Re: the question of "making fun" of early music -  Surely there is also a 
distinction between "making fun of" something and performing a light-hearted 
spoof up of something in the best tradition of performers such as jesters, who 
did indeed make buffoons of themselves, as did pranksters, both real and 
imaginary, such as the probably apocryphal Till Eulenspiegel (chronicled in 
Richard Strauss' Till Eulenspiegels lustige Streiche - Till Eulenspiegel's 
Merry Pranks) of German folk tales, which date back to Medieval days. Granted, 
Till, even in his buffoonery, had lofty aims, i.e., holding up a mirror (hmmm - 
Spiegel) to the vices and weaknesses of the powerful and privileged (Simon, 
please correct me if I am getting some of this wrong),  and one could argue 
that playful performances do not serve this kind of social function. BUt the 
point is that spoofing has a long and honorable history that dates back at 
least as far as the actual Middle Ages and is an entirely appropriate part of 
light-hearted folk festivals.

BTW, Felicia, your reference to cleavage is right on. Years ago, when I had 
cleavage that anyone might have cared about (as opposed to now - going to be 62 
next month) I worked as an alehouse wench at Ren Faire. The mistress of the 
alehouse felt that we were not getting enough tips so she walked over to me and 
yanked my bodice down about 3 more inches of inches, and - with all the "bodice 
tipping" - sure enough, that old tip bucket started filling right up. 

Trish




On Dec 10, 2009, at 8:35 AM, [email protected] wrote:

> Hello,
> 
> I would like remind you that the SCA (www.sca.org) is the "Society for 
> Creative Anachronism", not for true representation of the past. 
> 
> In the germanspeaking countries its quite established to distinguish between 
> music for the medieval fair and music for the early music concert. 
> 
> For early music concert it usually gets presented as "Frühe Musik" (= early 
> music) or as "Musik des 13. Jahrhunderts" (= 13th century music) or similar. 
> The terms "Mittelalter" (= Middle Ages)  or "mittelalterlich" ( = medieval) 
> practically are used for the music for the medieval fairs only. 
> 
> They are seen as two independent genres. One that presents a "historically 
> informed" "true-to-scale representation" and one that handles fair like in 
> "fairy tale". A sword fighting group here in Austria prints "The medieval 
> times as they should have been" :-) on their flyer - its "Historically 
> inspired Entertainment" (© Mike Gartner).
> 
> Arguing about this entertainment in terms of historical correctness would be 
> as if one would treat the film "Ben Hur" as realistic presentation of the 
> roman antiquity.
> 
> Kind regards,
> 
> Simon Wascher
> 
> 
> 
> 
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