Johannes Gebauer wrote:
On 17.01.2007 dhbailey wrote:
Raymond Horton wrote:
So McCreesh's "instinctive feeling" trumps the evidence of Bach's 12
voice choir, plus his preference for a larger one?
RBH
[snip]
Well, certainly! Isn't that what musicology is all about? Starting
with a preconception and then finding evidence to support it, while
ignoring other evidence? :-)
I am not so sure who this is targeted at, but I get the feeling you get
it the wrong way round. McCreesh is certainly not making his feelings
into the main argument, on the contrary he is taking the latest research
by Rifkin, Butt and Parrot, and finds that conventional thinking has no
evidence at all, but instead the evidence for tiny forces is
overwhelming and can't be ignored.
Well, the evidence for tiny forces being used certainly is overwhelming.
Whether this what Bach would have wanted, had he had a chorus of 200
voices available we can never know one way or the other.
I find that anybody's pronouncements in the 21st century of what Bach
"really" intended back in the 18th century to be just so much pissing
into the wind.
So what are you saying, exactly: it makes no difference, or we should
keep it to what Bach actually had. In which case we are back to the
single voice choir, or at most, two per part for the repieno.
What I'm trying to say is that none of us can truly know Bach's ultimate
wishes for his music, so we each have to find our own level in
performing his (or any dead composer's) wishes. We all know from 20th
century's rich history of recordings by composers that very few of them
actually followed their own indicated tempi (often expressed rather
exactly with metronome indications in the written music) and that those
who were lucky enough to record the same music more than once not only
varied from the written tempi but also from the tempi used on the other
recordings. Why should we think Bach was any different in his adherence
to what he wrote, or in his desire to do otherwise but which was
prevented by the reality of his situation?
We can't ever know for sure, so each has to perform Bach's music (or any
composer's) music in the manner and with the forces we feel best fits
the music and the situation.
And to try to tell others that my way is the only true way and their way
is obviously flawed would be very wrong of me.
That's what bothers me in these discussions.
So if you feel Bach's music should be performed with the forces for
which there is physical evidence in existence (heaven forbid anybody
actually THREW OUT some parts, back then!) then that's how you should do
it and take pride in your version. And nobody should denigrate your
views on it, but should rather take them as they are -- your
interpretation. And others should be free to perform the same music as
they see fits best.
Casals' supposed remark to some younger musician "You play Bach YOUR way
and I'll play Bach HIS way," while sounding superbly insightful and
wonderfully instructive, is in reality (it has taken me a number of
years to realize this) very bogus, since Casals CAN'T know what Bach's
way truly was.
Anybody's views of Bach's performances from a distance of over 250 years
can never be accurate.
They remain our best guesses and should be put forth as such and not as
gospel which proves that anybody who fails to follow it is wrong.
Which I know you aren't doing, Johannes, I'm just sort of ranting
against some who are involved in supposedly historically informed
performances.
The very real possibility exists that NONE of Bach's performances were
what he really wanted but he was simply too much of a pragmatist who
needed the job too badly to ever dare to complain too heavily in writing
or in conversation with others.
They're ALL just suppositions since we can't know the tempos or the
tuning pitch that each performance was given at. And we certainly
can't know what Bach really envisioned in his mind as he worked with
the forces at his disposal. He might have wanted 50 or 80 and not
just 16, but the reality of the situation told him that the most he
could hope for might be (if he were really lucky) 16 so that's all he
ever mentioned.
Hang on, we do know quite a bit more than you think: There is a great
deal on tempi in Quantz. We _do_ know the exact pitch of the organs Bach
had at his disposal (this is a lucky coincidence, most north German
organs were measured in Bach's time.
Regarding Quantz' writings on tempi, we do know what he wrote. Do we
know what he actually did? Composers of the 20th century who had the
great good fortune to conduct the recordings of their own works very
often failed to follow the very tempi they had carefully indicated with
metronome numbers. And some of them (Copland and Stravinsky come to
mind) who were fortunate enough to live long enough to record the same
music on more than one occasion not only varied in both recordings from
their indicated tempi but the recordings varied from each other. So how
do we know that what Quantz wrote in theory is what he (or anybody else)
actually followed in practice?
The same is true for the organs of Bach's time -- the measurements of
length and diameter tell us only one bit of information. Was the air
pressure measured? Any wind player knows that the air pressure used can
vary the pitch quite significantly flat or sharp from the pitch the
length of the instrument would indicate. It's possible to play at least
a quarter step flat or sharp on many instruments. Recorders are very
sensitive to wind speed. And this doesn't take into account the actual
tuning of the organs -- modern pipe organs can be tuned so the whole
organ is sharper or flatter, yet still in tune with itself. So the
measurements of the pipes give us only one bit of information but
without the other two bits (air pressure and actual placement of the
pipes in their holes) they really don't tell us much.
Unfortunately the fine line between facts and interpretation often gets
obscured in both directions, making it difficult for the non-expert to
see the difference. There is no certified label for a historically
correct performance (actually there isn't such a thing, but we should at
least try to come close).
If historically informed performance is what one is after, then by all
means we should at least try to come close.
But there's a whole other end to the spectrum, where mounting a
performance which speaks to a less specific audience of our own times is
the primary concern. And historically informed performance is really
only a range along that spectrum and not a single point (and the only
valid point) as some would have the world believe.
--
David H. Bailey
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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