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Classical Instruments: Historical or Modern?

I think that's a bizarre overstatement. I clearly said there's room for all of it.

But trying to force an "authenticity" no one of these "defenders of truth" ever experienced is fake by definition. No one was there to hear any of the premieres of those works, and the composers themselves re-arranged their compositions -and "improved" on the original- regularly for different performances. All classical composers were notorious for their adaptability with re-arrangements. Claiming now things were cast in stone with the first composition is what is actually a complete pretense.

But trying to force an "authenticity" no one of these "defenders of truth" ever experienced is fake by definition. No one was there to hear any of the premieres of those works, and the composers themselves re-arranged their compositions -and "improved" on the original- regularly for different performances. All classical composers were notorious for their adaptability with re-arrangements. Claiming now things were cast in stone with the first composition is what is actually a complete pretense.
This circle can be squared by simply not assuming claims of authenticity when they are absent.
 
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This group

This circle can be squared by simply not assuming claims of authenticity when they are absent.
Nah, there are many such claims in the booklets of several recordings like that. Especially true for Baroque epoch recordings. That's how the conversations started. If it hadn't, I would have not chimed in.

The claims of "authenticity" are both an over-used marketing ploy and clearly uninformed, because no one really knows what the real reference is, or what vision the original composer would have embraced given the fact they were actually limited in their possibilities. And knowing how amazingly innovative those guys were... what on earth makes anyone think they wouldn't have embraced and even pushed beyond today's possibilities? It's insulting to think those geniuses wouldn't have.
 
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Nah, there are many such claims in the booklets of several recordings like that. Especially true for Baroque epoch recordings. That's how the conversations started. If i hadn't, I would have not chimed in.

The claims of "authenticity" are both an over-used marketing ploy and clearly uninformed, because no one really knows what the real reference is, or what vision the original composer would have embraced given the fact they were actually limited in their possibilities. And knowing how amazingly innovative those guys were... what on earth makes anyone think they wouldn't have embraced and even pushed beyond today's possibilities? It's insulting to think those geniuses wouldn't have.
It’s also a fallacy to think they succeeded despite the resources available to them. If only Bach had a Steinway or Mozart an 808…

The authenticity question is a well beaten horse these days.
 
It’s also a fallacy to think they succeeded despite the resources available to them. If only Bach had a Steinway or Mozart an 808…

That's a ridiculous claim I never made. What I stated is that they'd clearly embraced every possible realm of innovation and creativity at their disposal, and it's ridiculous to claim otherwise. They *were* innovators.
The authenticity question is a well beaten horse these days.
Not according to this thread.

Again. I am fine with hearing different interpretations that refresh classics we have heard a thousand times and sometimes feel stale. Why buy the hundredth instantiation of Vivaldi's Four Seasons if it sticks to the exact same goals? The whole thing about "truest to the original" is complete bullcrap. It's just "your personal vision" of what you "imagine" to be truthful. I just care about what touches me in their interpretations, they can keep their authenticity theories to themselves. And sometimes I prefer updated interpretations. Neither I nor anyone else knows what the original really sounded like, give us a break.
 
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All classical composers were notorious for their adaptability with re-arrangements.
That's what I'm saying. Authentic or period experience - is a simple way to establish the limits of this adaptability by historical analysis, in order to evade the cliches into which any work will inevitably fall if trying to pursue just the mere "pleasure" of sound, which our modern culture is abundant of.

That's why authentic performers are often the most experimenting. Kuijken brothers invented a musical language for Lully music almost from scratch.

Also note that when you go into early music, 99% of it - is authentic. With 1% of ocassional and random covers on synthesizers, 8-bit imitations.

Compare this and that "Mille regretz" recordings. They are both authentic, although they differ very much - the amount of embelishements and the "optional notes" choosing (Elam Rotem explained that in his "Mille regretz" video)

I think the whole of this "authentic music resentment" has something to do with people who simply aren't interested in early music.
 
Neither I nor anyone else knows what the original really sounded like, give us a break.
It's just so funny to read these generic accusations of dogmatic approach, you simply don't understand the question. Please try to read the books by Harnoncourt, he explained his personal experience of engaging with composers' legacy, it can be viewed as a document of the exact process that every interpreter has to come through, of course in his personally specific way.
 
That's what I'm saying. Authentic or period experience - is a simple way to establish the limits of this adaptability by historical analysis, in order to evade the cliches into which any work will inevitably fall if trying to pursue just the mere "pleasure" of sound, which our modern culture is abundant of.

That's why authentic performers are often the most experimenting. Kuijken brothers invented a musical language for Lully music almost from scratch.

