Hipp, Hipp, Hurrah

[Hornspieler]

In the past discussions, I have made no secret of the fact that I have little interest in music played on obsolete instruments. For some, it is a crusade and for others, an obsession or affectation.

If there is a better way of playing ancient music, I'm all for it.

Nobody would compete in the Tour de France on a penny farthing bicycle or enter a Bisley Rifle competition with a blunderbus or, in music, play Brahms 2nd Piano Concerto on a clavichord, so why not use the best instruments available to enhance the composers' musical vision?

The champions of "authentic" musical performance are fading away - Bruggen, Norrington, John Eliott Gardner, et al, but one enthusiast still carries the torch and I have come to the conclusion that he is right to do so.

There was a lot of interest (and praise) for the recent recordings by Pip Easthop of the Mozart concertos and the devilishly difficult horn 5tet playing on the Natural (valveless) horn, but who was conducting? Anthony Halstead

Going through my CDs a few days ago, I came upon a recording of C M von Weber's Concertino in E minor for horn and orchestra with the Hanover Band and the soloist, playing on a natural horn was Anthony Halstead.

Fantastic playing by any standard and I cannot believe that anyone could have achieved such incredible virtuosity and musicianship in a work which goes way out side the range of the horn both above and below.

Several distinguished horn players have recorded this work (on modern valved instruments) but Dennis Brain avoided it (he told me that he did not think that it was musically worthy of the time that it would take him to prepare it - in other words, his compass did not reach as high or as low as the piece demanded)

But I believe that the Nimbus recording referred to below with the Hanover Band under Goodman will be of interest to anyone.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concertino_for_Horn_and_Orchestra_(Weber)

Surely no longer available, but if you spot a copy in your local charity shop, Buy it!

HS

[vinteuil]

Going through my CDs a few days ago, I came upon a recording of C M von Weber's Concertino in E minor for horn and orchestra with the Hanover Band and the soloist, playing on a natural horn was Anthony Halstead.
Fantastic playing by any standard and I cannot believe that anyone could have achieved such incredible virtuosity and musicianship in a work which goes way out side the range of the horn both above and below.


But I believe that the Nimbus recording referred to below with the Hanover Band under Roger Norrington will be of interest to anyone.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concertino_for_Horn_and_Orchestra_(Weber)

HS

... Goodman not Norrington :

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00004XPKJ

[Bryn]

... Goodman not Norrington :

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00004XPKJ

Thanks both. I see it is also available as a lossless download from the usual suspect. Currently streaming the 320kbps mp3 here.

[ahinton]

Nobody would compete in the Tour de France on a penny farthing bicycle or enter a Bisley Rifle competition with a blunderbus or, in music, play Brahms 2nd Piano Concerto on a clavichord, so why not use the best instruments available to enhance the composers' musical vision?

Opinions will differ about what are the best instruments in many cases but, in the meantime, no one ever played either of Brahms' piano concertos on a claichord in Brahms' own day, just as there was no Tour de France in the days of the panny-farthing.

The champions of "authentic" musical performance are fading away - Bruggen, Norrington, John Eliott Gardner

What is it about the name Elliott that it's so often mis-spelt, irrespective of which of its spellings is correct? Carter is perhaps the most frequent victim of this, but Sir John is an Eliot! - and he is decidedly not "fading away" in any sense!

Anyway, to return to the topic(!), it might be argued that Brahms' two piano concertos might best be served by a modern Bösendorfer 290 and that Busoni's, with its large orchestra and somehwat more complex orchestration even more so. I've often felt that much of the piano music of Chopin, Liszt and especially Alkan (most notably, but by no means only, in their ground-breaking études for the instrument) were not only better served by but were also actually influential in the design development of pianos during the 19th century and the the rise of the public concert and the attendant need for pianos to be played in ever large venues went hand in hand with this; I refer here not only to matters of volume and carrying power but also to the increasing subtleties of tonal colour and shading afforded by the instruments available to Liszt and Alkan by the time of their deaths in the 1880s. I also recall hearing a pianits admit that he had occasional recourse to the sostenuto pedal when playing late Haydn sonatas, even though that device did not materialise until several decades after Haydn's death and has even today not been deployed or even understood by most pianists.

I mention these particular issues because you draw attention to the piano in Brahms' concertos for it, but I must confess that I've also struggled to understand the very notion of baroque stringed instruments when the great Strads, Amati and others date from "baroque" times; playing techniques were obviously different in those days and if there was one single person who could be said to have exerted most influence on string playing and writing after that it was arguably Paganini (whose his work also came to exert profound impact upon the pianst/composers Chopin, Schumann, Liszt and Alkan).

