![La Ritirata](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2e/La_Ritirata.jpg)
Historically informed performance (also referred to as period performance, authentic performance, or HIP) is an approach to the performance of
classical music, which aims to be faithful to the approach, manner and style of the
musical era Music historians divide the Western classical music repertory into various eras based on what style was most popular as taste changed. These eras and styles include Medieval, Renaissance, Baroque, Classical, Romantic, Modernist, and Postmoder ...
in which a work was originally conceived.
It is based on two key aspects: the application of the stylistic and technical aspects of performance, known as performance practice; and the use of
period instrument
In the historically informed performance movement, musicians perform classical music using restored or replicated versions of the instruments for which it was originally written. Often performances by such musicians are said to be "on authentic ...
s which may be reproductions of historical instruments that were in use at the time of the original composition, and which usually have different
timbre
In music, timbre ( ), also known as tone color or tone quality (from psychoacoustics), is the perceived sound quality of a musical note, sound or tone. Timbre distinguishes different types of sound production, such as choir voices and musica ...
and
temperament
In psychology, temperament broadly refers to consistent individual differences in behavior that are biologically based and are relatively independent of learning, system of values and attitudes.
Some researchers point to association of temperam ...
from their modern equivalents. A further area of study, that of changing listener expectations, is increasingly under investigation.
Given no
sound recording
Sound recording and reproduction is the electrical, mechanical, electronic, or digital inscription and re-creation of sound waves, such as spoken voice, singing, instrumental music, or sound effects. The two main classes of sound recording ...
s exist of music before the late 19th century, historically informed performance is largely derived from
musicological analysis of texts. Historical
treatise
A treatise is a formal and systematic written discourse on some subject, generally longer and treating it in greater depth than an essay, and more concerned with investigating or exposing the principles of the subject and its conclusions." Tre ...
s, pedagogic tutor books, and concert critiques, as well as additional historical evidence, are all used to gain insight into the performance practice of a historic era. Extant recordings (cylinders, discs, and reproducing piano rolls) from the 1890s onwards have enabled scholars of 19th-century Romanticism to gain a uniquely detailed understanding of this style, although not without significant remaining questions. In all eras, HIP performers will normally use scholarly or
urtext edition
An urtext edition of a work of classical music is a printed version intended to reproduce the original intention of the composer as exactly as possible, without any added or changed material. Other kinds of editions distinct from urtext are facs ...
s of a musical score as a basic template, while additionally applying a range of contemporaneous stylistic practices, including rhythmic alterations and ornamentation of many kinds.
Historically informed performance was principally developed in a number of Western countries in the mid to late 20th century, ironically a modernist response to the modernist break with earlier performance traditions. Initially concerned with the performance of
Medieval
In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire ...
,
Renaissance
The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history
The history of Europe is traditionally divided into four time periods: prehistoric Europe (prior to about 800 BC), classical antiquity (800 BC to AD ...
, and
Baroque music, HIP now encompasses music from the
Classical and
Romantic eras. HIP has been a crucial part of the
early music revival
:''See Historically informed performance for a more detailed explanation of this topic.''
The general discussion of how to perform music from ancient or earlier times did not become an important subject of interest until the 19th century, when E ...
movement of the 20th and 21st centuries, and has begun to affect the theatrical stage, for instance in the production of
Baroque opera
Opera is a form of theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by Singing, singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically a collaboration between a composer and a ...
, where historically informed approaches to acting and scenery are also used.
Some critics contest the methodology of the HIP movement, contending that its selection of practices and aesthetics are a product of the 20th century and that it is ultimately impossible to know what performances of an earlier time sounded like. Obviously, the older the style and repertoire, the greater the cultural distance and the increased possibility of misunderstanding the evidence. For this reason, the term "historically informed" is now preferred to "authentic", as it acknowledges the limitations of academic understanding, rather than implying absolute accuracy in recreating historical performance style, or worse, a moralising tone.
Early instruments
![Edinburgh St Cecilia's Hall](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/24/Edinburgh_St_Cecilia%27s_Hall.jpg)
The choice of musical instruments is an important part of the principle of historically informed performance. Musical instruments have evolved over time, and instruments that were in use in earlier periods of history are often quite different from their modern equivalents. Many other instruments have fallen out of use, having been replaced by newer tools for creating music. For example, prior to the emergence of the modern
violin
The violin, sometimes known as a '' fiddle'', is a wooden chordophone ( string instrument) in the violin family. Most violins have a hollow wooden body. It is the smallest and thus highest-pitched instrument ( soprano) in the family in regu ...
, other bowed stringed instruments such as the
rebec
The rebec (sometimes rebecha, rebeckha, and other spellings, pronounced or ) is a bowed stringed instrument of the Medieval era and the early Renaissance. In its most common form, it has a narrow boat-shaped body and one to five strings.
Origi ...
or the
viol
The viol (), viola da gamba (), or informally gamba, is any one of a family of bowed, fretted, and stringed instruments with hollow wooden bodies and pegboxes where the tension on the strings can be increased or decreased to adjust the pitc ...
were in common use. The existence of ancient instruments in museum collections has helped musicologists to understand how the different design, tuning and tone of instruments may have affected earlier performance practice.
