Prom 7 (18.7.12): Handel – Water Music and Music for the Royal Fireworks

[salymap]

Not quite 10 years ago. Maybe 2005? ( I need to consult my diaries about this but does it really matter?)
When this project was announced and 'diaried' for the English Concert I was very excited about its potential for 'total authenticity'.
Having taken part in many CD recordings of Händel's Water Music for more than 30 years I really and truly wished to make this one the BEST EVER.
My former recorded efforts were
1) English Chamber Orchestra, George Malcolm, 1978?, 'modern' valved horn, 'modern' A 440 pitch.
2) English Baroque Soloists, John Eliot Gardiner, 1980?, valveless horn, using 'minimalist' right-hand technique to correct the intonation of the 11th harmonic ( written F - too sharp as an 'open' tone) and the 14th harmonic ( written 'A' as in the Britten Serenade).
3) English Concert, Trevor Pinnock, 1982, with the same technique as outlined above.
4) English Baroque Soloists, Sir John Eliot Gardiner, 1991? using a valveless horn copied from a 1720 original but with 'vent holes' added to correct the intonation of the 11th and 13th/ 14th harmonics.
NB The 'vent holes' are NOT 'authentic' but at least allow the listener to hear the sound of the 'open belled' baroque horn without the 'aural pain' of the uncorrected 4th and 6th degrees of the horn's top melodic octave.
5) King's Consort, Robert King, 1997? with the same playing technique as described above.
6) BBC TV programme (2005?) which included sailing on the Thames on an 'authentic barge'.

The first ( excellent IMV) recording of the music for this TV programme was made with the horn players and trumpet players using NO vent holes and ( for the horn players) NO 'hand-in-the bell' technique.
The conductor ( Andrew Manze) had particularly requested the brass players to play on their 'open harmonics' but to try as much as possible to correct the intonation by sheer 'lip technique' and 'will power'.

During a somewhat gruelling 6-hour recording session in the North London 'Air Studio', all the English Concert players 'pulled together' ;
the oboes and violins very obligingly 'tweaked' the intonation of their 4ths and 6ths to accommodate the brass players. ( Would that M.Niquet's oboes and violins had done this... not exactly difficult for a musician with any degree of aural sensibility).

At the end of that recording session we were all quite elated, having done what we felt was probably at that time the very first 'truly authentic' recording of the 'Water Music' - warts and all...
And then... disaster.... the BBC TV 'producer' ( who hadn't been in the studio when we recorded the music!) turned up the next day, listened to the recording, and said 'I'm not allowing this to be used'!
'Why not' asked Mr Manze.
'Because it's simply not up to BBC standards of intonation' she retorted...
At this point - sorry to say - I blame Mr Manze who instead of sticking to his guns, simply caved in, went along with the absurd 'BBC intonation' line and asked us to use our ( inauthentic) vent-holes. So, we had to record it all over again just for the sake of the 4th and 6th degrees of the scale.

Going back to that recent H. Niquet 'Water Music'/ 'Fireworks Music' prom with the 9 horns, my abiding feelings are these:

1) if a horn player/ trumpet player has not mastered the ( almost forgotten) technique of 'lipping into tune' those wayward pitches, the 'sharp F' ( 11th harmonic) and the 'sharp A' ( 14th harmonic) then he/ she should NOT be offering their deficient playing in the public arena.
I do know from personal experience that a great horn player who has made a supreme effort of study and practice can indeed 'lip' these notes into tune; several years ago I was privileged to be the 'assistant' player to ANDREW CLARK in a concert of the Bach Cantata 79 with the OAE.
Clark successfully 'lipped' the written F and A pitches 'into tune' without any hand technique or vent-holes.

2) M. Niquet and his players may well have undertaken an enormous amount of 'research' ( as offered by Bryn) but the aural evidence of that research, as displayed on their Prom, seems to indicate that they have misunderstood or maybe insufficiently explored the scope of the natural horn's harmonic series, in that they consistently used the horn's 13th harmonic as a 'written A' ( sounding pretty well as an A flat) rather than the clearer and brighter 14th harmonic ( sounding as a rather flat Bb, as used - of course much later - by Benjamin Britten in the 'Prologue' of his 'Serenade'

Thanks a lot waldhorn for a wonderful post which I must read again in the morning.

[Bryn]

Bryn, have you ever performed this music?

I'm glad you enjoyed it, but I'd set more store by your views if you didn't seem so desperate to belittle any who take a different view, however deep their expertise.

I have indeed not played any Handel. However, Niquet and his band have, many many times since their justly famous recording appeared (first on CD and then later, with a little addition, on SACD. As it happens, upon its formation I was invited to become an honorary member of the Portsmouth Sinfonia (though I never actually played in that band, just in some of the same concerts). Oh, and Michael Nyman did indeed play French horn (a Chinese made one with detachable bell) in the Portsmouth Sinfonia.

If you take a look back over waldhorn's and HS's contributions to this thread you will see that it is in fact they who seem "desperate to belittle any who take a different view" to the playing of Handel's masterpieces. Waldhorn's latest has some decidedly interesting points, but I would be interested to know his evidence that the horn players of Handel's time were all expert in the lipping technique he writes of.

