Historically informed performance
[2] Given no sound recordings exist of music before the late 19th century, historically informed performance is largely derived from musicological analysis of texts.
Extant recordings (cylinders, discs, and reproducing piano rolls) from the 1890s onwards have enabled scholars of 19th-century Romanticism to gain a uniquely detailed understanding of this style, although not without significant remaining questions.
In all eras, HIP performers will normally use original sources (manuscript or facsimile), or scholarly or urtext editions of a musical score as a basic template, while additionally applying a range of contemporaneous stylistic practices, including rhythmic alterations and ornamentation of many kinds.
HIP has been a crucial part of the early music revival movement of the 20th and 21st centuries, and has begun to affect the theatrical stage, for instance in the production of Baroque opera, where historically informed approaches to acting and scenery are also used.
[4][1] Some critics contest the methodology of the HIP movement, contending that its selection of practices and aesthetics are a product of the 20th century and that it is ultimately impossible to know what performances of an earlier time sounded like.
Orchestras and ensembles who are noted for their use of period instruments in performances include the Taverner Consort and Players (directed by Andrew Parrott), the Academy of Ancient Music (Christopher Hogwood), the Concentus Musicus Wien (Nikolaus Harnoncourt), The English Concert (Trevor Pinnock), the Hanover Band (Roy Goodman), the Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century (Frans Brüggen), the English Baroque Soloists (Sir John Eliot Gardiner), Musica Antiqua Köln (Reinhard Goebel), Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra & Choir (Ton Koopman), Les Arts Florissants (William Christie), Le Concert des Nations (Jordi Savall), La Petite Bande (Sigiswald Kuijken), La Chapelle Royale (Philippe Herreweghe),[9][10][11][12] Concert de la Loge Olympique (Julien Chauvin, the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra (Paul Dyer), and the Freiburger Barockorchester (Gottfried von der Goltz).
[18] Although names were originally interchangeable, the term 'fortepiano' now indicates the earlier, smaller style of piano, with the more familiar 'pianoforte' used to describe the larger instruments approaching modern designs from around 1830.
[19] Increasingly, the early to mid 19th century pianos of Pleyel, Érard, Streicher and others are being used to recreate the soundscape of Romantic composers such as Chopin, Liszt and Brahms.
Although some keyboardist renowned for their fortepiano playing are Ronald Brautigam, Steven Lubin, Ingrid Haebler, Robert Levin, Malcolm Bilson and Tobias Koch.
[21] Certain historic vocal techniques have gained in popularity, such as trillo, a tremolo-like repetition of a single note that was used for ornamental effect in the early Baroque era.
Academic understanding of these expressive devices is often subjective however, as many vocal techniques discussed by treatise writers in the 17th and 18th centuries have different meanings, depending on the author.
Despite the fashion for straight tone, many prominent Early music singers make use of a subtle, gentle form of vibrato to add expression to their performance.
[21][22] A few of the singers who have contributed to the historically informed performance movement are Emma Kirkby, Max van Egmond, Julianne Baird, Nigel Rogers, and David Thomas.
[24] Three main layouts are documented:[citation needed] Some familiar difficult items are as follows: Some information about how music sounded in the past can be obtained from contemporary mechanical instruments.
The baroque oboist Bruce Haynes has extensively investigated surviving wind instruments and even documented a case of violinists having to retune by a minor third to play at neighboring churches.
In addition to showing the layout of an orchestra or ensemble, a work of art may reveal detail about contemporary playing techniques, for example the manner of holding a bow or a wind player's embouchure.
The abdication of esthetic values and artistic responsibilities can confer a certain illusion of simplicity on what the passage of history has presented to us, bleached as white as bones on the sands of time".
[34][page needed] Early music scholar Beverly Jerold has questioned the string technique of historically informed musicians, citing accounts of Baroque-era concert-goers describing nearly the opposite practice.
Conductor John Eliot Gardiner has expressed the view that the term can be "misleading", and has stated, "My enthusiasm for period instruments is not antiquarian or in pursuit of a spurious and unattainable authenticity, but just simply as a refreshing alternative to the standard, monochrome qualities of the symphony orchestra.
The tired feeling which so many 'authentic' performances induce can be compared to the atmosphere of a modern museum.... [The works of early composers] are arranged behind the glass of authenticity, staring bleakly from the other side of an impassable screen".