As well as a research tool, historic instruments have an active role in the practice of historically informed performance. Modern instrumentalists who aim to recreate a historic sound often use modern reproductions of period instruments (and occasionally original instruments) on the basis that this will deliver a musical performance that is thought to be historically faithful to the original work, as the original composer would have heard it. For example, a modern music ensemble staging a performance of music by
Johann Sebastian Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach (28 July 1750) was a German composer and musician of the late Baroque period. He is known for his orchestral music such as the '' Brandenburg Concertos''; instrumental compositions such as the Cello Suites; keyboard wo ...
may play reproduction
Baroque violin
A Baroque violin is a violin set up in the manner of the baroque period of music. The term includes original instruments which have survived unmodified since the Baroque period, as well as later instruments adjusted to the baroque setup, and mode ...
s instead of modern instruments in an attempt to create the sound of a 17th-century
Baroque orchestra.
This has led to the revival of musical instruments that had entirely fallen out of use, and to a reconsideration of the role and structure of instruments also used in current practice.
Orchestras and ensembles who are noted for their use of period instruments in performances include the
Taverner Consort and Players
The Taverner Choir, Consort and Players is a British music ensemble which specialises in the performance of Early and Baroque music. The ensemble is made up of a Baroque orchestra (the Players), a vocal consort (the Consort) and a Choir. Performer ...
(directed by
Andrew Parrott), the
Academy of Ancient Music (
Christopher Hogwood), the
Concentus Musicus Wien (
Nikolaus Harnoncourt),
The English Concert
The English Concert is a baroque orchestra playing on period instruments based in London. Founded in 1972 and directed from the harpsichord by Trevor Pinnock for 30 years, it is now directed by harpsichordist Harry Bicket. Nadja Zwiener ha ...
(
Trevor Pinnock
Trevor David Pinnock (born 16 December 1946 in Canterbury, England) is a British harpsichordist and conductor.
He is best known for his association with the period-performance orchestra The English Concert, which he helped found and direct ...
), the
Hanover Band
The Hanover Band is a British orchestra specialised in historically informed performance, founded by its artistic director, Caroline Brown.
The group's website explains the name thus: '' 'Hanover' signifies the Hanoverian period 1714-1830 and ' ...
(
Roy Goodman
Roy Goodman (born 26 January 1951) is an English conductor and violinist, specialising in the performance and direction of early music. He became internationally famous as the 12-year-old boy treble soloist in the March 1963 recording of Alle ...
), the
English Baroque Soloists
The English Baroque Soloists is a chamber orchestra playing on period instruments, formed in 1978 by English conductor Sir John Eliot Gardiner. Its repertoire comprises music from the early Baroque to the Classical period.
History
The English B ...
(Sir
John Eliot Gardiner
Sir John Eliot Gardiner (born 20 April 1943) is an English conductor, particularly known for his performances of the works of Johann Sebastian Bach.
Life and career
Born in Fontmell Magna, Dorset, son of Rolf Gardiner and Marabel Hodgkin, Ga ...
),
Musica Antiqua Köln Musica Antiqua Köln was an early music group that was founded in 1973 by Reinhard Goebel and fellow students from the Conservatory of Music in Cologne. Musica Antiqua Köln devoted itself largely to the performance of the music of the 17th and 18t ...
(
Reinhard Goebel
Reinhard Goebel (; born 31 July 1952 in Siegen, West Germany) is a German conductor and violinist specialising in early music on authentic instruments and professor for historical performance at the Mozarteum in Salzburg. Goebel received his fi ...
),
Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra & Choir
The Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra & Choir is a Dutch early-music group based in Amsterdam.
The Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra & Choir was created in two stages by the conductor, organist and harpsichordist Ton Koopman. He founded the Amsterdam Baroq ...
(
Ton Koopman
Antonius Gerhardus Michael Koopman (; born 2 October 1944), known professionally as Ton Koopman, is a Dutch conductor, organist, harpsichordist, and musicologist, primarily known for being the founder and director of the Amsterdam Baroque Orches ...
),
Les Arts Florissants (
William Christie),
La Petite Bande
La Petite Bande is a Belgium-based ensemble specialising in music of the Baroque and Classical eras played on period instruments. They are particularly known for their recordings of works by Corelli, Rameau, Handel, Bach, Haydn, and Mozart.
His ...
(
Sigiswald Kuijken
Sigiswald Kuijken (; born 16 February 1944) is a Belgian violinist, violist, and conductor known for playing on period and original instruments.
Biography
Kuijken was born in Dilbeek, near Brussels. He was a member of the Alarius Ensemble ...
),
La Chapelle Royale La Chapelle Royale is a French ensemble of baroque music.
History
La Chapelle Royale was founded in 1977 in Paris by the Belgian conductor Philippe Herreweghe. It takes its name from the Chapelle royale of the French kings.
The initial vocatio ...
(
Philippe Herreweghe
Philippe Maria François Herreweghe, Knight Herreweghe (born 2 May 1947) is a Belgian conductor and choirmaster.
Herreweghe founded La Chapelle Royale and Collegium Vocale Gent and is renowned as a conductor, with a repertoire ranging from Re ...
),
the
Australian Brandenburg Orchestra
The Australian Brandenburg Orchestra (ABO) is an Australian period instrument orchestra specialising in the performance of baroque and classical music.
Founders
The orchestra's founder and artistic director is Paul Dyer.
In 2013 Dyer was a ...
(
Paul Dyer), and the
Freiburger Barockorchester
Freiburger Barockorchester (Freiburg Baroque Orchestra) is a German Baroque orchestra founded in 1987, with the mission statement: "to enliven the world of Baroque music with new sounds".
History
The orchestra is based in Freiburg im Breisgau. ...
(
Gottfried von der Goltz
Gottfried von der Goltz (born 1 June 1964 in Würzburg, Germany) is a German violinist and conductor, specialising in the baroque repertoire. Born into the ancient Brandenburgish Goltz family, Gottfried was a great-grandson of the former commande ...
