Bernard D. Sherman

Inside Early Music (eBook, PDF)

Conversations with Performers

• Format: PDF

Produktbeschreibung

The attempt to play music with the styles and instruments of its era--commonly referred to as the early music movement--has become immensely popular in recent years. For instance, Billboard's "Top Classical Albums" of 1993 and 1994 featured Anonymous 4, who sing medieval music, and the best-selling Beethoven recording of 1995 was a period-instruments symphony cycle led by John Eliot Gardiner, who is Deutsche Grammophon's top-selling living conductor. But the movement has generated as much controversy as it has best-selling records, not only about the merits of its results, but also about the validity of its approach. To what degree can we recreate long-lost performing styles? How important are historical period instruments for the performance of a piece? Why should musicians bother with historical information? Are they sacrificing art to scholarship? Now, in Inside Early Music, Bernard D. Sherman has invited many of the leading practitioners to speak out about their passion for early music--why they are attracted to this movement and how it shapes their work. Readers listen in on conversations with conductors Gardiner, William Christie, and Roger Norrington, Peter Phillips of the Tallis Scholars, vocalists Susan Hellauer of Anonymous 4, forte pianist Robert Levin, cellist Anner Bylsma, and many other leading artists. The book is divided into musical eras--Medieval, Renaissance, Baroque, and Classic and Romantic--with each interview focusing on particular composers or styles, touching on heated topics such as the debate over what is "authentic," the value of playing on period instruments, and how to interpret the composer's intentions. Whether debating how to perform Monteverdi's madrigals or comparing Andrew Lawrence-King's Renaissance harp playing to jazz, the performers convey not only a devotion to the spirit of period performance, but the joy of discovery as they struggle to bring the music most truthfully to life. Spurred on by Sherman's probing questions and immense knowledge of the subject, these conversations movingly document the aspirations, growing pains, and emerging maturity of the most exciting movement in contemporary classical performance, allowing each artist's personality and love for his or her craft to shine through. From medieval plainchant to Brahms' orchestral works, Inside Early Music takes readers-whether enthusiasts or detractors-behind the scenes to provide a masterful portrait of early music's controversies, challenges, and rewards.

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Produktdetails

• Verlag: Oxford University Press
• Erscheinungstermin: 9. Oktober 2003
• Englisch
• ISBN-13: 9780195343656
• Artikelnr.: 38136945

Autorenporträt

Bernard D. Sherman writes about early music and other topics for Fanfare, Historical Performance, Early Music America, Strings, and Piano and Keyboard, among other journals and magazines. He wrote the article on "Authenticity in Musical Performance" for the Encyclopedia of Aesthetics (OUP, 1998).

Inhaltsangabe

* Preface and Acknowledgments
* Introduction: An Atmosphere of Controversy
*
* PART ONE: The Middle Ages, Plainchant, and "Otherness"
* 1.: A Different Sense of Time-Marcel Pérès on plainchant
* 2.: You Can't Sing a Footnote--Susan Hellauer on performing medieval
music
* 3.: Vox Feminea--Barbara Thornton on Hildegard von Bingen
* 4.: The Colonizing Ear--Christopher Page on medieval music
* Postscript: The Middle Ages, Plainchant, and "Otherness"
*
* PART TWO: The Renaissance, Oxbridge, and Italy
* The Modern "English Countenance"
* 5.: There Is No Such Thing as a Norm--Paul Hillier on Renaissance
sacred vocal music
* 6.: Other Kinds of Beauty--Peter Phillips on Palestrina and the
Tallis Scholars
* 7.: Singing Like a Native--Alan Curtis, Rinaldo Alessandrini, and
Anthony Rooley on Monteverdi; Afterword
* 8.: Emotional Logic--Andrew Lawrence-King on instrumental music and
improvisation
*
* PART THREE: The Baroque
* 9.: Consistent Inconsistencies--John Butt on Bach
* 10.: "One Should Not Make a Rule"--Gustav Leonhardt on Baroque
keyboard music
* 11.: Aladdin's Lamp-- Anner Bylsma on the 'cello (and Vivaldi)
* 12.: Beyond the Beautiful Pearl--Julianne Baird on the Italian and
English styles
* 13.: You Can Never Be Right for All Time--Nicholas McGegan on Handel
* 14.: At Home with the Idiom--William Christie on the French Baroque
* 15.: Triple Counterpoint:--Jeffrey Thomas, Philippe Herreweghe, and
John Butt on Singing Bach's Sacred Works
*
* PART FOUR: Classic and Romantic
* 16.: Restoring Ingredients--Malcolm Bilson on the Fortepiano
* 17.: Speaking Mozart's Lingo--Robert Levin on Mozart and
Improvisation
* 18.: Taking Music off the Pedestal--Roger Norrington on Beethoven
* Postscript: "Classical" and "Romantic" Performance Practice in
Beethoven
* 19.: Reviving Idiosyncrasies--John Eliot Gardiner on Berlioz and
Brahms
* 20.: Reinventing Wheels--Joshua Rifkin on Interpretation and Rhetoric
*
* Epilog