Authentic performance

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Authentic performance
The authentic performance movement is an effort on the part of musicians and scholars to perform works of classical music in ways similar to how they were performed when they were originally written. The movement had its beginnings in the performance of Medieval, Renaissance, and Baroque music, but subsequently came to incorporate the Classical and even Romantic eras as well. The two methods adopted by authentic performance artists have been to use historically appropriate instruments and to rely on written evidence from the past to gain insight into how the works were originally played.

Authentic performance compared to traditional musical practice

Most authentic performance artists would not advocate authenticity for its own sake, but rather as a way of achieving more artistically effective performances of older music. It is felt that the gradual changes in the construction of instruments and in the training of musicians have produced instruments and styles that are optimal for (roughly) mid to late 19th-century music, but not for older work.

In the community of classical musicians, students have over the centuries learned ways of playing and interpreting music from their teachers and also from performances they hear. This results, to some degree, in stylistic accretion, as modes of performing developed by outstanding musicians are echoed through time in the performances of the younger musicians that they influenced. Thus, the way that music is performed is in part a function of the musical culture as it has evolved up to that time.

The authentic performance movement emphasizes instead historical scholarship, covering both instruments and performance practice, in order to obtain a more direct view of original performance practices. Such scholarship is the work both of the performers themselves and of non-performing specialist scholars, usually working in universities.

Adherence to principles of authentic performance is not an all-or-nothing matter. Many traditional musicians are deeply interested in what scholarship can tell us about how music was performed in the composer's time. Moreover, modern instruments can be played in ways that approximate to some degree what can be achieved on instruments of the composer's day.

Early instruments

Many of the instruments of early music disappeared from widespread use, around the beginning of the Classical era. Others continued in use, but greatly altered their sound quality and playing characteristics in the course of the 19th century. The discussion below (see also Organology) covers instruments that had to be revived entirely, followed by instruments whose earlier form was rediscovered.

Harpsichord

Among keyboard instruments, the most dramatic disappearance was that of the harpsichord, which gradually went out of style during the second half of the 18th century. Many harpsichords were destroyed–notoriously, they were used for firewood in the Paris Conservatory during Napoleonic times. Composers such as William Byrd, François Couperin, and J. S. Bach wrote for the harpsichord and not the piano, which was invented ca. 1700 and only widely adopted by about 1765. The music of these composers sounds very different, and requires a different interpretive approach, when played on the harpsichord instead of the piano. Notably, since every note on a harpsichord is equally loud, subtle variations of timing and articulation, as well a judicious use of ornamentation, are employed to achieve an expressive harpsichord performance.

The harpsichord was revived in the first half of the twentieth century by Wanda Landowska. Since most useful knowledge of harpsichord construction had been lost by that time, Landowska needed to use a rather peculiar harpsichord, based on the modern grand piano, which was made for her by the Pleyel company of Paris. In the view of many later listeners, the tone of this harpsichord was not very successful. Later, harpsichord builders learned to make better instruments by following the procedures of the harpsichord builders of long ago. The revival of the authentic harpsichord began in the 1950's, with the work of the builders Frank Hubbard and William Dowd. Today, harpsichords in the style of the old makers are produced in workshops around the world.

Viol

The viol (also called the viola da gamba) is a stringed instrument that (in its bass version) roughly resembles a six-stringed, fretted cello. Its tone is more delicate than a cello's, noble and resonant in the deeper notes and somewhat nasal and astringent in the upper range. The viol was largely abandoned by the end of the eighteenth century. Previously, a great literature for it had been created by composers of the Renaissance and Baroque eras, including William Byrd, William Lawes, Henry Purcell, Marin Marais, and J. S. Bach. The Elizabethan composers wrote complex polyphonic music for viol consort, which combined viols of three sizes (all held vertically): the bass, the tenor (about the size of a guitar, and the treble (about the size of a viola). Among the foremost modern players of the viol are Wieland Kuijken, Jordi Savall and John Hsu.

Recorder

The recorder is a wind instrument, made of wood. Its tone is similar to the flute, but it is played by blowing through the end, rather than by blowing across a soundhole. Like viols, recorders were made in multiple sizes (bass, tenor, alto, soprano, and the tiny sopranino). Handel and Telemann wrote solo sonatas for the recorder, and recorders were often played in consorts of mixed size, like viols. For a number of important modern exponents of the recorder, see Recorder player.