). As the scope of historically informed performance has expanded to encompass the works of the
Romantic era
Romanticism (also known as the Romantic movement or Romantic era) was an artistic, literary, musical, and intellectual movement that originated in Europe towards the end of the 18th century, and in most areas was at its peak in the approximate ...
, the specific sound of 19th-century instruments has increasingly been recognised in the HIP movement, and period instruments orchestras such as Gardiner's
Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique
The Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique, founded in 1989 by John Eliot Gardiner, performs Classical and Romantic music using the principles and original instruments of historically informed performance. The orchestra has recorded symphonies, ...
have emerged.
Harpsichord
A variety of once obsolete keyboard instruments such as the
clavichord
The clavichord is a stringed rectangular keyboard instrument that was used largely in the Late Middle Ages, through the Renaissance, Baroque and Classical eras.
Historically, it was mostly used as a practice instrument and as an aid to compositi ...
and the
harpsichord have been revived, as they have particular importance in the performance of Early music. Before the evolution of the symphony orchestra led by a
conductor, Renaissance and Baroque orchestras were commonly directed from the harpsichord; the director would lead by playing
continuo, which would provide a steady, harmonic structure upon which the other instrumentalists would embellish their parts. Many religious works of the era made similar use of the
pipe organ, often in combination with a harpsichord. Historically informed performances frequently make use of keyboard-led ensemble playing.
Composers such as
François Couperin,
Domenico Scarlatti,
Girolamo Frescobaldi
Girolamo Alessandro Frescobaldi (; also Gerolamo, Girolimo, and Geronimo Alissandro; September 15831 March 1643) was an Italian composer and virtuoso keyboard player. Born in the Duchy of Ferrara, he was one of the most important composers of k ...
, and
Johann Sebastian Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach (28 July 1750) was a German composer and musician of the late Baroque period. He is known for his orchestral music such as the '' Brandenburg Concertos''; instrumental compositions such as the Cello Suites; keyboard wo ...
wrote for the harpsichord, clavichord, and organ.
Among the foremost modern players of the harpsichord are
Robert Hill,
Igor Kipnis
Igor Kipnis (September 27, 1930January 23, 2002) was a German-born American harpsichordist, pianist and conductor.
Biography
The son of Metropolitan Opera bass Alexander Kipnis, he was born in Berlin, where his father was singing with the Berlin S ...
,
Ton Koopman
Antonius Gerhardus Michael Koopman (; born 2 October 1944), known professionally as Ton Koopman, is a Dutch conductor, organist, harpsichordist, and musicologist, primarily known for being the founder and director of the Amsterdam Baroque Orches ...
,
Wanda Landowska
Wanda Aleksandra Landowska (5 July 1879 – 16 August 1959) was a Polish harpsichordist and pianist whose performances, teaching, writings and especially her many recordings played a large role in reviving the popularity of the harpsichord in ...
,
Gustav Leonhardt,
Trevor Pinnock
Trevor David Pinnock (born 16 December 1946 in Canterbury, England) is a British harpsichordist and conductor.
He is best known for his association with the period-performance orchestra The English Concert, which he helped found and direct ...
,
Skip Sempé,
Andreas Staier,
Colin Tilney
Colin Tilney (born 31 October 1933) is a harpsichordist, fortepianist and teacher.
Education and professional life
Born in London, Tilney studied music and modern languages at Cambridge University, studied harpsichord with Mary Potts at King's ...
, and
Christophe Rousset
Christophe Rousset (; born 12 April 1961) is a French harpsichordist and conductor, who specializes in the performance of Baroque music on period instruments. He is also a musicologist, particularly of opera and European music of the 17th and 1 ...
.
Fortepiano
During the second half of the 18th century, the harpsichord was gradually replaced by the earliest pianos. As the harpsichord went out of fashion, many were destroyed; indeed, the Paris Conservatory is notorious for having used harpsichords for firewood during the
French Revolution
The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in coup of 18 Brumaire, November 1799. Many of its ...
and Napoleonic times. Although names were originally interchangeable, we now use '
fortepiano' to indicate the earlier, smaller style of piano, with the more familiar 'pianoforte' used to describe the larger instruments approaching modern designs from around 1830. In the 20th and 21st centuries, the fortepiano has enjoyed a revival as a result of the trend for historically informed performance, with the works of Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert now often played on fortepiano. Increasingly, the early to mid 19th century pianos of
Pleyel
Ignace Joseph Pleyel (; ; 18 June 1757 – 14 November 1831) was an Austrian-born French composer, music publisher and piano builder of the Classical period.
Life Early years
He was born in in Lower Austria, the son of a schoolmaster named Ma ...
,
Érard,
Streicher and others are being used to recreate the soundscape of Romantic composers such as Chopin, Liszt and Brahms.
Viol
![Viola da gamba (AM 1998](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/ff/Viola_da_gamba_%28AM_1998.60.11.1-1%29.jpg)
A vast quantity of music for
viol
The viol (), viola da gamba (), or informally gamba, is any one of a family of bowed, fretted, and stringed instruments with hollow wooden bodies and pegboxes where the tension on the strings can be increased or decreased to adjust the pitc ...
s, for both ensemble and solo performance, was written by composers of the
Renaissance
The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history
The history of Europe is traditionally divided into four time periods: prehistoric Europe (prior to about 800 BC), classical antiquity (800 BC to AD ...
and
Baroque eras, including
Diego Ortiz
Diego Ortiz (c. 1510 – c. 1576) was a Spanish composer and music theorist in service to the viceroy of Naples ruled by the Spanish monarchs Charles V and Philip II. Ortiz published the first manual on ornamentation for bowed string ins ...
