Historically Informed Performance
KlaraFestival is HIP
As one of the first festivals in Europe, the KlaraFestival places particular emphasis on the Historically Informed Performance (H.I.P.) of baroque, classical, romantic and modern music.
Musicians such as Rene Jacobs, Christophe Rousset, Roger Norrington, Francois-Xavier Roth, Claire Chevallier, Ronald Brautigam, Daniel Hope and Steven Isserlis give true-to-style (but not dogmatic) performances based on research and performance history.
They try to make the music sound the way the composer intended, based on the strength of the orchestra, the instruments and the playing style, without forgetting modern concert production requirements.
Longing for the unattainable
“In France too we suffer the harsh necessity of almost always having to employ musicians to make music; but we’re working to solve the problem and be rid of them altogether.”
This controversial, quite sarcastic, or some would say visionary quote by Hector Berlioz (Mémoires) is not only typical of “the misunderstood artist who struggled heroically against the tide of his time” (George Sand) but illustrates, admittedly in quite extreme fashion, the 19th century obsession with the idea of unfettered progress. Progress here is a process of constant improvement with what is in fact a utopian, unattainable end: the ideal – the ideal society, love, performance, etc. Berlioz’s quote, of course, had a lot to do with the poor standard of many of the musicians at the time (interesting for those defenders of ‘historically informed performance practice’) but also raises the question as to how much improvement was possible and whether progress always entails improvement.
Apart from this question, there is the problem that progress is rarely a gradual, smooth process and that seldom, if at all, does everyone benefit from the results in equal measure. The 19th century was probably the century of the greatest scientific progress. Its impact in social, political, ideological, philosophical and cultural fields is huge and still felt to this day. The 19th century was a century of revolutions (1830, 1848, and 1870) and political instability. A century in which Europe, after the fall of Napoleon, was ‘reorganised’ at the famous Vienna Convention of 1815. A century in which folk music, myths, sagas and legends, language and history formed the building blocks for a national consciousness and in which the nation states were formed. A century of great social conflict and the ideologies that arose from them (socialism, conservatism, Marxism). A century of optimistic expectation of a better society, alongside disenchantment with the ideals of the 19th century Enlightenment (Aufklärung).
The Enlightenment, which started with Baruch de Spinoza (1632 – 1677) whose Ethica showed the way to a free, self-aware humanity, and was defined by Immanuel Kant (1724 – 1804) in his 1784 Was ist Aufklärung as “the departure of man from his self-inflicted infancy”, had turned against the absolutist state and in France, in the name of the sovereignty of the people and the equality and liberty of all citizens, and was partly responsible for unleashing the Great Revolution of 1789.
The ideals of the French Revolution were legitimate, though its realisation turned out to be utopian and involved a long, bloody history which has already filled libraries. These contradictory ideals of the revolution - freedom and equality, even if taken to mean equivalence, are sometimes difficult to reconcile in practice – were embraced by many artists, but on seeing the bloodbath caused in the name of Reason, they withdrew increasingly into themselves before finally becoming ‘Gods’ in the depths of their thoughts like the Dutch poet Willem Kloos, by the latter half of the 19th century.
The Enlightenment transformed romance. Reason no longer held sway, but Emotion. In his book, De romantiek en haar aspecten, Dr G.P.M. Knuvelder describes the Romance period as a period “in which one no longer tolerates the optimistic views of the previous period […], in which a shift occurs from a preference for the wise to one for the sensitive, from reason to the soul, from being bound by authoritative norms to individualism, to breaking with tradition, not seldom followed by isolation.”
The romantic artist did not escape the ideas of progress, or the contradictions they created and fuelled. ‘Objective’ art (affected, according to Goethe), which went through continuous development and was more focused on the interesting (dark, secretive, metaphysical, passionate, etc.), racy and striking, and set out to achieve a certain subjective state of mind, ran continuously into intense criticism and even resistance.
