Informed performance or snobbery?

[Enrique]

I wanted to listen to Bach's piano partitas in the harpsichord and went to youtube. There I found this, by a well known clavecinist:

[YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j06_jzQzavw[/YOUTUBE]

I won't ask what you think of the interpretation (sorry for my English), because I have my own opinion about it. Is it possible to play Bach as if it were Chopin? I don't understand these HIP people. They claim to play as the work was played in the author's time, but do no other thing than happily ruin music with their gut strings and blockfloten.

Look at this guy and his mellifluous version of the partitas. The liberties he takes with the tempo are atrocious. Every note enters a bit sooner or a bit later than due. It is plain to me that this movement has degenerated into just vogue. And is supported by an audience consisting of snobs.

[Peter]

I think that extreme positions can be taken either way and sorry Enrique but to refer to the audience for HIP as snobs is an extreme view. Even those who prefer to play Baroque and Classical on modern instruments will concede we have learnt an enormous amount from the HIP movement. Try listening to Jordi Savall's Eroica - it uses the limited forces that played at the first private performance at the Lobkowitz palace Vienna. It isn't my favourite version of the Eroica, nor do I think it can claim to be HIP in the sense that a few years later Beethoven used larger forces for the Theater an der Wien, but it provides us with another dimension of listening with extreme clarity and vitality, not to mention the historical fact that this is how the first audience heard this work. The tempi are fascinating.

[AeolianHarp]

I love HIP- I love to hear how it was intended to be. I cannot say I know enough of Bach's music to say if this performance was accurate or not. I have a lot of Ronald Brautigam playing Beethoven's sonatas on fortepiano with unequal temperament and it really is spectacular. I also rate Melvyn Tan who has done the same on Beethoven's own piano.

[Enrique]

I once heard the Revolutionary and Romantic Orchestra playing one of Beethoven's symphonies and it sounded superb. So I can't speak about HIP when it comes to the classical period. But I won't tolerate the playing of Bach --nor any other intelligent person will-- as if they were playing a tango, with due respect to this musical genre. Rhythm is the most basic element of music. The whole building of a musical work has rhythm as its foundation. So you cannot tamper with it. Listen to that piece, and you will clearly notice the use of rubato. More than speeding up and slowing down, what you can hear is keys not stroke at the right time, which is made intentionally. And this is a harpsichordist , a species that used to be characterized by extreme rhythmic precision.

Once, Wagner and other musicians introduced changes in the orchestration of the symphonies of Beethoven. Like with so many things, in an attempt to correct those abuses, we have reached the opposite end of the spectrum and play a prelude by Bach like a nocturne by Chopin.

[Peter]

I once heard the Revolutionary and Romantic Orchestra playing one of Beethoven's symphonies and it sounded superb. So I can't speak about HIP when it comes to the classical period. But I won't tolerate the playing of Bach --nor any other intelligent person will-- as if they were playing a tango, with due respect to this musical genre. Rhythm is the most basic element of music. The whole building of a musical work has rhythm as its foundation. So you cannot tamper with it. Listen to that piece, and you will clearly notice the use of rubato. More than speeding up and slowing down, what you can hear is keys not stroke at the right time, which is made intentionally. And this is a harpsichordist , a species that used to be characterized by extreme rhythmic precision.

Once, Wagner and other musicians introduced changes in the orchestration of the symphonies of Beethoven. Like with so many things, in an attempt to correct those abuses, we have reached the opposite end of the spectrum and play a prelude by Bach like a nocturne by Chopin.

I haven't listened to the youtube Partita all the way through, but the tempi seemed way too slow. Don't forget non HIP performances are just as capable of abusing the composer's intentions - much as I admire Glenn Gould, his Brahms piano concerto no.1 with Bernstein is a travesty! Klemperer's tempi for Beethoven's symphonies particularly in the later recordings are dreadfully slow. There are many, many examples!

[Enrique]

I haven't listened to the youtube Partita all the way through, but the tempi seemed way too slow. Don't forget non HIP performances are just as capable of abusing the composer's intentions - much as I admire Glenn Gould, his Brahms piano concerto no.1 with Bernstein is a travesty! Klemperer's tempi for Beethoven's symphonies particularly in the later recordings are dreadfully slow. There are many, many examples!

Yes, I heard that Gould-Bernstein performance and, despite Bernstein's introductory words, I thought it was a joke. But listen to this and tell what you think (though the tempo is perhaps a bit too fast):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xp7S5gkUlC0

NOTE: way too fast, to be honest. But the rhythmic precision is impressive. The cadenza seems written for a work by Bach.

[AeolianHarp]

I once heard the Revolutionary and Romantic Orchestra playing one of Beethoven's symphonies and it sounded superb.

They are included on Beethoven Only radio- the mood and magnificence of the Ninth is very powerful. The tempo is also faster, but there is a problem with the streaming on the radio so often the next movement runs into the next one wihtout the preceding one fully finishing! I will have to look and see if this orchestra is on you tube.