,
Claudio Monteverdi,
William Byrd
William Byrd (; 4 July 1623) was an English composer of late Renaissance music. Considered among the greatest composers of the Renaissance, he had a profound influence on composers both from his native England and those on the continent. He ...
,
William Lawes
William Lawes (April 160224 September 1645) was an English composer and musician.
Life and career
Lawes was born in Salisbury, Wiltshire and was baptised on 1 May 1602. He was the son of Thomas Lawes, a vicar choral at Salisbury Cathedral, ...
,
Henry Purcell,
Monsieur de Sainte-Colombe,
J.S. Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach (28 July 1750) was a German composer and musician of the late Baroque period. He is known for his orchestral music such as the ''Brandenburg Concertos''; instrumental compositions such as the Cello Suites; keyboard wor ...
,
Georg Philipp Telemann
Georg Philipp Telemann (; – 25 June 1767) was a German Baroque composer and multi-instrumentalist. Almost completely self-taught in music, he became a composer against his family's wishes. After studying in Magdeburg, Zellerfeld, and Hild ...
,
Marin Marais
Marin Marais (; 31 May 1656, in Paris – 15 August 1728, in Paris) was a French composer and viol player. He studied composition with Jean-Baptiste Lully, often conducting his operas, and with master of the bass viol Monsieur de Sainte-Colomb ...
,
Antoine Forqueray, and
Carl Frederick Abel
Carl Friedrich Abel (22 December 1723 – 20 June 1787) was a German composer of the Classical era. He was a renowned player of the viola da gamba, and produced significant compositions for that instrument.
Life
Abel was born in Köthen, ...
.
From largest to smallest, the viol family consists of:
*contrabass or
violone
The term violone (; literally "large viol" in Italian, " -one" being the augmentative suffix) can refer to several distinct large, bowed musical instruments which belong to either the viol or violin family. The violone is sometimes a fretted ...
*bass viol (about the size of a
cello
The cello ( ; plural ''celli'' or ''cellos'') or violoncello ( ; ) is a bowed (sometimes plucked and occasionally hit) string instrument of the violin family. Its four strings are usually tuned in perfect fifths: from low to high, C2, G ...
)
*tenor viol (about the size of a
guitar
The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected strin ...
)
*alto viol (about the size of a
viola
; german: Bratsche
, alt=Viola shown from the front and the side
, image=Bratsche.jpg
, caption=
, background=string
, hornbostel_sachs=321.322-71
, hornbostel_sachs_desc=Composite chordophone sounded by a bow
, range=
, related=
*Violin family ...
)
*treble or descant viol (about the size of a
violin
The violin, sometimes known as a '' fiddle'', is a wooden chordophone ( string instrument) in the violin family. Most violins have a hollow wooden body. It is the smallest and thus highest-pitched instrument ( soprano) in the family in regu ...
).
Among the foremost modern players of the viols are
Paolo Pandolfo
Paolo Pandolfo is an Italian virtuoso player, composer, and teacher of music for the viola da gamba, born on January 31, 1964.
He began his studies as a double bass and guitar player, becoming a skilled performer of jazz and popular music.Ernesto ...
,
Wieland Kuijken,
Jordi Savall
Jordi Savall i Bernadet (; born 1 August 1941) is a Spanish conductor, composer and viol player. He has been one of the major figures in the field of Western early music since the 1970s, largely responsible for popularizing the viol family of ...
,
John Hsu, and
Vittorio Ghielmi
Vittorio Ghielmi is an Italian musician (viola da gamba), conductor, compose
Compared by critics to Jasha Heifetz ("Diapason") for his virtuosity, and described as "An Alchemist of sound" ("Diario de Sevilla") for the intensity and versatility o ...
. There are many modern
viol consort
The viol (), viola da gamba (), or informally gamba, is any one of a family of bowed, fretted, and stringed instruments with hollow wooden bodies and pegboxes where the tension on the strings can be increased or decreased to adjust the pitch ...
s.
Recorder
Recorder
Recorder or The Recorder may refer to:
Newspapers
* ''Indianapolis Recorder'', a weekly newspaper
* ''The Recorder'' (Massachusetts newspaper), a daily newspaper published in Greenfield, Massachusetts, US
* ''The Recorder'' (Port Pirie), a news ...
s in multiple sizes (contra-bass, bass, tenor, alto, soprano, the sopranino, and the even smaller kleine sopranino or garklein) are often played today in consorts of mixed size.
Handel and
Telemann
Georg Philipp Telemann (; – 25 June 1767) was a German Baroque composer and multi-instrumentalist. Almost completely self-taught in music, he became a composer against his family's wishes. After studying in Magdeburg, Zellerfeld, and Hilde ...
, among others, wrote solo works for the recorder.
Arnold Dolmetsch did much to revive the recorder as a serious concert instrument, reconstructing a "consort of recorders (descant, treble, tenor and bass) all at low pitch and based on historical originals".
