Peak practice

Musical Times, Spring 2000 by Bond, Ann

Peak practice

ANN BOND

The historical performance of music: an introduction

Colin Lawson & Robin Stowell Cambridge UP (Cambridge, 1999);

xiii, 219pp; .L35 / L112.95 pbk.

ISBN 0 521 62193 3 / 0 521 62738 9. 'Music,' said Marpurg, 'is an inexhaustible sea of change.' He was one of the few eighteenth-century theorists who were brave enough to assert that it is not always enough to fall back on invoking `good taste' to solve problems of interpretation. Further, `it is impossible to devise rules suitable to all possible occasions.' The authors of this book must have felt the same as, with a mere hundred and sixty pages or so at their disposal, they viewed the daunting mass of material and ideas about historical performance practice covering the period under review.

But what in fact is the period? Many musicians would assume that the book would deal with (roughly) the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; even three early music specialists I asked thought so. The belief is still current that, whereas before about 1780 one is afloat on a sea of problems concerning notation, instrument or style (or all three), once one reaches the 1800s one is more or less on dry land - notation means what it says, instruments are at least on the way to their present-day form, and the performing tradition is tolerably unbroken. The idea is perhaps extrapolated - wrongly - from Dart's famous Interpretation of music of 1954. But scholarship and practical investigation have come a long way since Dart; in fact the new book covers the period 1700-1900, and includes case studies of works by Mozart, Berlioz and Brahms as well as Bach. A greater knowledge of nineteenth-century performance has long meant that the balance needed redressing, and the authors are excellently equipped to do so Colin Lawson is a well-known classical clarinettist, Robin Stowell a scholar and violinist who has specialised in the Beethoven period. However, disappointment undoubtedly awaits the musician who looks for recent ideas about performing Schatz, and it might have been kinder to state the scope of the book on the cover.

That said, there is a great deal to commend. The book is conceived as a parent volume to the ongoing Cambridge series of Handbooks to the Historical Performance of Music, which deal with the music of individual groups of instruments - strings, keyboard, and so on.

It therefore concentrates on the general principles involved, about which it offers a wealth of wisdom. General principles are of course hard to write about at length without concrete examples, and so the authors have to dip into material which will no doubt be more thoroughly covered in the Handbooks. Also, these examples have perforce to be rather tersely discussed; and Chapter 3, which deals with changes in musical style, ranges so widely that it has a slightly rag-bag quality.

The case studies, however, show deeper methods of enquiry; and overall, the impression is of a formidable achievement in presentation and synthesis.

The stated aim of the book is to provide `an historical basis for artistic decision-making which has as its goal the re-creation of a performance as closely as possible to the composer's original conception'. The latter half of this aim has, however, to be continually tempered by the need for the artists personal input not to be stifled. In exploring the tension between these polarities, the authors touch upon a tremendous range of issues, of which I quote a few: change versus progress; the use - and, importantly, the limitations - of historical treatises and other evidence; scholarly policy in the preparation of editions; rhetoric and rubato (plus a good list of questions that the player should address); the sociology of musical performance; the continuo (plus another good list); orchestral payrolls, lay-out and direction; and the aforementioned trap of `good taste'. After the four case studies, which introduce both performer and listener to some challenging and possibly unfamiliar issues, there is an excellent final chapter called `The continuing debate'. This contains some swingeing comments on the status of music in our modern society and the methods of musical upbringing in some conservatoires, which exalt mechanical accomplishment above enquiring mindset. The authors helpfully discuss recent books which have addressed the complex issue of so-called `authenticity'. Lastly the question of whether or not we can listen with historical ears and minds gets an intelligent airing - though the authors must have pondered whether to put it earlier in the book, since it conditions

all other enquiries.

Inevitably one disagrees with minor detail. I found one statement - that in Italian opera the music took second place to the drama - decidedly puzzling; surely after Monteverdi it was quite the reverse. And although the question of temperament is well explained, the `wolf' fifth in mean-tone tuning does not normally occur between CO and A6 (p.87); on the keyboard, chromatic notes were tuned as CO, GO, F#, B6 and E6 - not their enharmonic equivalents. More charming is the mistake on p.57, where `bowing' becomes `bowling' - not, one hopes, underarm. The distorted cover picture of a harpsichord ensemble is no doubt seeking to make a subtle philosophical point.