In the end HIP or authenticity are just words and as all words have no definite meaning, they only work if they are understood by the members of the discourse.
One of the words you use Conservatory is in itself in this discussion interesting, because it's meaning is bound up with the concept of "conserving" a musical style of performance. So long before HIP came along we have something that is trying to enforce a particular style of musical performance and that for ALL TIME. Now of course we know from recording that conservatory players from the today and the start of the last century had hugely different playing styles, so the conservatories must be by the meaning of the word doing a bad job :) But of course, we know what a conservatory is and does and what to expect from such a player and yet the word is even more obscure and ridiculous than HIP. The word classical is also a "loaded" word and is just as questionable as HIP if you want to be picky. Does classical mean music from ancient Rome and Greece or music from the classical period in the 18th century or anything that is not folk music or pop music. All of these have problems and is Dowland classical music? The last definition is based not on what is it, but what it is not, it is not folk music so it is classical music. But folk music is a concept quite foreign to the 16th century, it is an invention of the 18th and 19th century. So if we start being so picky and distrustful of the name HIP then lets go the whole hog and deconstruct all the words we use to describe music and performance styles, it could be quite illuminating. All the best Mark On Mar 27, 2010, at 10:38 PM, David Tayler wrote: > > Without wishing to offend or annoy anyone, I would advise against the use of > the term HIP. > There are reasons for and against, but I think the "cons" have it over the > "pros." > > The main reason not to use the phrase is that it is excruciatingly bad > grammar. It makes us look bad. It is hard to imagine a group of any three > words that have so many problems. Performance, of course, is not informed. > People are informed. By extension, I concede the transfer to the action of > the person:one can, of course, make an informed decision. "Make" takes on the > temorary role of a stative verb. And one can have an informed opinion, again, > there is an implied reference to the owner of the opinion. But can one make > an informed performance? It is, I suppose, as E.B. White famously remarked, a > matter of ear. Or possibly it is problematic in that there is no speaker--in > a performance, there are many actors and events, it isn't just a person. > Performance is also not “historically"--performance can be historic, but that > means something very different. > And performance is not historically informed, and neither are people. People > are informed about history; they don't undergo a process of being informed > that is historic, unless the process of learning is at a memorable occasion. > > It’s cast in the passive. It has an undertone of fudgery with an overtone of > elitism: After all, some performances must logically not be “informed” –so > sad, if only the others read more! I'm sure the players of modern > instruments, many of whom attended Conservatory, don't appreciate being the > historically uninformed. > > There are other problems with the term as well; obviously people wanted more > freedom to play how they wanted, with less emphasis on the “authenticity” > aspect. But the result has been the recapitulate the last 200 years into > twenty and give us quite a bit of modern blended in. > > On the plus side, HIP is hip, and anything like that is good who want to be > unhip? Alas, even with Sting how hip can we be? It’s like the Gollux in the > Thurber’s “The Thirteen Clocks” –It’s always then; it’s never now. If we want > to be HIP, ditch the word history. Replace it with sex, food, clothes, > designer drinks. There has to be a better word than history. > > So a new phrase, or live with the old one? I like Early Music performance- > the term was reviled by many in the ‘70s, maybe there is something better. I > have no problem with Historical Performance. It seems pretty descriptive. I > like it more than when it surfaced as the title for EMA’s magazine. Obviously > authentic is a bad word to bandy about--implying that everything else is > fake. But we can be historical without being authentic. > > Historical Performance -History is back, and this time It’s Personal. > > dt > > > > To get on or off this list see list information at > http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
