The End of Early Music - A Period Performers History of Music Fo
The End of Early Music - A Period Performers History of Music Fo
The End of Early Music - A Period Performers History of Music Fo
Volume 13 | Number 1
Article 10
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Particularly insightful is Haynes laying out and clarifying of four distinct performing
styles that have appeared over the past century from about 1900 to the presentthe recordings
are discussed mainly in terms of these four styles:
1.
2.
3.
a period style (ca. 1960 to the present), like the modern, except for its
adopting of original instruments;
4.
though the adoption of original instruments has greatly facilitated the rhetorical manner of
playing.
Original instruments and their playing techniques indeed have been of particular interest
to rhetorical musicians, and Haynes goes deeply into the problems of reconstruction,
advocating that makers not simply copy models but rather draw out (emulate) their best
qualities. Haynes himself has made a detailed study of 174 different hautboys, and he provides
minute descriptions of harpsichord-making, such as of the builder Skowroneck, including his
most well-known reconstruction, the Lefbure harpsichord.
***
A key phrase for Haynes, a kind of central motto in the book, is one he happened upon at
the University of Amsterdam inscribed on a portal: To say something differently is to say
something new. This he recasts into musical terms as a piece played differently is a different
piece,(22) an idea that deeply bears out his innate proclivity toward the contribution of the
performer. He chooses as an example Mahlers Sixth Symphony, a work that has been conducted
increasingly more slowly in recent years, which for Haynes turns it into a different piece, or at
least, as he says, alters our conception of [its] identity (24). From this vantage point the
performers role takes on a considerably enhanced importance.
Of all the performance styles he goes into, Haynes displays a particular dislike for the
modern style (ca. 1940 to the present), wherein he feels the performers expression has been
unduly restricted. He describes performances in this style as impersonal, literal, correct,
deliberate, monotonous, and regular,(49) a disastrous blight on the concert life of the later
twentieth century (32). In adopting this view he allies himself particularly with Richard Taruskin,
who in a number of articles in the 1980s and 90scollected and summarized in his book Text
and Actalso deplores the rather detached and unemotional manner of modernist performers,
ascribing it specifically to a Stravinskian influence.[1]
A question might be raised, though, regarding this rather severe judgment. Especially
when it is considered that performers of the timeHaynes mentions Toscanini, Schnabel,
Serkin, Heifetz, Menuhin, Salonen, and Rifkin and othershad as an underlying aspiration a
desire to rid their performance of what they perceived to be the distortions and exaggerations
found in romantic performances of the earlier part of the century (from ca. 1900 to the 1930s).
Their primary aim, in fact, was to free themselves of such excesses and make their renditions
more nearly conform to what a composer originally had in mind. This explains their careful
adherence to the score (or Urtext)Haynes strait style (as in a strait jacket). Despite these
attitudes, however, it is not at all apparent, at least to me, that their performances have been that
1
Richard Taruskin, Text and Act: Essays on Music and Performance (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1995).
much lacking in personal expression, even though such expression may not have been overtly
apparent.
At this point I might return to the query posed at the outset of this review, and enquire
whether reconciliation is possible between the composers demands and the performers need for
self-expression. I have earlier proposed that such an accommodation might be reached in the
Introduction of my Performance Practice: a Dictionary-Guide for Musicians (2005), from which
I quote:
What, then, might be considered the ideal performer? A player or singer, who, on the
one hand, finds out whatever he or she can about the original performance aspects of a musical
work, but who, on the other hand, enters fully into the musics emotional content, particularly by
the adding of rhythmic and dynamic nuances. Such a performer enhances and complements the
composers original expression with his or her own individual feelings. When such a
combination is achieved, knowledge and feeling come together, each in its way contributing to
the propitious recreating of a composers musical works.[2]
In my estimation such a propitious compromise can be discerned in many of the
performances of the above-mentioned artists, including those of Menuhin, Salonen, and Rifkin,
who come off rather unfavorably in Hayness comparisons of their recordings.
