Late Baroque, Early Classical or…?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I keep thinking of those protoplasmic ancestors - whose were they? - a very state-of-the-art joke in the nineteenth century!

Yes - Gilbert was fond of it: a parody of the "idea" of/obsession with "Family", in his case.

[jean]

(...as I should have realized had I thought about "protagonist".)

(That might have led you down another etymological wrong turning, though - people often analyse protagonist/antagonist as necessarily in opposition to each other, reading the first element as pro- rather than proto-.)

[Richard Barrett]

I wouldn't be much interested in hearing Bach "as his contemporaries did"

I do think though that one of the important aspects of HIPP, for me anyway, is that it brings listeners closer to being able to appreciate what was new in (for example) Bach's work, rather than looking at it down the long corridor of changing priorities in its performance history and thus seeing only what is old in it. Here of course the work of lesser-known artists like CPE Bach is at an advantage because it doesn't have such a long (if not unbroken) history of interpretation with each period in history claiming it as theirs.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

(That might have led you down another etymological wrong turning, though - people often analyse protagonist/antagonist as necessarily in opposition to each other, reading the first element as pro- rather than proto-.)

Wouldn't be the first time! Interesting etymology here, though - the core is "agon" (= "contest", "struggle") isn't it (genuine question) rather than "tagon", so whilst there would be an "anti-agonist", shouldn't there rather be a "pro-agonist"?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I do think though that one of the important aspects of HIPP, for me anyway, is that it brings listeners closer to being able to appreciate what was new in (for example) Bach's work, rather than looking at it down the long corridor of changing priorities in its performance history and thus seeing only what is old in it. Here of course the work of lesser-known artists like CPE Bach is at an advantage because it doesn't have such a long (if not unbroken) history of interpretation with each period in history claiming it as theirs.

Yes - I see that: and the "newness" of Bach is also made clear by the greater number of performances of works by his comntemporaries (not just Handel and Telemann) that were left idly neglected before HIP practitioners started performing it again. One of the greatest sources of optimism for me is that so much is now easily and freely available for people to make up their own minds about works, forming their opinions on experiencing the Music itself, rather than the hearsay of a paperback with a blue spine. It could quite easily be that people in the future will look with pitying incredulity at how opinion was formed in pre-cyber periods: and with what blind self-assurance and arrogance that confidence was so often expressed.

[Richard Barrett]

I'm sure Jean knows chapter and verse on this better than I do, but Greek tragedy first grew out of choral performances when one performer, the protagonist ("one who plays the first part, chief actor" according to Liddell & Scott), became a character standing out from the chorus, and a further development, attributed to Aeschylus, took place when a second actor, the antagonist, was introduced as an opponent to him.

[jean]

We should be careful of the word opponent in this context, though.

Haven't time for more now, but while I'm away I leave you with Samson Agonistes.

[Richard Barrett]

"Anti-" implies an opponent, does it not?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

the protagonist ("one who plays the first part, chief actor" according to Liddell & Scott)

Yes - this was what made me make the connection from "proto" to "protagonist" back in #whatever.

[ahinton]

He had a point, certainly - but in this case whilst missing the point. I wouldn't be much interested in hearing Bach "as his contemporaries did" any more than I'd be interested in looking at Rembrandt as his did - I want to hear (with my early 21st Century ears and late 20th Century mind) the timbres and balances and speeds that Bach himself might have expected.

Well, of course - but I don't think that he did miss the point really, in terms of the experience of listening to a wide variety of post-Bach music will inevitably colour not only our responses to Bach's work but also make it sound "different" to what it would have sounded like to his contemporaries; I'm not suggesting that this is a "good thing" or a "bad thing" and nor, I suspect, was Simpson who was not inveighing against HIPP per se but trying to address the fact that it is not the only route to salvation! HIPP is important in tring to get as close as possible not only to those "timbres and balance and speeds" but also the pitches (i.e. Bach's Chaconne might seem to be in C# minor to present day ears) and that has to be a matter of interest, but what it does not and cannot be expected to do is revive every aspect of the listening experience in Bach's time.

Also, the one voice to a part matter, whilst something for which there's ample historical evidence, cannot of itself take into account the forces that Bach might have liked to employ had it been possible to do so, any more than we can be sure what Bach's view of his work played on later instruments might have been. After all, some practitioners and devotees of the HIPP movement do not dismiss performances of WTC, the Goldbergs et al on modern Steinway Model Ds or Bösendorfer 290s. That said, we do have to thank HIPP for enlightening us as to earlier performance styles.

