Electric violin

[Sorrano]

Gurn, just a thought here, while we cannot recreate the same conditions and listen to the music from the same point of view as those who first heard the music, but we can listen to it as though it were the first time we have heard it; we simply have to deal with it from our own point of view.

[Quijote]

Philip,
Yes, well I thought, having read many of your posts, that we might be kindred spirits where HIP is concerned.

I don't mean to say that there is any problem with the music being performed this way, since I love it as such. But the aspect of HIP, one that is often touted as a major factor, that is simply not there is this one: "we relive the concert experience of the 18th/early 19th century". We do hear the proper instruments (usually), and we do (often) hear the proper tempi, ornamentation, repeats, all those things which are capable of being recreated from the study of history. Sadly though, the "we hear it as the original audience heard it" aspect is what is missing. We may indeed hear it, but we simply cannot appreciate it in the same fashion.

I recently read an essay in "Haydn and his World" concerning the simulation of a rhetorical debate in Haydn's symphonies. And with a complete analysis to substantiate the model. But rhetoric is not part of my philosophy, and even knowing this now, I cannot begin to listen to music and break it down into this sort of model. Can you? And Dahl makes similar analogies in his "The Aesthetics of Music", tying the whole concept of aesthetics into its underlying philosophy and showing how music was appreciated in that way. And it was innate to the listener, because the listeners were only the intelligentsia and they had learned about music in that way.

So that particular part of "recreating the experience" will always be beyond my ken, and I am stuck in the position of being a 21st century man appreciating 18th/19th century music in ways it wasn't intended, no matter that it is being played, finally, in the way it WAS intended.

Or is this too abstruse?

I think we are kindred HIP spirits, Gurn. Again, as you say, that is the one aspect HIP can never give us. But at least it offers us "fresh" readings, and for that I enjoy listening to such performances.

The point you raise about 'rhetoric' in the symphonies of Haydn is very interesting; it applies equally to his quartets, and Beethoven's early Op. 18 set too. There are a couple of essays on this subject in the Beethoven Quartet Companion (Ed. R Winter / R Martin), University of California Press, 1994 : "Performing the Beethoven Quartets in their First Century" (Winter, pp 29-58); "The Patrons and Publics of the Quartets : Music, Culture and Society in Beethoven's Vienna (L Botstein, pp 77-110).

To have an idea of how audiences listened to music (how it was perceived and 'understood') is also a fascinating subject. We know that in the 1800s a perceptual shift was taking place : pure instrumetal music was now being considered as a means to knowledge, and away from the notion of music as mere entertainment. I can recommend a book to you that covers in some detail this very point, and I think as a fellow 'HIPpie' you might like to check it out :

Mark Evan BONDS, Music as Thought : Listening to the Symphony in the Age of Beethoven, Princeton University Press, 2006.

I will be looking forward to your postings on the HIP issues!

[Quijote]

Who wants to recreate the original performance conditions? Take that mammoth concert of Dec 22nd 1808 the 4th piano concerto for example, sitting for hours in a freezing hall with the whole first movement lost in uproar! I'm not sure if 'appreciate' is the word that can be applied to many audiences of the time - people were far more open about expressing their reactions with booing and hissing - something we wouldn't tolerate today! 18th century opera productions were often little more than drunken social gatherings accompanied by music, with the occasional aria being listened to.

I for one would not like to recreate such performances down to the last detail, either! 4 hours or so in extreme cold? No thank you! Imagine though, the fundamentalist HIP advocate's ideal : to play the work on 'original' instruments, without lighting (except candles), wearing full costume and wigs, with bad teeth, lice, cholera and other unsavoury bodily ailments ...
Maybe we could create a market for that? The 'HIP Gone Mad" movement? If it works, I want 45% of all revenue. Deal?

[Gurn Blanston]

Who wants to recreate the original performance conditions? Take that mammoth concert of Dec 22nd 1808 the 4th piano concerto for example, sitting for hours in a freezing hall with the whole first movement lost in uproar! I'm not sure if 'appreciate' is the word that can be applied to many audiences of the time - people were far more open about expressing their reactions with booing and hissing - something we wouldn't tolerate today! 18th century opera productions were often little more than drunken social gatherings accompanied by music, with the occasional aria being listened to.

Aw, Pete, you're such a wag! No, we aren't talking about the physical presence and listening at actual concerts (rare and forlorn as that experience must have been), but rather, the philosophical aspects of how music was perceived. Believe me, my regret at not being a man of that time extends only as far as not being able to perceive the music as they did because of my different culture and educational background. I have no wish to live in the "Time Before Penicillin".