Another issue that gives me trouble when considering the whole HIPP business, of great historical interest though it unquestionably is ("Historically Informed", after all, making up half of the very name), is that, as Robert Simpson once observed, we can no longer listen to Bach as he and his contemporaries would have done because we have listened to Xenakis (the only case that I can think of when Simpson mentioned the Greek composer!); Simpson's remark isn't even just about the more recent musical experiences that our ears have had but also about the very nature of performance tradition and the many ways in which that has changed over the years, as well as all the other changes that have impacted upon how, when and where we listen to music - all experiences of which we cannot simply act as though in denial by trying to shut our minds off from them when listening to Bach or Vivaldi or Mozart or Berlioz or Brahms.

HIPP in its rightful place, say I; I do not seek to advocate HIPP replacement!

[doversoul1]

ahinton

….as Robert Simpson once observed, we can no longer listen to Bach as he and his contemporaries would have done because we have listened to Xenakis (the only case that I can think of when Simpson mentioned the Greek composer!); Simpson's remark isn't even just about the more recent musical experiences that our ears have had but also about the very nature of performance tradition and the many ways in which that has changed over the years

,

HIPP movement has never intended to recreate the original audience’s response in a modern audience. Its intention is to offer modern audiences what the original audience was likely to have heard. Audience response is not the major issue, if at all, of the HIPP movement in this sense.

[Gordon]

............Surely no longer available, but if you spot a copy in your local charity shop, Buy it!

As pointed out above it IS available in various formats from Amazon, iTunes et al. MAGIC!! How does he do it?!!! Thanks for the heads up. Must audition a conventional version for comparison.

That acoustic is certainly "atmospheric"! I wonder if the recording was done with a soundfield microphone and so be remixed to be offered in SACD? Published in 2000 so recordings made a bit before but where? Does the CD state the venue [I only have download]? For a while the Hanover had some premisses in Brighton but that project came to grief and it was quite small anyway. Nimbus at Wyastone had large room.

[Hornspieler]

... Goodman not Norrington :

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00004XPKJ

Thanks for the correction

HS

[Hornspieler]

As pointed out above it IS available in various formats from Amazon, iTunes et al. MAGIC!! How does he do it?!!! Thanks for the heads up. Must audition a conventional version for comparison.

That acoustic is certainly "atmospheric"! I wonder if the recording was done with a soundfield microphone and so be remixed to be offered in SACD? Published in 2000 so recordings made a bit before but where? Does the CD state the venue [I only have download]? For a while the Hanover had some premisses in Brighton but that project came to grief and it was quite small anyway. Nimbus at Wyastone had large room.

I have been told that Nimbus recorded Weber's 1st and 2nd symphonies and found that they had time to record something else.


Mr Halstead, who was playing for the session, just so happened to have the score and parts of the concertino in his music case and offered to play it as a fill-in.

If that is true, it makes the performance even more remarkable.

Thanks to ahinton and others for expanding this thread with some valuable information.

HS

[ahinton]

ahinton
,

HIPP movement has never intended to recreate the original audience’s response in a modern audience.

I didn't suggest that it has - and nor did Robert Simpson - although there are some people who do appear to think that this was/is its principal purpose.

Its intention is to offer modern audiences what the original audience was likely to have heard. Audience response is not the major issue, if at all, of the HIPP movement in this sense.

Even if so, this can still prove problematic to the extent that not only as many aspects as possible of the performing traditions of the times need to be taken account of in attempts to recreate what original audiences might have heard (insofar as such traditions are properly understood), it can be argued that not all modern performance venues will flly allow for this, to say nothing of the recorded / broadcast / podcast / streamed media by which means such performance might be listened to. Even then, I take at least some issue with your contention that "audience response is not the major issue, if at all, of the HIPP movement" to the extent that, if indeed that is the case, it could be perceived as self-undermining, not least because audience response is an important factor in all performances and their reception; music is, after all, by composers and you'd probably have to go quite some distance to find composers who had no care whatsoever about audience responses.

[doversoul1]

I didn't suggest that it has - and nor did Robert Simpson - although there are some people who do appear to think that this was/is its principal purpose.


Even if so, this can still prove problematic to the extent that not only as many aspects as possible of the performing traditions of the times need to be taken account of in attempts to recreate what original audiences might have heard (insofar as such traditions are properly understood), it can be argued that not all modern performance venues will flly allow for this, to say nothing of the recorded / broadcast / podcast / streamed media by which means such performance might be listened to. Even then, I take at least some issue with your contention that "audience response is not the major issue, if at all, of the HIPP movement" to the extent that, if indeed that is the case, it could be perceived as self-undermining, not least because audience response is an important factor in all performances and their reception; music is, after all, by composers and you'd probably have to go quite some distance to find composers who had no care whatsoever about audience responses.