Other instruments

Other instruments that ceased to be used around the same time as the harpsichord, viol, and recorder include the lute, the viola d'amore, and the baryton. Instruments that lost currency rather earlier in musical history include the cornett, the serpent, the shawm, the krummhorn, the theorbo, and the hurdy-gurdy.

Changed instruments

Even the instruments on which classical music is ordinarily performed today have undergone many important changes since the 18th century, both in how they are constructed and how they are played.

Stringed instruments (the violin, viola, cello, and double bass) were made with progressively longer necks and higher bridges, increasing string length and tension. For the top E string of the violin, steel instead of gut is now ordinarily used. The result has been a more powerful and penetrating tone–but, perhaps, also a less sweet one. Interestingly, the most prized stringed instruments of today, made by Antonio Stradivari and by the Guarneri family in 17th-18th century Italy, started out their careers as "early instruments". They were modified in the 19th century to achieve the more powerful modern sound.

In modern string playing, a more or less constant vibrato is the norm, with lack of vibrato used as a special expressive effect. In the 18th century, it was just the opposite, with vibrato serving as an ornament.

The oboe likewise became more powerful in its sound, but as a result lost a certain amount of its character; it might be said that 18th century oboes sound more "oboelike" than their modern equivalents. A similar difference is found between the early and modern bassoon.

The flute of the 18th century was typically made of wood rather than metal, and likewise had a gentler but more characteristic "woody" tone.

Early brass instruments were slightly less brilliant than their modern equivalents. The tonal difference is perhaps less than is found among the woodwinds and strings. However, the playing of early trumpets and horns was very different and indeed much more difficult, since versions of these instruments incorporating keys or valves were only invented around the end of the 18th century. The players of the earlier type of instrument had to use mostly just lip control to determine pitch; the early French horns also had their pitch altered by the placement of the player's hand in the bell. Anthony Halstead is widely considered to be among the finest modern exponents of the "natural horn". The earlier trombone of course offered manual pitch control, as did its similar predecessor the sackbut

The effect of these instruments in their original form is particularly noticeable when they play together in orchestras, since not only do the musical lines sound different, but their relationship to one another is altered by the difference in relative volume (wind instruments generally being louder relative to the strings). A number of authentic-performance orchestras have achieved a broad following, notably the Academy of Ancient Music under the direction of Christopher Hogwood, Taverner Players under the direction of Andrew Parrott and the English Baroque Soloists under John Eliot Gardiner.

For the piano, the difference between 18th century and modern versions is probably greater than for any other instrument; for discussion of these differences and their consequences for performance, see the Wikipedia article on the piano. The construction of replica 18th century pianos came somewhat after the revival of the authentic harpsichord, but used many of the same skills, since early pianos resembled harpsichords in their construction. Leading modern-day performers on the early piano ("fortepiano") include Malcolm Bilson, Robert Levin, and Melvin Tan.

Singing

The human voice is a biological given, but can be trained in different ways. Singers in authentic performance typically aim at a more natural, less loud tone, usually with less vibrato. It is feasible for the singer not to sing so loud, since the instruments playing at the same time are softer. Listeners to early music seldom complain that the singers are "shrieking" or "barking"–though of course this does not exclude the possibility that quite different vocal problems might be present. A few of the many outstanding singers who have contributed to authentic performance are Emma Kirkby, Julianne Baird, Nigel Rogers, and David Thomas.

Authentic performances sometimes use male singers, called countertenors, to sing alto parts. Although it is often a vexed question how often this was done in early performance, a number of countertenors have won acclaim for their purity of tone, vocal agility, and interpretive skill. Modern countertenor singing was pioneered by Alfred Deller, and leading contemporary performers include David Daniels, Derek Lee Ragin, Andreas Scholl, Drew Minter, Daniel Taylor, and Brian Asawa.

Tuning

Twelve tone equal temperament is the predominant tuning today, but was not so in the past. For many periods tuning may have depended upon region, varied by composer, with some composers even preferring different tunings at different times in their lives. However, it is often hard to determine exactly what these tunings were. Directed by Christopher Page, Gothic Voices' album Music for the Lion-Hearted King (Hyperion, CDA66336, 1989) is in Pythagorean tuning, using pure fifths. (Leech-Wilkinson, 1997)