The Historically Informed Performance Practice-ocrisy Home Page
"One of the reasons that reconstruction of earlier playing styles is so difficult is precisely the fact that we
start from the viewpoint of late 20th- century taste and habits, and use them as the basis for comparison.
But what does modern taste consist of? If the style of Elgar's day is 'old-fashioned', in what ways is
modern style 'new-fangled'? The answer...is that we use more vibrato and less portamento than was used
earlier in the century, we are more concerned with clarity of detail and exact note values, we take most
music more slowly and we change tempo less frequently and to a lesser degree.
If these characteristics of modern style have arisen so recently, do we not have to be very cautious in
using them as a basis for investigating much earlier playing styles? What would happen if, in order to
reconstruct, say, the performance practice of Beethoven's day, we were to start not from modern style but
from the style preserved on early gramophone records?
. . . . our conjectures would be quite different if we were living in the 1920s instead of the 1980s. Similarly
18th- and 19th-century descriptions of tempo rubato make a very different sort of sense if we take early,
rather than late, 20th-century style as the starting point for comparison. My own very strong suspicion is
that many of the habits preserved in early gramophone records had their origins at least as far back as
Beethoven, and in some cases earlier. This is something to argue about, but one central point is
indisputable: the styles of the early 20th century did not arise overnight. For this reason, if for no other, it
is time for historically minded performers to start considering the implications of early gramophone
records."
Robert Philip
The Recordings of Sir Edward Elgar -- Authenticity and Performance Practice
Early Music, Vol. 12, No. 4, November, 1984, pp. 481-489, pp. 488-489
"The purists are scandalized because I do this!"
Pablo Casals, talking about his use of staccato in the Bach Suites for the 'Cello
Alone
The HIP Woolly Mammoth
a/k/a "Woolly"
Welcomes You
To
The Historically Informed Performance Practice-ocrisy Home
Page
Where Modern Instruments and Vibrato Reign Supreme!
The Concert Grand Piano
The Pleyel Harpsichord
The Dolmetsch Clavichord
The Boehm Transverse Flute
The Piccolo "Bach" Trumpet
'Cellos with Pins
Pipe Organs by Cavaillé-Coll, Ladegast, Sauer, Aeolian-Skinner, and Willis
The Moor Double-Keyboard Piano
The Tourte Bow
The Soprano Saxophone
Female Sopranos and Altos
The Modern Symphony Orchestra
Enormous Choirs
The MOOG Synthesizer
Where Recorders Are Devices That Preserve Performances for
Posterity!
Where Gamba Is A Misspelling Of The Surname Of A
Portuguese Explorer!
Where Zink Is An Ingredient In A Cold Remedy!
Where the Genius of Immortal Performers of the Music of the
Past on Anachronistic Instruments and in Anachronistic
Realizations Is Extolled!
The HIP-ocrisy Home Page is Committed to the Proposition
that Any Piece of Music May Be Validly Performed in the
Style of Any Period Subsequent to the Period of its Creation
As Well As in the Style of the Period of its Creation.
After All, Do You Honestly Think That J. S. Bach Gave A
Tinker's Dam About Palestrina's "Performance Practice" When
He Performed The Palestrina "Missa Sine Nomine"?
If You Do, There is a Handsome Historic Bridge From
Manhattan to Brooklyn that the HIP Woolly Mammoth Will
Be Happy To Sell To You!
"A musicologist is a man who can read music but can't hear it." - Sir Thomas
Beecham, Bart.
Where Slovenly Musicology, "Scholarly"
Narrow-Mindedness, and Performance Practice "Red Lining"
Are Castigated and Ridiculed!
Where The Performance Practice Puritans' Inconsistencies Are
Exposed, and
The HIP-ocrites' Double Standards Are Unveiled!
"The trouble with music critics is that so often they have the score in their hands
and not in their heads." - Sir Thomas Beecham, Bart.
The HIP-ocrisy Home Page Is Dedicated To Reminding The
Performance Practice Puritans Who Have Anointed
Themselves Guardians Of Our Early Music Morals That
They're Closed-Minded, Condescending, Humorless, Smug,
Supercilious, Intolerant, And Bigoted Cultural Fascists.
"Deny it only if it is true!" - Theodore Roosevelt
The HIP-ocrisy Home Page is for those of us who love Pablo Casals's
"Brandenburg Concertos", Wanda Landowska's "Chromatic Fantasia and
Fugue", Leopold Stokowski's arrangement of the "Chaconne", and Rosalyn
Tureck's "Well-Tempered Clavier".
The HIP-ocrisy Home Page is for those of us who think that there has never
been a better recording of "Messiah" than the one Sir Thomas Beecham made
in 1948 or a more stirring recording of the "Concerti grossi, Op.6", than
Herbert von Karajan's.
If you don't gag in "Fantasia" when the "Toccata and Fugue in D Minor"
begins, if you like Wendy Carlos, Jacques Loussier, Glenn Gould, and Don
Dorsey, if you've had your fill of the arch and condescending Performance
Practice Puritans who try to make you feel like a second class citizen every time
you stand up for your right to believe that Edwin Fischer's recording of the
Handel "Chaconne in G" is the best ever, then this Home Page is for you.
You are invited to join our List at E-Groups:
The BachPariahAndHandelAnathema List
"Foolish consistencies are the hobgoblins of small minds!" - Ralph Waldo
Emerson
The HIP-ocrisy Home Page has received a nihil obstat and an imprimatur
from
Her Most Surreal and Imperious Grace,
Clonidine Aspidistra, The Dowager Duchess of Wickford-Upon-Narragansett,
who says, "Right On! Sock It to 'Em! Give 'em what for! I'm fed to the back
teeth!" {;-{)}
Illegitimi Non Carborundum!
Woolly knows that he will shock the Performance Practice
Puritans
and traumatize the HIP-ocrites
with this astonishing bit of "news from the front",
but,
believe it or not,
the HIP Woolly Mammoth does NOT hate HIP performances.
Quite the Contrary!
Some of Woolly's All-Time Favorite Recordings, like the
Hogwood Messiah and the Rifkin B Minor Mass, are HIP.
What the HIP Woolly Mammoth loathes passionately is lousy
music making, slapdash musicology, and judging books by
their covers!
"It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing!" - Edward Kennedy "Duke"
Ellington
The HIP-ocrisy Home Page is Copyright, 2000 and 2001, by Hadrian, The HIP-Woolly Mammoth, aka
Woolly,
aka Teri Noel Towe
All Rights Reserved
HIPWoollyMammoth@aol.com
The HIP-ocrisy Home Page
Remains Profoundly Grateful to
The Rainbow Flag Civic Center
For Providing the Cyberspace
For the First Eight Years of Its Existence.
|
The HIP-ocrisy Home Page
Now Is Profoundly Grateful to
The Bach Cantatas Website
For Providing a New Home.
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"More Weight!" - Giles Corey, Salem, Massachusetts, 1692
The Historically Informed Performance Practice-ocrisy Home Page