Without any wish to be contentious, and agreeing with Howard, I would
suggest that the "informed" in "historically informed performance" derives
(at least in idea if not in fact--the coiners of HIP may never have read
Aristotle) from Aristotelian metaphyics, where a "substance" (ousia) is said
to consist of "matter" (hyle) and "form" (morphe). Thus, a particular "form"
is said to "inform" prime matter and to make it the kind of thing that it
is, somewhat as a particular shape makes this piece of marble to be a statue
of Socrates rather than of Plato. In this sense, it seems to me, a
particular historical "form" ( = the style of a particular historical epoch,
whatever epistemological difficulties may be involved in determining what it
was) could very well "inform" ( = give form to) the "matter" ( = the
physical act of playing an instrument) of a given performance.
My two cents (which, with an annual inflation rate of about 2.5% is now
worth only about 1.75 cents).
Stephen Arndt
----- Original Message -----
From: "howard posner" <[email protected]>
To: "lute-cs.dartmouth.edu list" <[email protected]>
Sent: Saturday, March 27, 2010 5:29 PM
Subject: [LUTE] HIP, was string tension of all things
On Mar 27, 2010, at 2:38 PM, David Tayler wrote:
The main reason not to use the phrase is that it is excruciatingly bad
grammar.
* * *
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?
"inform ...v.t. ...3. to give character to; pervade or permeate with
resulting effect on the character: A love of nature informed informed his
writing"
From the Random House Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged Edition
(1968) p. 730
So writing, or a building, or, yes, performance, can be "informed." This is
actually the "original" and most intuitive sense of the word "inform," which
is "to give form to" rather than the now more common "to impart knowledge."
And in this original sense it is things, not people, that are informed.
Performance is also not “historically"--performance can be historic, but
that means something very different.
Historically modifies "informed," not "performance."
"Informed" is an adjective here: the performance is described as being
informed in some manner. And if you're going to describe that adjective
(in what way is it informed? what informs it?), you need an adverb, such as,
for example, "historically."
I don't think "performance to which considerations of historical practice
have given character" would have caught on. "PTWCOHPHGC" makes a lousy
acronym, at least in English.
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