Singing
As with instrumental technique, the approach to historically informed performance practice for singers has been shaped by musicological research and academic debate. In particular, there was debate around the use of the technique of
vibrato
Vibrato ( Italian, from past participle of " vibrare", to vibrate) is a musical effect consisting of a regular, pulsating change of pitch. It is used to add expression to vocal and instrumental music. Vibrato is typically characterised in terms ...
at the height of the Early music revival, and many advocates of HIP aimed to eliminate vibrato in favour of the "pure" sound of straight-tone singing. The difference in style may be demonstrated by the sound of a
boy treble
A boy soprano (British and especially North American English) or boy treble (only British English) is a young male singer with an unchanged voice in the soprano range, a range that is often still called the treble voice range (in North Americ ...
in contrast to the sound of a
Grand opera
Grand opera is a genre of 19th-century opera generally in four or five acts, characterized by large-scale casts and orchestras, and (in their original productions) lavish and spectacular design and stage effects, normally with plots based on o ...
singer such as
Maria Callas.
Certain historic vocal techniques have gained in popularity, such as ''
trillo'', a
tremolo-like repetition of a single note that was used for ornamental effect in the early Baroque era. Academic understanding of these expressive devices is often subjective however, as many vocal techniques discussed by treatise writers in the 17th and 18th centuries have different meanings, depending on the author. Despite the fashion for straight tone, many prominent Early music singers make use of a subtle, gentle form of vibrato to add expression to their performance.
A few of the singers who have contributed to the historically informed performance movement are
Emma Kirkby
Dame Carolyn Emma Kirkby, (; born 26 February 1949) is an English soprano and early music specialist. She has sung on over 100 recordings.
Education and early career
Kirkby was educated at Hanford School, Sherborne School for Girls in Dorse ...
,
Max van Egmond,
Julianne Baird
Julianne Baird (born December 10, 1952) is an American soprano best known for her singing in Baroque works, in both opera and sacred music. She has nearly 100 recordings to her credit and is a well-traveled recitalist and soloist with major sym ...
,
Nigel Rogers
Nigel David Rogers (21 March 1935 – 19 January 2022) was an English multilingual tenor, music conductor, and vocal coach, who sang in over seventy classical music album recordings in German, French, Italian, Latin and English, mostly of earl ...
, and
David Thomas.
The resurgence of interest in Early music, particularly in sacred renaissance polyphony and Baroque opera, has driven a revival of the
countertenor voice. High-voice male singers are often cast in preference to female
contralto
A contralto () is a type of classical female singing voice whose vocal range is the lowest female voice type.
The contralto's vocal range is fairly rare; similar to the mezzo-soprano, and almost identical to that of a countertenor, typica ...
s in HIP opera productions, partly as a substitute for
castrato singers.
Alfred Deller
Alfred George Deller, CBE (31 May 1912 – 16 July 1979), was an English singer and one of the main figures in popularising the return of the countertenor voice in Renaissance and Baroque music during the 20th century.
He is sometimes referr ...
is considered to have been a pioneer of the modern revival of countertenor singing. Leading contemporary performers include
James Bowman,
David Daniels,
Derek Lee Ragin
Derek Lee Ragin (born June 17, 1958) is an American countertenor. _Biography.html" ;"title="Derek Lee Ragin > Biography">Derek Lee Ragin > Biographyallmusic
Early life
Derek Ragin was born in West Point, New York and grew up in Newark, New Jerse ...
,
Andreas Scholl,
Michael Chance
Michael Chance CBE (born in Buckinghamshire, United Kingdom 7 March 1955) is an English countertenor and the founder and Artistic Director of The Grange Festival.
Chance was born in Penn, Buckinghamshire, into a musical family. After growing ...
,
Jakub Józef Orliński
Jakub Józef Orliński (; born 8 December 1990) is a Polish operatic countertenor singer and breakdancer. He has performed leading roles with many opera companies, including Carnegie Hall, Metropolitan Opera, Royal Opera House, Warsaw Grand Thea ...
,
Daniel Taylor,
Brian Asawa
Brian Asawa (October 1, 1966 – April 18, 2016) was a Japanese American opera singer who sang as a countertenor. About Asawa, ''Opera News'' stated: "In his prime, Asawa was an electric performer, his fearless performing style supported by a voice ...
,
Yoshikazu Mera, and
Philippe Jaroussky
Philippe Jaroussky (born 13 February 1978) is a French countertenor. He began his musical career with the violin, winning an award at the Versailles conservatory, and then took up the piano before turning to singing.
Unusually for a countertenor ...
.
Layout
Standard practice concerning the layout of a group of performers, for example in a choir or an orchestra, has changed over time. Determining a historically appropriate layout of singers and instruments on a performance stage may be informed by historical research. In addition to documentary evidence, musicologists may also turn to
iconographic evidence — contemporary paintings and drawings of performing musicians — as a
primary source
In the study of history as an academic discipline, a primary source (also called an original source) is an artifact, document, diary, manuscript, autobiography, recording, or any other source of information that was created at the time under ...
for historic information. Pictorial sources may reveal various practices such as the size of an ensemble; the position of various types of instruments; their position in relation to a choir or keyboard instrument; the position or absence of a conductor; whether the performers are seated or standing; and the performance space (such as a concert hall, palace chamber, domestic house, church, or outdoors etc.). The German theorist
Johann Mattheson
Johann Mattheson (28 September 1681 – 17 April 1764) was a German composer, singer, writer, lexicographer, diplomat and music theorist.
Early life and career
The son of a prosperous tax collector, Mattheson received a broad liberal education ...
, in a 1739 treatise, states that the singers should stand in front of the instrumentalists.
Three main layouts are documented:
* Circle (Renaissance)
* Choir in the front of the instruments (17th–19th century)
* Singers and instruments next to each other on the choir loft.