To go back to the issue of present-day music compared to the music of earlier eras, in agreeing what you say about richness and diversity, I do think that one unavoidable problem is the sheer availability of so very much music from all eras that might well confuse some listeners by reasons of sheer volume of material and lack of sufficient listening hours alone - but again, I'm not of course saying that this is a "bad thing!"

[Serial_Apologist]

I do think that one unavoidable problem is the sheer availability of so very much music from all ears that might well confuse some listeners by reasons of volume of material and lack of sufficient listening hours alone

Eras as opposed to earoles, as what some Bristolians would say, is what I think you mean! (Pace french frank!)

Fascinating discussion, which could have the effect of completely changing my attitudes towards the musics of today - I'm still rather with ardcarp (being an old grumpy myself) in hearing what I hear as fragmentation as symptomatic of individualism and lack of any sort of cohering vision - something which did at least apply to the past, when there was general consensus around idiomatic consistencies, at least for those in positions of power, and departures therefrom were felt to be possible future pointers that stood out. Today we're all "in power" aren't we, through choice and instantaneous information.

[ahinton]

Eras as opposed to earoles, as what some Bristolians would say, is what I think you mean! (Pace french frank!)

I fear that it might be a case of needing to pacify FF, actually! - but typo now corrected, so thanks for drawing my attention to it!

Fascinating discussion, which could have the effect of completely changing my attitudes towards the musics of today - I'm still rather with ardcarp (being an old grumpy myself) in hearing what I hear as fragmentation as symptomatic of individualism and lack of any sort of cohering vision - something which did at least apply to the past, when there was general consensus around idiomatic consistencies, at least for those in positions of power, and departures therefrom were felt to be possible future pointers that stood out. Today we're all "in power" aren't we, through choice and instantaneous information.

Well, leaving the political implications of the last part of what you write to one side for the moment, I agree that, in the past, there was something much more akin to a lingua franca than has pertained during, say, the last century or so and that any sense of one continues to deplete or dissipate by the minute the more music that composers compose. One dismaying by-product of the consequences of this might be illustrated by what a R3 producer told me several years ago that, in a Q&A forum following a talk that he'd given to young composers, he was understandably depressed and perplexed to receive several questions about what style and manner is expected of the composer today.

What this also perhaps throws up is the extent to which composers and listeners should be expected to regard themselves as individuals first and foremost or whether a greater sense of "community", "belonging" or whatever should be expected to pertain as some might argue that it did to a degree in some earlier perceived "golden age"...

[Richard Barrett]

I'm still rather with ardcarp (being an old grumpy myself) in hearing what I hear as fragmentation as symptomatic of individualism and lack of any sort of cohering vision - something which did at least apply to the past, when there was general consensus around idiomatic consistencies, at least for those in positions of power, and departures therefrom were felt to be possible future pointers that stood out. Today we're all "in power" aren't we, through choice and instantaneous information.

I'm not sure whether I would say that the musical landscape as such is more diverse than it was in the past, say 40 years ago. It seems to me, for example, that the popular-music part of the landscape is a good deal less diverse than it was then, and the art-music part is also subject to much retrenchment and retrogression. What has changed, of course, is access to it all, across both geographical and historical boundaries, which is bound to have some profound effect on what creative musicians are doing, just as the arrival of electronic-music resources a few decades ago (and subsequently their easy availability outside wealthy institutions) continues to have such a profound effect.

[french frank]

(Pace french frank!)

Pa-ce, pace, mio dolce teso-ro :-P

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Also, the one voice to a part matter, whilst something for which there's ample historical evidence, cannot of itself take into account the forces that Bach might have liked to employ had it been possible to do so, any more than we can be sure what Bach's view of his work played on later instruments might have been. After all, some practitioners and devotees of the HIPP movement do not dismiss performances of WTC, the Goldbergs et al on modern Steinway Model Ds or Bösendorfer 290s. That said, we do have to thank HIPP for enlightening us as to earlier performance styles.

I don't personally "dismiss" performances on instruments Bach never heard - the last time I came close to such a silly attitude, Jeremy Denk put me back on the right track. Nor do I discount the possibility that Bach might have enjoyed hearing the Italian Concerto played by electric guitars, saxophones, quartertone electric keyboards and synthesized drumpads. But the point that Simpson seems to have missed is that Bach's Music sounds astonishingly well when played on instruments that he knew, just as much as Debussy's Etudes sound astonishingly well when played on the pianos of his time (even if he might have enjoyed hearing them played on a harpsichord). Bach wrote as idiomatically for the keyboards of his time as Debussy does for those of his - and just as we don't (and cannot) think of the piano as a prototype for some other not-yet-invented keyboard instrument, so Bach didn't (and couldn't) imagine the sound of his keyboards as a temporary stopgap until Mr Steinway came along.