The Essay: Early Music at the BBC

[smittims]

I've just found these three 14-minute talks by Nicholas Kenyon on BBc Sounds, tracing the history of the BBC's involvement in Early Music revival from the 1920s to today.

I've always felt that a 'happy medium' was found in baroque interpretation at any rate, by the generation including Boyd Neel, Thurston Dart, Karl Munchinger, Karl Richter and Neville Marriner, who, to my ears, made the music sound better than the more recent approach, and I've often felt it a pity that this way of playing is underrepresented in broadcasts.

I know that it's politically-incorrect to say this nowadays, but I've always been a foe of political correctness. I think much can be learnt by trying to understand others' views. I haven't yet heard Kenyon's talks.

[RichardB]

I've always been a foe of political correctness.

I don't really see what performance of early music has to do with political correctness, but wouldn't you have to say that "political correctness", in the sense of respecting others, for example in how they might have been denied a voice in what they are called and how they are talked about, may have its absurdities but it's a lot better for a lot more people than what preceded it? Or, to put it another way, it's relatively easy to be a "foe of political correctness" if you belong to the dominant race/class/culture/gender/sexuality etc., not so easy if you don't.

[Mandryka]

I've just found these three 14-minute talks by Nicholas Kenyon on BBc Sounds, tracing the history of the BBC's involvement in Early Music revival from the 1920s to today.

I've always felt that a 'happy medium' was found in baroque interpretation at any rate, by the generation including Boyd Neel, Thurston Dart, Karl Munchinger, Karl Richter and Neville Marriner, who, to my ears, made the music sound better than the more recent approach, and I've often felt it a pity that this way of playing is underrepresented in broadcasts.

I know that it's politically-incorrect to say this nowadays, but I've always been a foe of political correctness. I think much can be learnt by trying to understand others' views. I haven't yet heard Kenyon's talks.

I think some of these people where just rather musical, and so whether their approach is consistent with todays ideas about how an informed performance should sound or not, what they did can be a pleasure to hear. I’d say Dart is like that, and I’d add Fritz Numeyer and Thomas Binkley and August Wenzinger and Walter Kraft and probably a whole bunch of others. It looks like you’re more keen on Pinnock and Richter than I am, these things are obviously entirely a matter of taste.

[smittims]

I think I have fairly broad tastes, though whether that's a good thing or not I won't say. I like Handel in Pinnock's recordings and Beecham's arrangements.

August Wenzinger was marvellous. I cherish a 3-CD set issued by Archiv.

[smittims]

Wel, Richard, I know this is a subject that arouses strong feeelings, and I think that's a pity. But I do think people who think that only their view, today, can ever have been right and everyone else must have been wrong, can be found in both musical interpretation and politics.

[oddoneout]

Wel, Richard, I know this is a subject that arouses strong feeelings, and I think that's a pity. But I do think people who think that only their view, today, can ever have been right and everyone else must have been wrong, can be found in both musical interpretation and politics.

I sympathise with your comment about the "my way is right" attitude to music performance style, but I don't think that political correctness comes into it, as such views don't really have anything to do with issues causing offence or disadvantage to a given group in society. They are the result of historical research,experimentation etc, and those who disagree have been and are free to differ in their views and performance practice.

[Mandryka]

They are the result of historical research,experimentation etc, and those who disagree have been and are free to differ in their views and performance practice.

Not necessarily, no more so in music than in any other discipline, because the musical establishment - university people, press etc - can oppose them vociferously and make continuing hard. One example would be the story of Peter and Timothy Davies, who founded The Medieval Ensemble of London. They completely lost confidence in what they were doing because of scathing reviews in Oxford Early Music Magazine and maybe in Gramophone too, which mocked them for not playing a cappella. Reviews which, given the state of knowledge at the time and the state of knowledge now, were probably unjustifiable. It’s an interesting study of the way a musical establishment creates an ideological hegemony.


I can’t find any reference to the story online, it’s discussed in Daniel Leech Wilkinson’s book The Modern Invention of Medieval Music.

There were others who suffered a similar fate - René Clemencic is an obvious example - though in his case he conceded to the paradigm of musical performance practice which had somehow become dominant, established.