Gallery
Image:Orlando de Lassus2.jpg, Renaissance composer Orlando de Lassus directing a chamber ensemble
Image:Concert spirituel Wien 1837.jpg, An 1837 sketch of the layout of a choir and orchestra
Image:Reinicke 1890.jpg, A drawing of an 1890 concert in Munich, Germany
Image:Diakonie-kantorei.jpg, A choir with instrumentalists, in historic layout
Recovering early performance practices
Interpreting musical notation
Some familiar difficult items are as follows:
*Early composers often wrote using the same symbols as today, yet in a different meaning, often context-dependent. For example, what is written as an
appoggiatura
An appoggiatura ( , ; german: Vorschlag or ; french: port de voix) is a musical ornament that consists of an added non-chord note in a melody that is resolved to the regular note of the chord. By putting the non-chord tone on a strong beat, ( ...
is often meant to be longer or shorter than the notated length, and even in scores as late as the 19th century there is disagreement over the meaning (dynamic and/or agogic) of hairpins.
*The notation may be partial. E.g., the note durations may be omitted altogether, such as in
unmeasured prelude Unmeasured or non-measured prelude is a prelude in which the duration of each note is left to the performer. Typically the term is used for 17th century harpsichord compositions that are written without rhythm or metre indications, although vario ...
s, pieces written without
rhythm
Rhythm (from Greek , ''rhythmos'', "any regular recurring motion, symmetry") generally means a " movement marked by the regulated succession of strong and weak elements, or of opposite or different conditions". This general meaning of regular re ...
or
metre
The metre (British spelling) or meter (American spelling; see spelling differences) (from the French unit , from the Greek noun , "measure"), symbol m, is the primary unit of length in the International System of Units (SI), though its prefi ...
indications. Even when the notation is comprehensive, non-notated changes are usually required, such as rhythmic shaping of passagework, pauses between sections, or additional arpeggiation of chords. Cuts and repetitions were common.
*The music may be written using alternative, non-modern notations, such as
tablature
Tablature (or tabulature, or tab for short) is a form of musical notation indicating instrument fingering rather than musical pitches.
Tablature is common for fretted stringed instruments such as the guitar, lute or vihuela, as well as many fr ...
. Some tablature notations are only partially decoded, such as the notation in the harp manuscript by
Robert ap Huw.
*The reference
pitch of earlier music cannot generally be interpreted as designating the same pitch used today.
*Various tuning systems (
temperament
In psychology, temperament broadly refers to consistent individual differences in behavior that are biologically based and are relatively independent of learning, system of values and attitudes.
Some researchers point to association of temperam ...
s), are used. Composers always assume the player will choose the temperament, and never indicate it in the score.
*In most ensemble music up to the early Baroque, the actual musical instruments to be used are not indicated in the score, and must be partially or totally chosen by the performers. A well-discussed example can be found in Monteverdi's ''
L'Orfeo
''L'Orfeo'' ( SV 318) (), sometimes called ''La favola d'Orfeo'' , is a late Renaissance/early Baroque ''favola in musica'', or opera, by Claudio Monteverdi, with a libretto by Alessandro Striggio. It is based on the Greek legend of Orpheus, and ...
'', where the indications on which instruments to use are partial and limited to critical sections only.
*Issues of pronunciation, that impact on musical accents, carry over to church
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
, the language in which a large amount of early vocal music was written. The reason is that Latin was customarily pronounced using the speech sounds and patterns of the
local
Local may refer to:
Geography and transportation
* Local (train), a train serving local traffic demand
* Local, Missouri, a community in the United States
* Local government, a form of public administration, usually the lowest tier of administrat ...
vernacular language.
Mechanical music
Some information about how music sounded in the past can be obtained from contemporary mechanical instruments. For instance, the Dutch
Museum Speelklok
Museum Speelklok (previously known as ''Museum van Speelklok tot Pierement'') is a museum in The Netherlands in the city of Utrecht specializing in self-playing musical instruments. Since 1984, it has been housed in the centre of Utrecht in a fo ...
owns an 18th-century mechanical organ of which the music programme was composed and supervised by
Joseph Haydn.
Tuning and pitch
Until modern era, different tuning references have been used in different venues. The baroque oboist Bruce Haynes has extensively investigated surviving wind instruments and even documented a case of violinists having to retune by a minor third to play at neighboring churches.
Iconographic evidence
The research of musicologists often overlaps with the work of
art historians; by examining paintings and drawings of performing musicians contemporary to a particular musical era, academics can infer details about performance practice of the day. In addition to showing the layout of an orchestra or ensemble, a work of art may reveal detail about contemporary playing techniques, for example the manner of
holding a bow or a wind player's
embouchure
Embouchure () or lipping is the use of the lips, facial muscles, tongue, and teeth in playing a wind instrument. This includes shaping the lips to the mouthpiece of a woodwind instrument or the mouthpiece of a brass instrument. The word is o ...
. However, just as an art historian must evaluate a work of art, a scholar of musicology must also assess the musical evidence of a painting or illustration in its historical context, taking into consideration the potential cultural and political motivations of the artist and allow for
artistic license
Artistic license (alongside more contextually-specific derivative terms such as poetic license, historical license, dramatic license, and narrative license) refers to deviation from fact or form for artistic purposes. It can include the alterat ...
. An historic image of musicians may present an idealised or even fictional account of musical instruments, and there is as much a risk that it may give rise to a historically misinformed performance.
Issues
![John Eliot Gardiner at rehearsal in Wroclaw](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/82/John_Eliot_Gardiner_at_rehearsal_in_Wroclaw.jpg)
Opinions on how artistic and academic motivations should translate into musical performance vary.
