Recapturing the Interpretive Art of Performance
Regular readers of this blog will know that I have on more than one occasion railed against what I consider the excessive emphasis on "purity" in music today. I have often noted that while no one would wish a performance of a play to reflect the precise intonation and inflection of the first performance that took place with the playwright present, there seems to be a concept in the air today that a good musical performance will simply reproduce the notes printed on the page. The idea that music, like theater, is an interpretive art--that once a piece of music enters the public arena it is not only open to a range of interpretation, but that this is healthy for the life of the piece--is an idea that has been minimized, if not completely squashed, by the ethic of "purity" or "fidelity to the score." Stravinsky was famous for instructing performers to just play the notes and not interpret his music. But listen to Stravinsky's performances of his own music recorded over a span of time and you will hear that he had different ideas about what the notes said at different times of his life.
I have observed that if you listen to recordings made by conductors who worked directly and closely with Mahler--Bruno Walter, Otto Klemperer, Willem Mengelberg, Oskar Fried--you will hear astonishing differences between them, sometimes even with music where all four actually heard Mahler rehearse and perform the same piece!
A very stimulating book came out last year from Oxford University Press, Kenneth Hamilton's After the Golden Age: Romantic Pianism and Modern Performance. I recommend it to all who care about music, and all who perform music. I will say upfront that the book is somewhat densely written, not an easy read by any means. And it seems at times a bit confused about whether it is meant for the lay music lover or the professional performer. The former will perhaps find some parts of it a bit too technical, but those parts can be skipped. This book is very much worth the effort.
Hamilton recreates, with a great deal of specificity, what we know about performance style in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Although his book is limited to pianists and piano music, its points are applicable across the board--to violinists, singers, conductors, and all of us who care about and enjoy music.
Particularly admirable is the unemotional tone with which Hamilton explores the issues. He does not rail (as I sometimes have) but makes a very convincing case that we have lost something precious in the performance of 19th-century music: the extra frisson that comes from a performer with a completely different take on the meaning of those little black specks on the page--instructions from composers that some of us feel should be a starting point, not an ending point, for music-making. As Hamilton notes, Liszt believed that written music was an imperfect method of notating abstract musical ideas, and that it took "an inspired performer for realization."
I found After the Golden Age extremely absorbing and provocative. And it is well researched, particularly with regard to Liszt, where Hamilton corrects some errors and misleading impressions caused by earlier biographers. Its gentle, intelligent, and cogently argued tone makes this book, in the end, more powerful than a more passionately written exploration might have been. It made me think about my own beliefs, brought some of them into sharper focus, and caused adjustment to some of them. It underlined for me how important it will be to try to bring back to our world the spark of individual personality--of truly great, magnetic, and individual musicians performing in a climate that permits and even encourages experimentation and fantasy.
A very stimulating book came out last year from Oxford University Press, Kenneth Hamilton's After the Golden Age: Romantic Pianism and Modern Performance. I recommend it to all who care about music, and all who perform music. I will say upfront that the book is somewhat densely written, not an easy read by any means. And it seems at times a bit confused about whether it is meant for the lay music lover or the professional performer. The former will perhaps find some parts of it a bit too technical, but those parts can be skipped. This book is very much worth the effort.
Hamilton recreates, with a great deal of specificity, what we know about performance style in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Although his book is limited to pianists and piano music, its points are applicable across the board--to violinists, singers, conductors, and all of us who care about and enjoy music.
Particularly admirable is the unemotional tone with which Hamilton explores the issues. He does not rail (as I sometimes have) but makes a very convincing case that we have lost something precious in the performance of 19th-century music: the extra frisson that comes from a performer with a completely different take on the meaning of those little black specks on the page--instructions from composers that some of us feel should be a starting point, not an ending point, for music-making. As Hamilton notes, Liszt believed that written music was an imperfect method of notating abstract musical ideas, and that it took "an inspired performer for realization."
I found After the Golden Age extremely absorbing and provocative. And it is well researched, particularly with regard to Liszt, where Hamilton corrects some errors and misleading impressions caused by earlier biographers. Its gentle, intelligent, and cogently argued tone makes this book, in the end, more powerful than a more passionately written exploration might have been. It made me think about my own beliefs, brought some of them into sharper focus, and caused adjustment to some of them. It underlined for me how important it will be to try to bring back to our world the spark of individual personality--of truly great, magnetic, and individual musicians performing in a climate that permits and even encourages experimentation and fantasy.
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