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I didn't see Chris' initial post on this, a few weeks ago, and it was only when he alerted me to it on the Vinyl Asylum that I went back and read it.
(You might ask what someone like Chris, who doesn't own a turntable, was doing on the Vinyl Asylum, but you know, Gladstone used to hang around prostitutes attempting to "convert them" out of their ways.....I think that Chris is secretly attracted to vinyl, and just doesn't want to admit it.)
My how first exposure to HIP (how do we actually define that) was first, small ensemble with modern instruments, using the tricks of the Baroque trade - overdotting, etc. - people like Leppard, Marriner, Ristenpart. I had certainly read a lot about Concentus Musicus in the late, lamented High Fidelity, and then had the chance to see them live circa 1974, and one of the works was the Brandenburg No. 5, which sounded incredibly right to me. Later I heard Messiah live from Gardiner, Hogwood, McGegan - really to make a long story short, I prefer a HIP approach to Baroque music. I do see the validity of the use of modern instruments - I enjoy both of Gould Goldberg Variations.
Different strokes, I guess.
Follow Ups:
The war is over! HIP has won the right to be considered mainstream and the old, congested ways of the 40's and 50's has been moved off the mainstage. Even when played with modern instruments, HIP sensibilities reign. The war is over, the battles have been won. You have permission to enjoy your music the way you want to on LP or CD.
Let a thousand viola de gambas bloom.
When they discover the center of the universe, a lot of people will be disappointed to discover they are not it. ~ Bernard Bailey
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"If people don't want to come, nothing will stop them" - Sol Hurok
Ironic.
Nobody is forcing Chris or Jay Buridan to listen to HIP performances.
I can appreciate HIP or modern instrument approaches and I don't worry about it when I choose a recording to play.
I play the Bilson/Gardiner Mozart Concerti recordings often but Schiff/Vegh, Casadesus/Szell, Serkin/Szell, Fleisher/Szell, Brendel/Marriner and others get regular play too.
I have enjoyed the Rachel Podger Vivaldi recordings so I bought the Mozart Violin Sonata set with Gary Cooper. It arrived yesterday and the first few sonatas have been full of life as I expect from her.
my blog: http://carsmusicandnature.blogspot.com/
I would not consider Leppard, Marriner, or Ristenpart HIP just because they conducted chamber-sized ensembles. I don't have any problem at all with those conductors, other than occasional blandness once in a while - particularly with Marriner who was so prolific as a recording artist that blandness was certain to creep into some of his albums sooner or later.
Anyway, I've said my piece about HIP in many previous posts, and the only thing I'd like to add at this point is the hypocrisy of forbidding the string players to use vibrato while the singers in HIP recordings sing with their normal, natural vibratos. Something's not adding up there. (Not to mention the thug-like behavior of JEGgie [John Elliot Gardiner] who threatened to punch a couple of cellists in the face if they continued to use vibrato!)
Nevertheless, in order to get to certain repertoire (Rameau especially, but some Handel too), I've had to grin and bear it by putting up with recordings of the HIP "sackcloth and ashes" approach to vibrato. I've even got a couple of JEGgie recordings myself.
It was awhile ago, but I remember an interview with Harnoncourt where he noted that everything he was doing was conjecture, and that we really couldn't know what it sounded like in Bach's time. I wonder if it was truly accepted practice to play and sing without vibrato, or if in fact, as I suspect, there were then many acceptable ways to perform the music.
We have gone through stages - at the beginning of the LP era, when Baroque music was starting to mushroom, many of the conductors played it as though it had been composed in the 19th century - Klemperer, Beecham, Ormandy, etc. Then we started to see the rise of specialists like Karl Richter who used smaller forces and attempted more of 18th century sensibility. I have great respect for these folks - they were pioneers - but I don't know if today we find much room for their recordings. I once owned Richter's St. Matthews Passion, and honestly it was a bit boring.
At the same time, we had some non-specialist like Scherchen who also attempted to drive a new sensibility into the works. So, were these performances HIP (for the time), using modern instruments and operatic voices for the vocal parts?
Then, of course, during the 60s we had the start of the use of older, more authentic (allegedly) instruments, and a different sound picture for the works. At the same time, the Marriners and Leppards, while still using modern instruments, drove a greater sense of period authenticity into the works. Were both of these HIP?
Then of course, coupled with the digital age, we have the completion of the HIP revolution, with very choppy rhythms and vibratoless playing and singing, no to mention the extension forward from the baroque into the classical era, and further into early Romantic music. We also had further thinking about choral practice. How do we feel about the one to a part choral work in Bach? (I personally think it sounds wrong, but that is an opinion).