Also note that when you go into early music, 99% of it - is authentic. With 1% of ocassional and random covers on synthesizers, 8-bit imitations.

Compare this and that "Mille regretz" recordings. They are both authentic, although they differ very much - the amount of embelishements and the "optional notes" choosing (Elam Rotem explained that in his "Mille regretz" video)

I think the whole of this "authentic music resentment" has something to do with people who simply aren't interested in early music.
Well, glad we seem to now fully agree on granting some freedom of interpretation.

I am a firm believer that great musicians can do an amazing job enriching previous work by other composers as they pay tribute to what inspired them.
 
It's just so funny to read these generic accusations of dogmatic approach, you simply don't understand the question. Please try to read the books by Harnoncourt, he explained his personal experience of engaging with composers' legacy, it can be viewed as a document of the exact process that every interpreter has to come through, of course in his personally specific way.
That does in no remote way contradict anything I ever stated.

Nor do I care one ounce about what someone writes telling me what to enjoy or not. I referenced some Deutsche Grammophon recordings. Listen to them. If you hate them I accept your personal taste.

But never tell me what I should enjoy or not. Ever. For whatever someone else wrote somewhere. That's their opinion. I have mine. I in no way have told anyone else what to enjoy. I have just cautioned about semi-pseudo-intellectual prejudice.

Whatever you like, fine. Never claimed it's bad. Just said it may sound repetitive if you stick to the same formula and marketing pitch ("we found genuine 17th century violas and restored them and bla bla"). And a lot of that blabber exists in classical music circles. Seen a lot of that promoting some concerts. Attended several of them, too. :)

Never accused anyone of dogma. Just of pitching a tad overboard for the sake of marketing their own interpretation.

I provided direct references to updated interpretations. Counter those if you can. Thanks.
 
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Right now I'm listening to Blandine Verlet's volume 4 of her survey of the harpsichord music of François Couperin - thank heavens for Tidal! These recordings are long out of print in physical format but can still be streamed. I've loved these recordings for many years, used to own the whole series on Astree CDs. But this year I first heard Angela Hewitt's three CDs of the music of François Couperin. Until I heard these recordings, I did not think it was possible to perform this music on the modern piano. Guess I was wrong:


 
Just said it may sound repetitive if you stick to the same formula and marketing pitch
It already sounds repetitive, in the "mainstream" classical music, exactly in those circles you just mentioned. I don't really understand your point, since 90% of so called "classical" music today is represented by Romantic and post-Romantic era, which cannot be "authentified" any further. And classicists (Mozard and co) are much closer to them than to Baroque.

What exactly are you cautioning against? I really don't quite understand. As consumers, we can only refer to ethemeral "marketing strategies", being unable to discuss the music itself. And quite often there is nothing really to discuss! Music isn't about "talking", if you remember that quote by Zappa. :)

As for my personal preferences, - I pirate all music that I listen to, so I don't really care about "marketing", since I am a parasite on the body of the market. Maybe there are a lot of musical concerts where you live, but in my place - people are deaf and play only the romantic era bullcrap, played by some occasional third-tier italian soloists who are accompanied by our half-witted orchestras. (Of course just 300 kilometers from me there is a Latvian "Bach festival", but Baltic Rail is anywhere near completion, so that will have to wait)

People with resentment towards authentic movement very often present themselves as some sort of enlightenment apologets: "beware, cause these are charlatans who sell snake oil!". I have never met these charlatans. Could you perhaps give examples of authentic music that is bad, in your opinion?
 
Right now I'm listening to Blandine Verlet's volume 4 of her survey of the harpsichord music of François Couperin - thank heavens for Tidal! These recordings are long out of print in physical format but can still be streamed. I've loved these recordings for many years, used to own the whole series on Astree CDs. But this year I first heard Angela Hewitt's three CDs of the music of François Couperin. Until I heard these recordings, I did not think it was possible to perform this music on the modern piano. Guess I was wrong:


I still don't think a better Goldberg interpretation is possible
 
"Period Authenticity" is a marketing gimmick.
Period authenticity is a field of musical research. It involves such things as studying instructional manuals of performance for a given time period and the restoration of very old and often very delicate instruments, or the recreation of those instruments. You will find it usually happens in an academic context. I was the recording engineer for the San Francisco Early Music Society in the 1990s. If period authenticity was a marketing gimmick the folks I was recording would have made a lot more money. They pretty much all did it for the love of the music.
No one lived then to experience the performances.
But people who lived then wrote about how the music was played, the nature of the instruments, how they were tuned and so forth.
And it's insulting to the original composers' incredible creativity to claim they would not want to see their work re-interpreted a few centuries later in any new and different way.
Maybe. But it's also an insult to the composers to not pay attention to the nature of performance and instrumentation in the composer's time.
Don't get me wrong, I also enjoy that angle, but why not create beyond it with today's possibilities.