[heliocentric]

Waldhorn's latest has some decidedly interesting points

Indeed. Views supported by professional experience are always enlightening. But, inevitably, personal opinions as to the "acceptability" of this or that technique play a role too, even if they begin to be slightly obscured by quasi-objective pronouncements: "not exactly difficult for a musician with any degree of aural sensibility" ... "he/she should NOT be offering their deficient playing in the public arena" ... "seems to indicate that they have misunderstood or maybe insufficiently explored the scope of the natural horn's harmonic series". I believe that there's no such thing as a generalisable "degree of aural sensibility", that being prescriptive about what other musicians should or shouldn't do (or what constitutes "deficient playing") is a somewhat blinkered way of looking at things, and that patronising other musicians for "misunderstanding" or "insufficient exploration" often betrays the kind of closed-mindedness that goes with investing much time and effort in a particular way of doing things.

Aural sensibilities can take many different forms, with different aims arising from different priorities and different formative experiences. Bryn's aural sensibility (and for that matter my own) is clearly of a different kind from Waldhorn's, and does not find these untempered partials to be a "problem" than needs solving one way or another. Whether that is a position that accords with historical practice is another matter, which, given the wide differences of opinion we see in HIPP approaches, is obviously still up for discussion; but that's not the only issue here - there's also the question of whether what Hornspieler calls "today's ears" are excited or repelled by certain sounds and combinations of sounds. Hornspieler says that "cacophonous is too mild a word" for Niquet's Handel performances, but then he also describes the work of Pierre Boulez as "musical masturbation", which inclines me to the opinion that his personal prejudices play at least as large a role in determining his opinions as his experience as a performer. Others would take a different view of course. But "pulling rank" in a musical discussion shouldn't be confused with one's opinions being definitive.

[Tony Halstead]

If you take a look back over waldhorn's and HS's contributions to this thread you will see that it is in fact they who seem "desperate to belittle any who take a different view"

I have neither 'belittled' anyone nor have I 'pulled rank'.
As for

I would be interested to know his evidence that the horn players of Handel's time were all expert in the lipping technique he writes of.

of course there is no 'evidence' ...other than the fact that throughout the entire course of musical history such things as OCTAVES, FIFTHS and THIRDS ( whether major or minor, 'pure' or 'tempered' ) have to be 'in tune'.
I'm fully aware that a can of worms is now waiting to be opened, including such names as Vallotti, Werckmeister, Kirnberger, Young et al.
If indeed, grossly 'out-of-tune' instrumental playing in the 18th century was somehow the norm and acceptable, why on earth did those eminent musical theorists go to such pains to sort out the intervallic relationships of keys?

[Nick Armstrong]

I have neither 'belittled' anyone nor have I 'pulled rank'.

Quite!

[amateur51]

A genuinely fascinating discussion informed by a range of practical and theoretical experience.

As a mere listener I am grateful to all but particularly to waldhorn and to heliocentric.

I'm also grateful to Caliban for prompting me to listen to the concert - I'm glad to say that I enjoyed it a good deal more than he did but it doesn't stop us being friends

Having said that I enjoyed it, I think it's not an experience I'd want to repeat often but I'm very glad to have heard it.

[Bryn]

I have neither 'belittled' anyone nor have I 'pulled rank'.

"pulled rank" is not a phrase I have used in this discussion. Your comments regarding the horn and trumpet contingent of Le Concert Spirituel certainly read as being aimed at belittling them. How else should one interpret such comments?

[heliocentric]

nor have I 'pulled rank'.

You've certainly implied that your professional experience entitles you to pronounce on whether musicians have "aural sensibility" or whether something is "cacophonous" for example, when actually one person's aural sensibility could be another person's tonedeafness, and one person's cacophony could be another's "alien beauty" (as Stockhausen characterised non-tempered intervals). But my comment on "pulling rank" was not primarily a response to your posts, Waldhorn.

[Tony Halstead]

"pulled rank" is not a phrase I have used in this discussion

No, of course not. It was 'heliocentric' who used that phrase.

If a conductor tells me that I am not in tune, he is definitely not 'belittling' me. As a professional, I immediately try to do something to improve that part of my playing technique that he / she has called into question.
If my control of intonation - or lack of control - was as faulty as that of the brass players of Le Concert Spirituel I would disqualify myself from public performance until such time as I had improved it.
I do maintain that Niquet must have instructed those players to 'aim' at the wrong harmonic ( a sharp A flat, harmonic 13), a very sad-sounding substitute for the 6th degree of the scale. Harmonic 14 ( a rather flat B flat ) would have been much more convincing.
To paraphrase the violinist's catch-phrase: " better to be sharp than out-of-tune"!

[heliocentric]

I do maintain that Niquet must have instructed those players to 'aim' at the wrong harmonic

Like you I am sure the players were doing what Niquet asked them to do, presumably because he prefers the sound that resulted. But here you are again with your "wrong" and "right". It's an artistic question, not a moral one!

[MickyD]

I've just caught up with the TV broadcast and thought that Niquet, in his high collared frock coat, bore the most alarming resemblance to the Nosferatu character in the 1922 film.

[Nick Armstrong]

I've just caught up with the TV broadcast and thought that Niquet, in his high collared frock coat, bore the most alarming resemblance to the Nosferatu character in the 1922 film.

Exactly!

You vill play ze 'armonic 13....

[Bryn]

'Usain' Niguet

[amateur51]

Surely this is Bela Lugosi's kid brother?

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

Do listen right to the end to hear a ritard that strangles the life out of the music (but which also shows you how much control the conductor has over his orchestra)

[amateur51]

'Usain' Niguet

juss perfick!