, really, with all of the scholarly debate.
What do you think? How would you answer the question?
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10 comments:
Wouldn't it be sad if there were only one way to perform any piece of music? Research into historic performance practice is a good thing because it gives us more new ways of looking at a piece, not because it narrows down how we can perform it. As I understand it, performers used to be more free about violating the letter of the score even when composers did spell it all out (as far as that's possible).
Did anyone follow the brouhaha at the BBC Proms this summer about Roger Norrington playing Elgar without string vibrato?
Isn't it funny how up-in-arms people can get? I like Norrington very much and am glad someone like him is around to challenge us. He is a bit extreme, though. I don't think Elgar would have wanted his symphony played with NO vibrato (in any case, natural vibrato occurs when playing in tune) but I don't think it hurts to hear something performed differently than the way we know it.
Has anyone actually heard the old recordings that Norrington cites as evidence? He gave a nice interview to the BBC during the Proms and said that in recordings from the 1920s and 1930s you can hear the sound change as vibrato enters the string sound in one orchestra after another. I wonder if it's a matter of interpretation and others would dispute what we hear in those recordings. At any rate, it'd be interesting to listen.
It also seems like such a big change would have been commented on at the time or since. Some musicians might even still remember.
I'm not a musical expert by any means, nor can I tell you the name of songs and their composers. But I love all kinds ofmusic and music was meant to produce thoughts and emotions. There's more behind it, but in my perspective, that's what it boils down to, what moves you. For some it may be a huge choir with 200 vocies and others it may be SATB solos. There is room for both perspective. Some may perform it the way the compsoer intended while others can perform it jsut as well in thir own perspective. People don't like Cream of Wheat the same way, so why would music be any different. Just my opinion is all. Why not take what you love and add your own flair to it, then just maybe, someone else can see that music and be moved as well. Have a wonderful day Ms. Karen and all others. Jason
i would be interested in anyone's comments on Schubert's Death and the Maiden----I am a thrift store classical fan and out of the many scratchy LPs i have bought over twenty years-Death and the Maiden is still my favorite-but i still do not know much about it-anyone?
I am not a "music nerd". I am a "visual art nerd". :-) I am familiar with the mainstream classical and opera music. I am not familiar with the lesser known musical pieces. I stumbled across your blog and I had to say how much I enjoy your musical selections. Before your program came a long I had pretty much figured I must not be technical enough because I really couldn't get into a lot of the classical music that was being played. I had found a few artists (Vivaldi, Beethoven, and others) and pieces that I really enjoy and figured that was all i was going to find. But when I catch your program I hear a lot of pieces that make me ask, "Ooh! Who is that?!?!" :-)
Thanks, John.
Hey thanks John! Visual art nerds are certainly welcome here. This is a safe environment for nerds, snobs, fools and whomever else may wander in. I'd be happy to recommend some music or composers if you'd like. you can email karen.hearn@mpbonline.org. And when you hear something you dig, try to remember what time you heard it and check the playlist later. Cheers!
I am so glad you told me about the classical broadcasts by MPB. I've listened daily ever since. Hooray for MPB, and thank you for excellent programming
Right on, Hogan! I'm sure I'll see you tomorrow night at the benefit.
Returning to the question of vibrato in old recordings (before 1940): David Hurwitz has a very lengthy essay posted in 2 parts at classicstoday.com in which he argues that old recordings only seem to lack vibrato because the recording technology didn't capture it (see part 2 of "vibrato").
Interestingly, Hurwitz notes that in the 1960s when the period instrument movement was young, they complained about the vibrato used in baroque music for as long as anyone could remember, at least since 1900--when we're now told they didn't use vibrato in R. Strauss!
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