I actually very much enjoy something like Max Richter's Recomposition of Vivaldi's 4 Seasons on the Deutsche Grammophon series (genius!), and Gregson did a mind-blowing, fantastic job with Bach in that series too. And probably my fav recording of Pachelbel's Kanon is Karl Munchinger's with a full orchestra loading up on full strings. Far more powerful than many of the "era authentic" lightweight re-enactment pretense.
Maybe. I've heard that recording probably a thousand times, found this performance far more refreshing:

It's no different than the modern era, where some classic songs actually seem better or fresher when a great musician puts a new spin on them. And several songs got a new lease on life (and made the original composers $$$) when someone else re-recorded them. Ask Leon Haywood how much he made of "It's a G Thang" by Dre (well you can't he passed, but he did).
Guess I'll pass, it's outside of my timezone.
 
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I still don't think a better Goldberg interpretation is possible
There's certainly room for more than one interpretation of this work. My favorite version on harpsichord, Blandine Verlet's Astree recording:

 
I'm a fan of modern-ish instruments compared to early music instruments. Musicians have loyalties to brands of modern instruments. In piano for instance, Cecil Taylor I saw 3-4 times, including a small 20 person cafe. He would only play Bösendorfer, another concert pianist only plays Kawai.

That being said, there is a local duo who are part of the early instrument builders world - https://philandgayleneuman.com/.

They have a great sense of humor and some weird instruments. One was a double double reed instrument played by 2 musicians face to face about 10 inches apart and with finger holes on each side. Here are some instruments - https://philandgayleneuman.com/instrument-building/. They built a reproduction of one instrument that only is known from being discovered from an ancient sunken shipwreck. There is whole world of ancient instrument reproduction crafters.

Here is just one performance -


They have more on YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=ensemble+de+organographia
 
Until I heard these recordings, I did not think it was possible to perform this music on the modern piano.

It's certainly possible. After all, it's been done for over 100 years with notable success. The question is, aren't we missing out on something? In the end, the listener decides, and if "fresh takes" or modernised versions or André Rieu is what people want then they can have it in spades.

But compare these two performances of the same piece, one on harpsichord the other on a Steinway. Now, Alberto Chines really does his best on the piano, but in contrast to Scott Ross' harpsichord it sounds downright dull.


 
But compare these two performances of the same piece, one on harpsichord the other on a Steinway. Now, Alberto Chines really does his best on the piano, but in contrast to Scott Ross' harpsichord it sounds downright dull. ...
The first time I heard Bach's Goldberg Variations played on harpsichord, it was a revelation to me. I've mentioned this before.
 
"Period Authenticity" is a marketing gimmick. No one lived then to experience the performances. And it's insulting to the original composers' incredible creativity to claim they would not want to see their work re-interpreted a few centuries later in any new and different way. Don't get me wrong, I also enjoy that angle, but why not create beyond it with today's possibilities.

I actually very much enjoy something like Max Richter's Recomposition of Vivaldi's 4 Seasons on the Deutsche Grammophon series (genius!), and Gregson did a mind-blowing, fantastic job with Bach in that series too. And probably my fav recording of Pachelbel's Kanon is Karl Munchinger's with a full orchestra loading up on full strings. Far more powerful than many of the "era authentic" lightweight re-enactment pretense.

It's no different than the modern era, where some classic songs actually seem better or fresher when a great musician puts a new spin on them. And several songs got a new lease on life (and made the original composers $$$) when someone else re-recorded them. Ask Leon Haywood how much he made of "It's a G Thang" by Dre (well you can't he passed, but he did).

I'm sure I said all of this before in this thread, and I suspect Pablolie and I don't much disagree, but to respond: Let's make some distinctions. One is a purposeful rearrangement of old music using a different set of modern instruments. I'm using the strict, musical definition of "arrangement", which is a new set of parts for instruments to play a musical work for different instruments than was originally the case. For example: a piano arrangement of an orchestral work (or vice-versa). This could be anything from converting viola de gamba parts to modern violoncellos, or ophicleide parts to tuba, which may require only minor edits to the musical notation, to Switched-On Bach. Rearranging music is a thoroughly valid musical interpretation that some composers would have embraced and others would have condemned, so imagining their opinion on the matter seems to me like ex-post-facto justification. That is, unless they wrote about it, in which case there is some obligation to respect that instruction with at least a disclaimer.

