Diversity and encounters in early music

“With older recordings, such as those of William Christie, you can really feel like they are trying very hard to discover things and perform in an exploratory manner. But today there is often a tendency to rely on the mentors who have done the source reading but not do the reading, themselves.

However, today there is plenty of new research that I personally find fascinating; a lot of young people trying to do things as historically-informed as possible. Of course, whether it sounds to our taste or not is another matter. In any case, it is of interest that there are a multitude of ways of playing Early Music, just like there are a multitude of ways of playing contemporary music.”

Luís TASSO ATHAYDE SANTOS

“I worked for 30 years, taught at the Conservatory of The Hague where singers and instrumentalists are now trained much more thoroughly. I observe this especially regarding violinists. At that time, we were experimenting; we took the bow, used gut strings. It was all new. Now, there are absolutely extraordinary baroque violinists in Japan, China, England, France. When I started, it wasn’t like that. There’s a whole generation of very good violinists in France, two, three, or four generations now, who are excellent.”

Jill FELDMAN

“Craig Ryder often says that he wants to maintain fees that allow students to play.
In a way, earning more would affect his relationship with young musicians who are still in conservatorie and lack means. An exorbitant fee could really handicap them. I have students in conservatories who have little means and need a bow, and they pay me 50 euros a month.
It will take two years, but what can we do? Bows for people to play or to line our pockets?”

Claire BERGET

“I think we are not in this scenario of fragility, since no one has to fight to play the classical or even romantic repertoires with historical criteria. Even the symphonic orchestras are playing Beethoven or Mozart with some historical criteria in mind, even if the bows are classical or modern, or are playing with metal strings. They have this in mind and no one puts this in question. So in terms of how musicians who follow historical criteria are sociologically settled in the classical music world, the attitude has changed a lot in the last 50 years.”

Josep BARCONS

“A lot of the people who were engaged in it were young people who were also interested in the sort of more liberated culture of the late 1960s. And of course, we’ve all grown old, some of us are more established, and some of us have become less established … but most of us have become more established.

Most people do that when they grow older. So Early Music is a bit like that. It is grown in the same way that people grow to become rather too comfortable, and so it has lost a lot of its edge in the process. But this is all part of a larger picture, which is the way in which classical music as a whole is by its very nature a highly conservative culture because of the things it believes about its purpose.

And if you believe that the purpose of classical music is to recreate sounds from the past, to make performances that would have pleased people who wrote scores hundreds of years ago, if you think that’s the purpose of classical music, which almost everybody does, then you are locked into a culture which is always trying to reproduce the same result conservatively. Although there are still wonderfully inventive things going on in Early Music… There is a sort of tendency towards a kind of an international style which is convenient because it enables musicians to move easily between ensembles, different countries, to go and play a couple of days in Slovakia and then another couple of days in Italy and so on.

There’s been a sort of an internationalisation and a homogenization because it makes good commercial sense. And through that process I do feel that Early Music has sort of lost some of its disruptive qualities.”

Daniel LEECH-WILKINSON

“In order to get work, you have to play more or less the same way that everybody else plays, otherwise no one will hire you.

Now, that’s exactly the opposite of what we need in order to explore the potential that’s locked in these scores. And it is also incredibly bad for musicians’ mental and physical health. Musicians are caught in this impossible situation where on the one hand, they are supposed to be performing pieces the way they were originally performed, they are supposed to be recovering those intentions. At the same time, they are supposed to be obeying current performance norms so that they fit in with everybody else. And at the same time as those two incompatible things, they are also supposed to be bringing something of their own to their performances.

Now, you can’t even do two of these things at once, let alone all three. So of course people are conflicted, insecure and anxious about whether they are playing correctly or whether they will be criticised more or less all the time. It is a constant worry at the back of any performer’s head: ‘am I going too far?’ Almost anything is too far if it is different from what people expect. This is exactly the opposite of the situation we find with early recordings.”

Daniel LEECH-WILKINSON

“This is just where Early Music allows for a wide array of performance, as long as it is not dictated by the current trends.

It is impossible to know what these scores sounded like in the past; as we know from early recordings, it is completely impossible to imagine unless you have the sounds, no written description is enough.

And so, of course, people are making new styles even when they think they are making old styles. Of course they are, which is great: that’s wonderful.

The problem comes when you arrive at a style that you like and then you ask your students, and everybody else around you, to play only in that style. And so it becomes a new norm, and that’s disastrous.”

Daniel LEECH-WILKINSON

“It is probably the least racially and culturally diverse field in the arts, but I am hopeful it will change.”

Artem BELOGUROV

“There is a kind of distrust, I would say, in inviting people like me, artists or other profiles, choreographers, and so on.
I believe there is a chance, an opportunity to open up to other audiences. While preserving, of course, the tradition in the way of playing and presenting music. I believe one does not prevent the other. But it is important to open up to other audiences, through other disciplines, to a more eclectic program. There is a fear of mixing it all up. But when you see the work of an orchestra like Manchester Collective, it is very interesting.”

Anouck DE CLERCQ

“In Early Music, there are wonderfully inventive groups and individuals, and that needs to be celebrated as much as possible and encouraged. But an awful lot of the innovation in Early Music and in all music is not so much in performance as in presentation. And it is fine to perform in alternative spaces and with theatrical productions and video and so on and so on.
This is all great, but the performances have to change as well, and they should always be changing. So really, I just want to see a culture in which there is difference, invention, creativity. The Other is always the aim.”

Daniel LEECH-WILKINSON