The notorious controversy between supporters of Brahms (classical) and the Wagnerians (modern) seems old-fashioned now, but at the time symbolised the seemingly eternal battle between the old and the new. During the 19th century, the artist was rarely an ‘imitator’ (of nature) but a ‘creator’: “a creative personage belonging to the category of the exceptional ones, the genius natures” (Knuvelder). The romantic idea that the artist was a genius gave their creations (art products) a very special status: they became autonomous and authentic and were to be treated with respect! However, there is a problem with musical compositions. These noted creations – some can be viewed as graphic art – only become musical artworks once they are played and performed, and this requires musicians and instruments.
Therefore, each new performance is ‘different’ in some way. The ‘ideal’ performance had to be a musical work of art, genius or not. But when is the performance ideal? This is a valid question that raises countless others, which are in a sense answered by the present vast and exciting diversity of performances. Perhaps the ‘postmodernists’ are right after all: a work of art is open to multiple interpretation! Once, musical performances were associated with non-musical events (worship, ceremonies, festivities, etc.). The fact that one of the consequences of romance was that musical performances were increasingly appreciated as autonomous works of art is one of the most far-reaching changes in musical life up to the present day.
Even after hundreds of years in a museum – the ideal place for the nations to show off their cultural heritage – a Rembrandt or Rubens painting is still more or less the same painting. The question is, does a live performance of, for example, a symphony by Beethoven or Brahms also remain more or less the same after a hundred years?
Apparently not. When not only the musicians (obviously), but the instruments, number of players, techniques and aesthetic views, tempos and agogics are ‘different’, is the work of art the same? The autonomous piece as imagined by the creator? Yes and no. The architectural aspects (construction) remain unchanged. One owes the creator (architect) this respect in every way. The 19th century creators knew all too well that each performance would be ‘different’. But what was the ‘ideal’ performance they had in mind? Or was their ideal a ‘different’ performance every time, and a better one? To finally achieve Berlioz’s ideal of the musicians being surplus to requirements? It seems absurd.
The 19th century view of the composer as the genius creating autonomous works (masterworks) demands, in a sense, a far greater accuracy (respect) in all aspects of the performance of the autonomous composition than was ever the case previously. It is therefore remarkable – although this is a topic for a different essay – that in around the 1950s, it was the music of the 17th and 18th centuries that was taken on by the ‘music restorers’ of the time and their ‘authentic musical performances’ – according to the Van Dale dictionary, a ‘performance in the style (and using the instruments) of the time in which a piece was composed’ – caused a minor revolution (happily, smaller than the Great French one), mostly in the institutions (conservatoriums, orchestras etc.).
It seems that many musicians found this sudden, drastic change a downright violation of their quite utopian views that any progress was an improvement, which indeed originated from the 19th century. Nevertheless, it was during the 19th century that this minor revolution of 1950 was prepared through musical historical research and a range of ‘gesammtausgaben’ by earlier masters.
In particular, the idea that progress equates to improvement - has perfection already been achieved? – has led to 19th century and early 20th century music escaping ‘historically informed performance practice’.
A pity, since no matter how quickly the practices of the 19th century have changed, we gain, as a result, an idea neither of the original auditive work nor of the changes (improvements?) themselves. Regardless of how beautifully and (technically) perfectly a number of ‘modern’ orchestras play, there is, unavoidably, something essential missing: demonstrating how masterful composers and performers can deal with imperfections; how incredibly creative one can be with inequalities and irregularities; how you can cherish instruments and also wrestle with them. No matter how many decibels it produces, a modern orchestra always sounds ‘beautiful’ and generally provides the listener with a Kantian ‘well-being without interest’. 19th century art was not based on that beauty, but on things that generated interest.
Postmodernists claim that a work of art is the work plus all the potential interpretations of it. Perhaps here too, a great diversity is the most interesting and thrilling perspective for the future. Utopian? Possibly, but as far as I am concerned it is all possible, as long as Berlioz’s longing remains unattainable.
Johan Juys