Though championing the need to attempt to understand a composer's intentions in their historical context,
Ralph Kirkpatrick
Ralph Leonard Kirkpatrick (; June 10, 1911April 13, 1984) was an American harpsichordist and musicologist, widely known for his chronological catalog of Domenico Scarlatti's keyboard sonatas as well as for his performances and recordings.
Lif ...
highlights the risk of using historical exoterism to hide technical incompetence: "too often historical authenticity can be used as a means of escape from any potentially disquieting observance of esthetic values, and from the assumption of any genuine artistic responsibility. The abdication of esthetic values and artistic responsibilities can confer a certain illusion of simplicity on what the passage of history has presented to us, bleached as white as bones on the
sands of time".
Early music scholar Beverly Jerold has questioned the string technique of historically informed musicians, citing accounts of Baroque-era concert-goers describing nearly the opposite practice. Similar criticism has been leveled at the practices of historically informed vocalists.
Some proponents of the Early music revival have distanced themselves from the terminology of "authentic performance". Conductor John Eliot Gardiner has expressed the view that the term can be "misleading", and has stated, "My enthusiasm for period instruments is not antiquarian or in pursuit of a spurious and unattainable authenticity, but just simply as a refreshing alternative to the standard, monochrome qualities of the symphony orchestra."
Daniel Leech-Wilkinson concedes that much of the HIP practice is based on invention: "Historical research may provide us with instruments, and sometimes even quite detailed information on how to use them; but the gap between such evidence and a sounding performance is still so great that it can be bridged only by a large amount of musicianship and invention. Exactly how much is required can easily be forgotten, precisely because the exercise of musical invention is so automatic to the performer." Leech-Wilkinson concludes that performance styles in early music "have as much to do with current taste as with accurate reproduction." This is probably over-pessimistic. More recently, Andrew Snedden has suggested that HIP reconstructions are on firmer ground when approached in context with a cultural exegesis of the era, examining not merely how they played but why they played as they did, and what cultural meaning is embedded in the music.
In the conclusion of his study of early twentieth-century orchestral recordings, Robert Philip states that the concept of "what sounds tasteful now probably sounded tasteful in earlier periods" is a fundamental but flawed assumption behind much of the historical performance movement. Having spent the entire book examining rhythm, vibrato, and portamento, Philips states that the fallacy of the assumption of tastefulness causes adherents of historical performance to randomly select what they find acceptable and to ignore evidence of performance practice which goes against modern taste.
Reception
In his book, ''The Aesthetics of Music'', the British philosopher
Roger Scruton
Sir Roger Vernon Scruton (; 27 February 194412 January 2020) was an English philosopher and writer who specialised in aesthetics and political philosophy, particularly in the furtherance of traditionalist conservative views.
Editor from 1982 ...
wrote that "the effect
f HIPhas frequently been to cocoon the past in a wad of phoney scholarship, to elevate musicology over music, and to confine Bach and his contemporaries to an acoustic time-warp. The tired feeling which so many 'authentic' performances induce can be compared to the atmosphere of a modern museum....
he works of early composers
He or HE may refer to:
Language
* He (pronoun), an English pronoun
* He (kana), the romanization of the Japanese kana へ
* He (letter), the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets
* He (Cyrillic), a letter of the Cyrillic script called ''He'' ...
are arranged behind the glass of authenticity, staring bleakly from the other side of an impassable screen".
A number of scholars see the HIP movement essentially as a 20th-century invention. Writing about the periodical ''Early Music'' (one of the leading periodicals about historically informed performance), Peter Hill noted "All the articles in ''Early Music'' noted in varying ways the (perhaps fatal) flaw in the 'authenticity' position. This is that the attempt to understand the past in terms of the past is—paradoxically—an absolutely contemporary phenomenon."
One of the more skeptical voices of the historically informed performance movement has been
Richard Taruskin
Richard Filler Taruskin (April 2, 1945 – July 1, 2022) was an American musicologist and music critic who was among the leading and most prominent music historians of his generation. The breadth of his scrutiny into source material as well as ...
. His thesis is that the practice of unearthing supposedly historically informed practices is actually a 20th-century practice influenced by modernism and, ultimately, we can never know what music sounded like or how it was played in previous centuries. "What we had been accustomed to regard as historically authentic performances, I began to see, represented neither any determinable historical prototype nor any coherent revival of practices coeval with the repertories they addressed. Rather, they embodied a whole wish list of modern(ist) values, validated in the academy and the marketplace alike by an eclectic, opportunistic reading of historical evidence." "'Historical' performers who aim 'to get to the truth'...by using period instruments and reviving lost playing techniques actually pick and choose from history's wares. And they do so in a manner that says more about the values of the late twentieth century than about those of any earlier era."
In her book ''The Imaginary Museum of Musical Works: An Essay in the Philosophy of Music'',
Lydia Goehr
Lydia Goehr is a professor of philosophy at Columbia University. Her research specialties include the philosophy of music, aesthetics, critical theory, the philosophy of history, and 19th- and 20th-century philosophy.
Early life and education
...
discusses the aims and fallacies of both proponents and critics of the HIP movement.
[Lydia Goehr, ''The Imaginary Museum of Musical Works: An Essay in the Philosophy of Music'' (New York: Oxford University Press), pp. 279–84.] She claims that the HIP movement itself came about during the latter half of the 19th century as a reaction to the way modern techniques were being imposed upon music of earlier times. Thus performers were concerned with achieving an "authentic" manner of performing music—an ideal that carries implications for all those involved with music. She distills the late 20th century arguments into two points of view, achieving either fidelity to the conditions of performance, or fidelity to the musical work.