It was also common practice for composers to rearrange music at need for performance in a new town. There were periods of rapid advancement in instrument technology--a big cusp being the invention of the first practical valves for brass instruments, making chromatic note choice possible for the first time--but musicians adopt new technologies slowly. Ophicleides were in common use up to the end of the 19th Century, but as orchestras switched over to more modern alternatives, composers had to adapt their music to get it performed.

But I don't think the question of this thread has much to do with rearrangements, reorchestrations, or transcriptions.

Another distinction, and the one that seems to me relevant to this thread, is attempting to perform old music as it was originally performed. This isn't just about instrumentation, but also about musical practice. There is more known about this than we imagine, because there are lots of ways to describe musical practice that don't require recordings. The use of portamento was common a century ago, for example, but I can say that because composers wrote about it using words. Recordings validate that, but they aren't necessary--the practice was described with some clarity. The use of vibrato is another example.

The motives for this may be merely academic--trying to understand what things might have sounded like similarly to understanding how to style a diorama at a museum to give people a notion of what things might have looked like. But the motives may also be purely musical. I'm sure I've said before that Roger Norrington described his motivation for recording Beethoven using period practice: He wanted to make the music "sound new again." That is a musical objective that can be approached in purely musical terms. It does not attempt to eliminate interpretation, but rather to cut away the summed interpretations of historical and traditional performance technique so that the interpretations can reapplied afresh. Norrington's Beethoven cut away a lot of traditional Wagner-inspired performance technique from conductors--some of them my absolute favorites for late Romantic German composers (including Wagner)--such as Furtwängler. Performances of Beethoven had grown longer and longer as the music became increasingly ponderous, and new conductors took those performances as a baseline for further emotification. It's not a "reinterpretation" of music to bypass that buildup of performance technique to return it to what was notated by the original composers, at least to the extent that we understand the meanings of notation. In the case of Beethoven, we understand a lot--Beethoven had access to a metronome and he marked his music, though in some cases after the fact and in competition with performance practice even while he was alive.

Within this distinction, there are further distinctions. Some orchestras have been content with just attempting to recreate the original sound, some have been interested in recreating the original performance technique, and some have attempted to create the original stated intentions of the composer beyond what was notated or practiced in his day. An example of the latter is Berlioz, who notated Symphonie Fantastique for two ophicleides, but later (in the 1850's) wrote much praise about modern tubas. Modern practice (of course) uses tubas, but some period performances have attempted to return performance to the use of ophicleides. Even the tubas of the 1850's that motivated Berlioz to re-notate the music would have been much lighter in sound than the enormous "grand orchestral" style of contrabass tuba now often used for the second tuba part. And yet Berlioz fantasized about the ideal orchestra for the work: 400 musicians if I'm remembering my readings on the topic from some decades back. When I hear it performed with two ophicleides, I hear the ophicleides as extensions of the bassoon section. That seems to me appropriate for the Dies Irae in Symphonie Fantastique. Even now, that melody is played with two tubas and bassoon, and in modern practice (and as a demonstration of masking), the bassoon is basically inaudible. Tuba players joke amongst themselves, "What bassoon?" Which would Berlioz have preferred? Arguments abound. But Berlioz did not remove the bassoon part when he re-notated works for tuba. Modern practice that attempts to be a bit more true to the original practice but still with instruments playable by the musicians on the payroll would use two smaller bass tubas in F, which are much closer to the original Baßtuba as patented by Carl Moritz and Wilhelm Wieprecht in 1836. The bassoon has a chance of sneaking through a bit.

But some orchestras go get period instruments, record using their notion of historical performance practice, and when they get a clean recording, believe their work to be done (Hogwood, I'm looking at you). They write program notes similar to what one might read on a placard next to a historical painting in an art museum. These performances are interesting but not necessarily self-sufficient as performances. This is where Norrington's early Beethoven recordings were revelatory, though some think he did not sustain the standard he set initially in attempt to ride his own wave. I still enjoy his Beethoven cycle, but his Berlioz, not so much.

