Today is Early Music Day 🎶🎶🎻! This year is the 10th anniversary of celebrating Early Music Day, which is held every March 21st. This day was chosen in honour of Johann Sebastian Bach and because it is considered the beginning of spring it feels like an uplifting time of the year. 🌱🌼🌺🌷🌄
In terms of famous, key musical eras in classical music, Early Music includes:
the Medieval Period (500-1400)
the Renaissance Period (1400-1600), with composers such as Byrd, whose main purpose was to create secular compositions 🙂 rather than perpetuate the religious music of the past🥱;
the Baroque Period (1600-1750, making this the style of music my 17th century philosophers, Baruch Spinoza and Margaret Cavendish, would have heard. 👂👂🎶🎶🎶 Some famous composers in this era include Vivaldi, Telemann, Handel, and Johann Sebastian Bach.
The Ambassador, Carlo Vistoli, asks the following pivotal question on the designated website for Early Music Day 🎼:
"Why and how does Early Music still speak to us today, from hundreds of years away?"
Good question! I think it's appeal is that it's emotionally and intellectually undemanding. Hence, students can study while listening to Bach, or Handel. This is less true of Smetana because you find yourself singing along to his lyrical music and wishing you were some place else. 🌄
I've been reading an excellent book* by J. Schröder written for performers of Bach's violin works and baroque playing technique. I think it has some pertinent points relevant to this question, some of which I agree with and will briefly discuss below.
The exact sound and expression of music from earlier eras is basically impossible to recreate, let alone authentically. So we are not listening to the same sound production as the original audiences would have heard. Indeed, the instruments are rarely of the same period as the original music. For instance, Schröder tells us that 21st century audiences may sometimes hear a 17th century violin but this will not recreate the baroque sound because the set up of the instrument may be in accordance with the Classical, 18th century. The violinist may be using a 19th century bow together with 20th century strings. As Schröder highlights throughout his book, this not only impacts on the instrument's natural sound production but also on the musician's playing. As musicians, we need to adapt our playing technique according to the materials we are playing on or with, as far as possible, or at least be aware of the strengths and pitfalls of the instrument, strings and bow. This helps on a practical level to give us more control of the instrument. It also assists us in thinking about the extent to which we are able to, and creatively want to, partially recreate the atmosphere of early music, for instance, 17th-18th century baroque compositions.
Perhaps one of the main attractions of Early Music for musicians is that the composers were often less prescriptive and allowed for more creative input by the musicians. For instance, baroque concertos usually give us musicians space to play a cadenza, which we can compose ourselves if we so wish. This gives the musician the space to have a direct compositional dialogue with the composer of the past and build on their musical themes, motifs and ideas. Another way we can personalize an early music piece is through adding or leaving out decorative extravagances such as trills and grace notes, giving us the freedom to express and personalise the piece as we wish. Whereas, as Vistoli points out on the Early Music Day website, such personalising and creative approaches to interpretation are no longer part of the process when playing later pieces, so he feels that:
"...one of its most fascinating peculiarities is to allow the interpreter to express themselves in many ways, and to give, even within the boundaries of the practicing"rules", the possibility to personalize that performance even more than later repertoires."
"For me, fantasy and inspiration go along with accuracy and historically informed practice."
He's absolutely right about this. If I play a cello sonata by Vivaldi, I can add in decorative notes (sometimes suggested in my edition) as and when I please, to express myself and what I feel fits the mood of the piece. When I play a cello concerto by Boccherini, for instance, I can choose to play my own cadenza (that I have composed) for the end of a movement. Freedom of artistic expression was very important to Boccherini. And I think that's true for every musician. For example, when a royal patron commanded Boccherini to rewrite a passage in his composition, he responded by making it twice as long! 🤣👍 And he didn't change it, even when he was sacked. Now there's a good rebellious spirit! Maybe philosophers should do the same in response to peer review. Stick to what you want to say so we end up with the authentic version not an adjusted one suggested by an anonymous reviewer.
However, when I play later music, I do not have this inherent flexibility of adapting the composition by adding notes which give me the feeling of almost composing with the composer, as it were. Having said that, I do prefer the intensely emotional tunes and atmosphere that later compositions express, especially in the Romantic Period, with the odd exception, such as Paganini, who is surprisingly categorised within the Classical Period alongside Mozart, yet his music is deeply passionate. The latter sounds more baroque-like, and so closer to Bach, whereas Paganini has the emotional style of the romantics. Equally surprising is to think of Wagner as a composer of the Romantic era given his dark, heavy-going style which has no appeal for me!
However, I leave you with this question: Should we attempt to or worry about recreating Early Music authentically given that it's an impossible task?
I ask this because it's something I've heard promoted in masterclasses as the ideal but this isn't the full story, according to Schröder and Vistoli.
Surely each musician should be free to interpret music from whatever period in the way they see it/feel it otherwise performances become too similar to each other?
Pop stars are encouraged to put their own style onto a song which can lead to significant differences. A well known example is Dolly Parton's 'I Will Always Love You' which she wrote and sang in an acoustic style that sounded wistful. This song was later sung by Whitney Houston who turned it into a power ballad. One song two different interpretations! Dolly loved Whitney's interpretation. Maybe Bach would equally love various interpretations of his works if he were alive.
Maybe classical music should be more open to dramatically different interpretations of past repertoire?
I think the cellist Pablo Casals was more than happy to do this! He played Bach in a romantic style and that's how I was originally taught to play him. So perhaps we should follow in his footsteps. Certainly Bach's Cello Suites lend themselves to such reinterpretation, in my view. Even more so given there's no original copy of the Bach cello suites, therefore, we are guessing what Bach wanted. There's no definitive way of playing them.
Nevertheless, I appreciate that I was given the opportunity to study how to adjust my playing style, musicianship and technique between early music and the Romantic Period so I enjoy playing both and find myself trying to be authentic on a modern instrument!🤔
Happy Early Music Day 2022! 🥳🎉🎊🎇🎆🥂🎼🎻🎶🎶
* Schröder, Jaap 'Bach's Solo Violin Works: A Performer's Guide' Yale University Press 2007
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