She succinctly summarizes the critics' arguments (for example, anachronistic, selectively imputing current performance ideas on early music), but then concludes that what the HIP movement has to offer is a different manner of looking at and listening to music: "It keeps our eyes open to the possibility of producing music in new ways under the regulation of new ideals. It keeps our eyes open to the inherently critical and revisable nature of our regulative concepts. Most importantly, it helps us overcome that deep‐rooted desire to hold the most dangerous of beliefs, that we have at any time got our practices absolutely right."
What is clear is that a narrowly musicological approach to stylistic reconstruction is both modernist in culture and inauthentic as a living performance, an approach termed 'deadly theatre' by Peter Brook.
The best HIP performers, while basing their style on historical data, now recognise the fuzzy logic of creating less modernist, yet personally committed 21st century performances of historical repertoire.
See also
*
Authenticity in art
Authenticity in art is manifest in the different ways that a work of art, or an artistic performance, can be considered authentic. The initial distinction is between ''nominal authenticity'' and ''expressive authenticity''. In the first sense, no ...
*
Concert pitch
Concert pitch is the pitch reference to which a group of musical instruments are tuned for a performance. Concert pitch may vary from ensemble to ensemble, and has varied widely over music history. The most common modern tuning standard uses ...
*
Early music revival
:''See Historically informed performance for a more detailed explanation of this topic.''
The general discussion of how to perform music from ancient or earlier times did not become an important subject of interest until the 19th century, when E ...
*
List of early music ensembles
An early music ensemble is a musical ensemble that specializes in performing early music of the European classical tradition from the Baroque era and earlier – broadly, music produced before about 1750. Most, but not all, of these groups are ad ...
*
One voice per part
*
String section
*
Shakespeare in Original Pronunciation
Shakespeare in Original Pronunciation (OP) is a movement dedicated to the examination and subsequent performance of Shakespeare's works in the phonology, or sound system, of Early Modern English.
Modern movement
In 2004, Shakespeare's Globe, in Lo ...
References
Sources
*
Bibliography
*
Badura-Skoda, Paul. 1993. ''Interpreting Bach at the Keyboard'', translated by Alfred Clayton. Oxford: Clarendon Press; New York: Oxford University Press. (cloth); (1995 pbk reprint). (Translation of ''Bach-Interpretation: die Klavierwerke Johann Sebastian Bachs''. Laaber: Laaber-Verlag, 1990. .)
*
Dart, Thurston. 1954. ''The Interpretation of Music''. London: Hutchinson and Co.
*
Dolmetsch, Arnold. 1915. ''The Interpretation of the Music of the 17th and 18th Centuries Revealed by Contemporary Evidence''. London: Novello.
*
Donington, Robert. 1963. ''The Interpretation of Early Music''. London: Faber and Faber.
*Hubbard, Frank. 1965. ''Three Centuries of Harpsichord Making''. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press .
*Kenyon, Nicholas (editor). 1988. ''Authenticity and Early Music''. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. .
* Kivy, Peter. 1995. ''Authenticities: Philosophical Reflections on Musical Performance''. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. .
*
Leech-Wilkinson, Daniel. 1992. "The Good, the Bad and the Boring". In ''Companion to Medieval & Renaissance Music'', edited by Tess Knighton and David Fallows, . London: J. M. Dent.; New York: Schirmer Books. (Dent); (Schirmer). Paperback reprint, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1997. . Paperback reprint, Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 1997. .
*
Mattheson, Johann. 1739. ''Der vollkommene Kapellmeister, das ist, Gründliche Anzeige aller derjenigen Sachen, die einer wissen, können, und vollkommen inne haben muss, der eine Kapelle mit Ehren und Nutzen vorstehen will''. Breslau:
.n. Hamburg: Herold. Facsimile reprint, edited by Margarete Reimann. Documenta Musicologica Reihe 1: ruckschriften-Faksimiles 5. Kassel: Bärenreiter, 1954. Study edition with newly typeset text and music examples, edited by Friederike Ramm. Bärenreiter-Studienausgabe. Kassel, Basel, London, New York, Prague: Bärenreiter. .
*Milsom, David. 2003. ''Theory and Practice in Late Nineteenth-Century Violin Performance: An Examination of Style in Performance, 1850–1900''. Aldershot: Ashgate. .
*Milsom, David. 2011. ''Classical and Romantic Music. The library of essays on music performance practice''. Aldershot: Ashgate. .
*
Parrott, Andrew. 2000. ''The Essential Bach Choir''.
.p. The Boydell Press. .
*
Peres da Costa, Neal. 2013. ''Off the Record: Performing Practices in Romantic Piano Playing''. New York: OUP. .
*Robert Philip, 1992 ''Early Recordings and Musical Style: Changing tastes in instrumental Performance, 1900-1950.'' Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
*
Rosen, Charles. 1997. ''The Classical Style'', second edition. New York: W. W. Norton. .
*Rosen, Charles. 2000. ''Critical Entertainments''. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. .
External links
The Unofficial Countertenor Home PagePeriod instrument performers and groups listed on The Open Music Project*
ttp://www.bsherman.net/insideearlymusic.htm Inside Early Music: Conversations with Performers (book by Bernard Sherman; Oxford University Press, 1997)br>
Why you've never really heard the "Moonlight" Sonata (Slate Magazine covering differences between authentic and modern piano performances
{{DEFAULTSORT:Historically Informed Performance
Historical reenactment by type