So, what was your point in quoting Simpson?

HIPP musicians may be an odd bunch but they are not so naïve as to believe that if they try hard enough, they will be able to create a time-slip space where they are transformed into Vivaldi and his Pieta girls. HIPP musicians are, as far as I understand, trying to create a performance of a work that is as close as possible to their understanding of the composer’s intention* that is based on extensive research. And within the given condition.

Composers may give much thought to audience response and may compose accordingly (I have no idea about this matter) but I don’t think the speculation of how the audience respond is a major issue (as I said in my previous post) for performers. Of course they hope they’ll receive a standing ovation but I don’t think that is what they strive for, and I don’t think this is unique to HIPP performers.

*this is a contentious concept and I have no intention of going into discussing this issue. What I mean here is something like ‘a typical performance of the work in the composer’s own time’.

[ahinton]

So, what was your point in quoting Simpson?

I'll evidently have to leave it up to you to work that one out, not least because what I wrote was from Simpson hismelf, not me.

HIPP musicians may be an odd bunch but they are not so naïve as to believe that if they try hard enough, they will be able to create a time-slip space where they are transformed into Vivaldi and his Pieta girls. HIPP musicians are, as far as I understand, trying to create a performance of a work that is as close as possible to their understanding of the composer’s intention* that is based on extensive research.

Of course that's true - I agree with you entirely - but that doesn't make it possible that their aspirations are wholly capable of unquestionable achievement, the best will in the world notwithstanding.

Composers may give much thought to audience response and may compose accordingly (I have no idea about this matter) but I don’t think the speculation of how the audience respond is a major issue (as I said in my previous post) for performers. Of course they hope they’ll receive a standing ovation but I don’t think that is what they strive for, and I don’t think this is unique to HIPP performers.

I did not suggest that composers compose in the ways that they do in order to secure any kind of audience response, let alone the most positive one possible; I merely pointed out that they are not inured or immune to such responses, any more than are their performers.

*this is a contentious concept and I have no intention of going into discussing this issue. What I mean here is something like ‘a typical performance of the work in the composer’s own time’.

It may be so, but what of that time? What might you suppose could have changed in the thoughts about such matters that such diverse composers as, for example, Saint-Saëns, Brian, Sorabji, le Flem, Carter, Petrassi, Rodrigo or Ornstein might have entertained across the 7 - 8 decades of their respective active creative careers?

[jayne lee wilson]

I don't think you can possibly say that Norrington or JEG are "fading away"!

Norrington's SWR Recordings of the Haydn London Symphonies (2009) and the Schubert Cycle (2011-13) show greater warmth, expressiveness and intensity than his earlier readings. JEG has revisited Beethoven 5,7, 2 and 8, and the Missa Solemnis, live with the ORR/Monteverdi Choir in 2012-14, and they're all outstanding in their warmth, precision and power - audibly better than his earlier efforts. And his Brahms German Requiem from 2012 is one of the finest recordings EVER of that work.

As for Bruggen, one of the very last recordings issued before he died was a lovely (and interpretatively often daring) account of the Mozart 39-41 (2010, released 2014).

"Old men ought to be explorers" as T.S.Eliot said... and so they were, and are.

[ahinton]

I don't think you can possibly say that Norrington or JEG are "fading away"!

Norrington's SWR Recordings of the Haydn London Symphonies (2009) and the Schubert Cycle (2011-13) show greater warmth, expressiveness and intensity than his earlier readings. JEG has revisited Beethoven 5,7, 2 and 8, and the Missa Solemnis, live with the ORR/Monteverdi Choir in 2012-14, and they're all outstanding in their warmth, precision and power - audibly better than his earlier efforts. And his Brahms German Requiem from 2012 is one of the finest recordings EVER of that work.

As for Bruggen, one of the very last recordings issued before he died was a lovely (and interpretatively often daring) account of the Mozart 39-41 (2010, released 2014).

"Old men ought to be explorers" as T.S.Eliot said... and so they were, and are.

Yes - and you do Thomas Stearns the courtesy of spelling his "Eliot" as it was and should be! I have to confess that my feelings about Sir Roger de No-ring-tone collapsed when I heard what he did to Mahler 9 at a Prom not so long ago, an almost unbearable "interpretation" which caused me to give way to tears of a kind quite different to those which that work usually induces. Sorry...

JEG's already considerable credentials, on the other hand, are hardly diminished by his book on the incomparable JSB...

[doversoul1]

ahinton #11

Sorry to be a bore but I have said all I can say about the matter.