Another era towards which Haynes feels little empathy is that of nineteenth-century
romanticism (prior to the recorded examples of the early-twentieth century). This period,
significantly, was the one that replaced the rhetorical, with which Haynes most closely
identifies himself. In his view, the French Revolution (begun in 1789) represented historically a
critical turning-point, when many earlier performance aspects were turned on their head: when
rhetorical gestures gave way to legato lines, when composition as a craft became composition by
inspiration, when freedom of improvisation was curtailed by composers (who insisted, for
instance, that their own cadenzas now be utilized), and when aristocratic salons were supplanted
by peoples concert halls, filled with submissive (and silent) audiences. Haynes deplores these
developments and questions their underlying assumptions, which remain with us to this day. He
is chagrined, for instance, by the exaggerated esteem often accorded composers, pointing to the
fact that certain of their formerly-prized works have since been shown to have been
misattributedfor example, Haydns Opus 3, which turns out to have been by Hofstetter. This
he compares with the fake paintings of Hans van Meegeren, which for a time were praised as
genuine Vermeers. One might counter, though, that such misattributions, whether of Haydn or
Vermeer, have resulted primarily from our own analytical shortcomings.
Haynes also takes umbrage at the idea of the interpretive conductor, who imposes his
own conception of works onto his performers, a phenomenon that began in the nineteenth
century. Here he draws our attention to what he regards as the more spontaneous attitudes
manifested by rhetorical ensembles, whether under a violinist leader or a solo fortepianistthe
latter exemplified, for instance, by the lively performances of Robert Levin.
Haynes, however, rarely presents his opinions about these or other matters in a very
systematic manner, preferring instead to string together quotations from various writers, the
contexts of their remarks rarely being spelled-out. As an illustration, a portion of the section
entitled Originality and the Cult of Genius (79)here the word cult being indicative of his
biasmight be cited (the authors and dates of writings are placed before the quoted passages,
but otherwise the continuity is as in the book).
(Higgins, 2004) Why, one wonders, is genius so often associated with Romantic
music but seems beside the mark when applied to Machaut or Dowland?[3]
(Dahlhaus, 1983) Musicians in the Rhetorical era composed and performed using
rules of thumb and craftsmanlike formulas. Where a Romantic composer would
show their [sic] genius by transcending or reinterpreting mere rules, a Baroque
musician would prove their ingenuity not by breaking but by fulfilling the
rules.[4]
(Barnetta choreographer rather than a musician1987) Composition was an
art in the 18th-century sense of the worda skill in the performance of actions
using accepted, proven techniques and precepts.[5]
(Haynes) Sounds like a craftsman talking. . .
(Roger North, 1728) In musick nothing is left to accident; all must be done either
with designe or by inveterate habit, in a course duely establisht; and the cheif
industry lies in procuring variety.[6]
Footnotes 3-10 are all cited by Haynes on the pages indicated above; the additional citations are
provided here for easy reference. Paula Higgins, The Apotheosis of Josquin des Prez and Other
Mythologies of Musical Genius, JAMS, vol. 57, no. 3 (Fall 2004): 443-510.
4
Carl Dahlhaus, Foundations of Music History, trans. J.B. Robinson (Cambridge: Cambridge
UP, 1983), 147.
Dene Barnett and Jeanette Massy-Westropp, The Art of Gesture: The Practices and Principles
of the 18th century Acting (Heidelberg: Winter, 1987), 11.
5
Roger North, Roger North on Music, ed. John Wilson (London: Novello, 1959), 142.
Charles Avison, An Essay on Musical Expression (London, Printed for C. Davis, 1753), 108.
Appears in Mary Hunter, To Play as if from the Soul of the Composer: The Idea of the
Performer in Early Romantic Aesthetics, JAMS, vol. 58, no. 2 (Summer 2005): 364.
9
10
Johann Samuel Petri, Anleitung zur practischen Musik (Leipzig: J.G.I. Breitkopf, 1782), 181.
enter into what appears to be the lasting value and more universal applicability of nineteenthcentury musical thought.