Personally, I prefer "authentic" instruments in Baroque music, but modern ones thereafter, even though I own a ton of HIP performances of Mozart, Haydn and Beethoven. I will take the harpsichord over the piano for Bach's keyboard works, even though I own a lot of Gould recordings of Bach (he tries, and succeeds, in making the piano sound much more like an appropriate instrument than does, say, Perahia). I don't care to hear the fortepiano very often - Brautigam's survey of Beethoven is a marvelous exception, but in general, it doesn't sound like a real instrument to me, authentic or not.
Fortunately, there are a lot of roads to Rome, when it comes to both performances and recordings.
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"If people don't want to come, nothing will stop them" - Sol Hurok
And hearing is too precious.
Same goes for almost anything on harpsichord except, e.g., continuo in BWV 244.
I feel a bit odd being the one to defend the fortepiano, given that I have only a handful of fortepiano recordings and I can't even play "Chopsticks". But I think there's something important going on here, so here goes:
The essence of any art is the artist's relationship to the tools of the art. All tools have limitations; good artists work within those limitations, or even use those limitations, to reveal something about life. Sure, tools get improved all the time: color digital photography instead of black and white celluloid film; modern indoor kitchen equipment instead of outdoor live-fire cooking; modern mechanical sewing methods instead of hand-sewn couturier techniques; and the list goes on to include modern pianos over fortepianos. Only a fool would disparage these advancements across the board.
Nevertheless, Ansel Adams used b&w to show us something about the nature of light that digital photography couldn't do. Pit barbeque can reveal something about the flavor of pork that a Viking range cannot do. A traditional-technique couturier dress can show us something about the interplay of fabric and the female form that a machine-made dress cannot do.
And a Haydn piano trio played on fortepiano shows us something about the balance and interplay among keyboard, violin and cello that can get drowned out by the power and commanding presence of a modern piano.
I don't need for you to experience any of these artistic exercises, much less enjoy them. But I think to reject any of them (including the fortepiano) a priori is a mistake.
Let us go now in peace.
Happy listening,
Jim
"The passage of my life is measured out in shirts."
- Brian Eno
Yes! That's what these HIP performances should be: EXERCISES, or, perhaps, EXPERIMENTS. And if that's all they remained, then I'd have no objection to them.
But somehow, they've taken on a life of their own and acquired an undeserved (IMHO) inertia among certain listeners. You know, the old hippies with their Birkenstocks - I can tell you from several Philharmonia Baroque events I was obliged to attend that the Birkenstocks crowd constitutes a significant portion of the audience! ;-)
No need to get personal, Chris. ;-)
But wait. . . didn't I see you at one of those Philharmonia Baroque happenings? ;-)
N
. . . if it SOUNDS second-class, it IS second-class! ;-)
.your loss! : ). I'm glad there's someone out there still willing to buy Rattle's latest Berlin Phil Four Seasons, Not I!
Edits: 01/25/17 01/25/17
I can't help but quote Sir Thomas Beecham here, who said (famously) that the harpsichord reminded him of corpses copulating.
That being said, I love Baroque music played well on the harpsichord-- especially by Rousset and Hantai...
Harry Z
reason to dismiss the whole mov't, which spans at least 600 years, from Ockeghem to Vaughan Williams.
Why do you care? There are plenty more performances of this repertoire on Steinway grands. I prefer them, too.
OK, here's the thing.
They won't make you gay.
"If people don't want to come, nothing will stop them" - Sol Hurok
Seem to recall my mother warning me what might happen if I spent too much time listening to the harpsichord.
and working for religious politicians.
. . . but I once heard (at a, ahem, private gentlemen's club - you know, the one that Alex Jones is always digging up dirt on!) William F. Buckley (yes, the founder of the National Review) play the Gigue from Bach's First Partita on the harpsichord.
Ugh! - even the very thought of that performance makes me shudder to this day! ;-)
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Case by case basis for me.Isabel Faust's Bach Sonatas and Partitas have given me such pleasure lately; it's sad that people would dismiss her performances out of hand for simply being influenced by HIP.
Edits: 01/24/17
I am SO on your side.
The HIP bashing is, for the most part, unjustifiable.
BTW, I love transcriptions of Bach's works for piano, also for orchestra and electronics. Those are tremendous fun and guilty pleasures all 'round. Bach is amazing.
Currently enjoying the complete sacred cantatas by Bach Collegium Japan. Have sung in maybe a couple of dozen as soloist and choir member in a HIP environment. Great experience.
Why the hate? I just don't get it.
"If people don't want to come, nothing will stop them" - Sol Hurok
is why there's so much rancor, when we have so many great examples of both types available. Now if, let's say, there was an announcement by all-powerful authority that, from here on, only one type would be available and a choice had to be made, I could understand there being an argument.
Mark in NC
"The thought that life could be better is woven indelibly into our hearts and our brains" -Paul Simon
Every time this topic comes up here and I choose to add to the thread, I try to mention that with western music of the 17th and 18th centuries, there is plenty of room for a wide range of approaches, styles and instruments. No need for rancor.
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