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Now playing: Boccherini - Quintettes avec contrebasse, Op. 39 - Ensemble 415 - Op. 39/1, Andante - Lento

[Gurn Blanston]

Gurn, just a thought here, while we cannot recreate the same conditions and listen to the music from the same point of view as those who first heard the music, but we can listen to it as though it were the first time we have heard it; we simply have to deal with it from our own point of view.

Sorrano,
Yes, that's the only practical thing, isn't it? And I DO that, just as you do. But I would like to understand to some extent exactly what it is that the Kenner of that time were listening for in the music. It obviously spoke to them in a different language than it speaks to us. If you read contemporary criticisms you will find them complaining about things that never even occur to anyone I know, especially to myself. A quick example: Haydn's Op 33 #2 string quartet is called "The Joke" because of the way he used false recapitulations and various other unexpected devices to make it rather facetious. well, I always enjoyed this work very much and found it interesting to listen to, but I really didn't ever think of it as a "joke" like Mozart's "Ein musikalischer Spass". But the critics and musicians of that period got the joke immediately, and many of them wrote about what a jokester Haydn was, often negatively too. And if you hadn't read about it, I would be very surprised if YOU got it either. We just don't think like they did.

[Gurn Blanston]

I think we are kindred HIP spirits, Gurn. Again, as you say, that is the one aspect HIP can never give us. But at least it offers us "fresh" readings, and for that I enjoy listening to such performances.

The point you raise about 'rhetoric' in the symphonies of Haydn is very interesting; it applies equally to his quartets, and Beethoven's early Op. 18 set too. There are a couple of essays on this subject in the Beethoven Quartet Companion (Ed. R Winter / R Martin), University of California Press, 1994 : "Performing the Beethoven Quartets in their First Century" (Winter, pp 29-58); "The Patrons and Publics of the Quartets : Music, Culture and Society in Beethoven's Vienna (L Botstein, pp 77-110).

To have an idea of how audiences listened to music (how it was perceived and 'understood') is also a fascinating subject. We know that in the 1800s a perceptual shift was taking place : pure instrumetal music was now being considered as a means to knowledge, and away from the notion of music as mere entertainment. I can recommend a book to you that covers in some detail this very point, and I think as a fellow 'HIPpie' you might like to check it out :

Mark Evan BONDS, Music as Thought : Listening to the Symphony in the Age of Beethoven, Princeton University Press, 2006.

I will be looking forward to your postings on the HIP issues!

Hmm, I have the Winter book, but I don't specifically remember that section (it's been 4 or 5 years since I read it completely). I shall get right on it, as soon as I finish Newman's "The Sonata in the Classic Period". A commendable book in itself, if you are interested in that sort of thing.

Now, the Bonds book sounds like a "must have". I'll be looking for that one. You're right, this was a period when the whole perception of music was changing. It is a major part of the big picture of why Beethoven's music was so revolutionary. He was writing for a different audience than Mozart or Haydn (before London) were writing for. And one of the reasons he was so influential for later composers is that he mastered the idiom of writing for the public long before anyone else did. The 5th symphony was written for public performance, the Jupiter never was, and never hoped to be. That factor alone made a compelling difference in the way they were done.

Anyway, you have a big head start on me in terms of reading about these things. Using your recommendations, I'll catch up soon since this is my major interest (I'll never be a musician!). It will be nice to have someone to talk about this stuff with. Right now, all I can do is think about it.



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Now playing: Boccherini - Quintettes avec contrebasse, Op. 39 - Ensemble 415 - Op. 39/2 1st mvmt - Allegro vivo, ma non presto

[Peter]

Aw, Pete, you're such a wag! No, we aren't talking about the physical presence and listening at actual concerts (rare and forlorn as that experience must have been), but rather, the philosophical aspects of how music was perceived. Believe me, my regret at not being a man of that time extends only as far as not being able to perceive the music as they did because of my different culture and educational background. I have no wish to live in the "Time Before Penicillin".



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Now playing: Boccherini - Quintettes avec contrebasse, Op. 39 - Ensemble 415 - Op. 39/1, Andante - Lento

Only before Penicillin Gurn, not before Key-hole surgery for me!
I'm not sure about your philosophical perceptions point - I simply think people (as now) reacted in different ways. For some music was mere entertainment or background, many highly educated people were indifferent and bored by it, others of course greatly moved. I agree that we're missing the novelty factor and so I think the sheer originality of the sounds is often lost on us as you pointed out in your response to Sorrano - it's hard for us to be shocked by those repeated dissonant chords in the Eroica when we know the Rite of Spring!