On Sep 2, 2011, at 7:10 AM, Mathias Rösel wrote:
Or they can base their interpretation of 17th century French
baroque lute on
17th century sources and evidence to the best of their ability.
This is not a black-or-white thing, though. Yet I for one will
rather put
the weight on 17th century sources and try to fill those many gaps
that I'm
aware of, with 20th / 21st century means of interpretation.
No argument with that whatsoever, although I'm a bit leery of
accepting your notion of sticking scrupulously to an "authorised
version" of a piece. I much prefer the idea that, when there are
many ways to articulate a passage of music, the player would allow
himself the freedom to choose whatever way to best make his
instrument "speak." This is not some 20th-century liberal
revisionist view of history; it is the way music was taught in the
Baroque period. Beyond acquiring the basic disciplines involved in
learning to play their instruments, musicians based their choices of
which articulations to use upon how tasteful and elegant they would
sound, and how much emotion, via "affekt" they cound portray. Of
course, not all musicians had that much power of discernment...
I think that despite composers' wanting to see "authorised versions"
of their music, there was a great deal of lively discussion, and at
times violent disagreement, throughout the Baroque period as to the
most acceptable way to play and / or sing.
DR
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