Pachelbel's Kanon with a period-authentic ensemble on period instruments can be musically powerful, and show clarity that would be difficult on a full orchestra. But a full orchestra can also approach that music in a way that will move people powerfully. Both can also be perfunctory. I've heard Pachelbel played by a brass quintet that was astoundingly good, and that's about as far from the original as can be imagined. It's not about the instruments with some music. But if one attempts to play, say, Ralph Vaughan Williams's Tallis Fantasia on, say, brass instruments (and I've heard it done well), they had better bring it. I was impressed by the performance of the triple quintet comprising the Canadian Brass and the quintets of the New York and Philadelphia orchestras. But it was not the transformative experience that was listening to the work performed in the original by the Philharmonia Orchestra in Royal Festival Hall in 2008, which I attended, or even listening to Adrian Boult's standard orchestral performance. This is because Vaughan Williams's sound is as important to what he did as the architecture of the notes. As he described, he learned from Ravel to compose in "points of color", and instrument selection and performance practice is a key part of preserving that. Pachelbel and the music of his era was more about the structure, and composers of the era had no particular commitment to any specific sound just as a matter of practical necessity. But performing Pachelbel on original instruments isn't pretentious unless it's performed pretentiously.

So, I don't think we can just ask "Historical or Modern?" and expect a binary judgement. There's a lot more to it than that. Any performance has to stand on its musical power, no matter what instruments are used, if it's going to be more than just a curiosity.

Rick "probably said all this before" Denney
 
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Period authenticity is a field of musical research. It involves such things as studying instructional manuals of performance for a given time period and the restoration of very old and often very delicate instruments, or the recreation of those instruments. You will find it usually happens in an academic context. I was the recording engineer for the San Francisco Early Music Society in the 1990s. If period authenticity was a marketing gimmick the folks I was recording would have made a lot more money. They pretty much all did it for the love of the music.

But people who lived then wrote about how the music was played, the nature of the instruments, how they were tuned and so forth.

Maybe. But it's also an insult to the composers to not pay attention to the nature of performance and instrumentation in the composer's time.


It's a long way from this to Munchinger and Paillard.

Maybe. I've heard that recording probably a thousand times, found this performance far more refreshing:

Excellent! Also good: the London Baroque

Guess I'll pass, it's outside of my timezone.
There are many derivative works, including the Burger King jingle from the seventies, "Graduation (Friends Forever)" by Vitamin C, etc.

And this, from Brian Eno (with Gavin Bryars):


 
Within this distinction, there are further distinctions. Some orchestras have been content with just attempting to recreate the original sound, some have been interested in recreating the original performance technique, and some have attempted to create the original stated intentions of the composer beyond what was notated or practiced in his day. An example of the latter is Berlioz, who notated Symphonie Fantastique for two ophicleides, but later (in the 1850's) wrote much praise about modern tubas. Modern practice (of course) uses tubas, but some period performances have attempted to return performance to the use of ophicleides. Even the tubas of the 1850's that motivated Berlioz to re-notate the music would have been much lighter in sound than the enormous "grand orchestral" style of contrabass tuba now often used for the second tuba part. And yet Berlioz fantasized about the ideal orchestra for the work: 400 musicians if I'm remembering my readings on the topic from some decades back. When I hear it performed with two ophicleides, I hear the ophicleides as extensions of the bassoon section. That seems to me appropriate for the Dies Irae in Symphonie Fantastique. Even now, that melody is played with two tubas and bassoon, and in modern practice (and as a demonstration of masking), the bassoon is basically inaudible. Tuba players joke amongst themselves, "What bassoon?" Which would Berlioz have preferred? Arguments abound. But Berlioz did not remove the bassoon part when he re-notated works for tuba. Modern practice that attempts to be a bit more true to the original practice but still with instruments playable by the musicians on the payroll would use two smaller bass tubas in F, which are much closer to the original Baßtuba as patented by Carl Moritz and Wilhelm Wieprecht in 1836. The bassoon has a chance of sneaking through a bit.
I found a blog post with the Berlioz ideal orchestra:


Not specific to the Symphonie but illuminating.
 
Nah, there are many such claims in the booklets of several recordings like that. Especially true for Baroque epoch recordings. That's how the conversations started. If i hadn't, I would have not chimed in.
Decades ago.
The claims of "authenticity" are both an over-used marketing ploy and clearly uninformed, because no one really knows what the real reference is, or what vision the original composer would have embraced given the fact they were actually limited in their possibilities. And knowing how amazingly innovative those guys were... what on earth makes anyone think they wouldn't have embraced and even pushed beyond today's possibilities? It's insulting to think those geniuses wouldn't have.
Of course they would use what is available to them, but old music isn't a complete mystery.

Minor example: in Beethoven's Op 10/3 first movement opening there are repeated notes above the staff with staccato marks. In nearly all modern pianos, the E-flat is damped, making the short articulation possible while the F is undamped, forcing the notes to ring against Beethoven's intent. This isn't a terribly important specific point, but it shows a modern instrument can have limits the contemporary instrument did not.
 
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