In Search of the Missing Fundamental: by Richard K. Jones
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Historically Informed Performance

Historically Informed Performance is a much-debated term, and both music historians and performers have difficulty defining it exactly. There are many ideas of what HIP consists of, but at its most basic level, it means performing music with special attention to the technology and performance conventions that were present when a piece of music was composed. For many years, this approach was applied primarily to music composed before 1750, from the Medieval, Renaissance, and Baroque eras. In recent years, however, the drive towards historically informed performance has made musicians reconsider how they perform Classical-and Romantic-era repertoire as well.

With instrumental music, being historically informed often means performing on instruments such as Baroque oboe, recorder, harpsichord, or viola da gamba. While some musicians (primarily string players) perform on antiques, most early music performers use instruments that were made relatively recently, by modern makers who have a variety of ideas about what an early instrument should be. Some makers try their best to make exact copies of surviving instruments in museum collections, some create their own designs based on historical principles, and some try to blend the two approaches. The particular tonal characteristics of early music instruments, as well as their inherent strengths and limitations, help to create a historically informed sound.

The most important element of historical performance is the musical style, which is ideally based on a knowledge of primary sources and other reference materials from the era of the music being performed – for example, the writings of Johann Joachim Quantz and Leopold Mozart. Of course, it is also based on modern pedagogy and performance conventions, since in many cases the early music performers of the 20th and 21st centuries have resurrected musical instruments and traditions that lay dormant for centuries. It might seem incongruous to hear a Medieval mass performed in a concert hall, or a Renaissance drinking song performed in a church, but neither of these are uncommon in the early music world!

The truth is that the majority of what we consider historically informed performance practices are speculative, and based on the best information available to the musicians and scholars of our era. Much has changed in the way that we perform early music since the beginning of the historical performance revival, and that was only 60 years ago. Those who perform early music, though (and there are more bright stars on the horizon all the time!), generally believe that the experience of the music for both performers and audience is a richer one when historical performance practices are taken into account.

Information Courteous of
Society for Historically Informed Performance

When using modern timpani for the performance of period music, “Harder sticks please” or “Those drums ring too long, can you mute them?” or “I need a shorter sound” or even “Do you have anything smaller?” is often the quip from the Maestro to the timpanist when the sound isn’t quite what they are looking for. Having a concept of how the sound of timpani influences a composer’s music in not necessarily a new phenomenon. Felix Mendelssohn while visiting the French opera commented that their timpani were too “boomy” for his music, while Hector Berlioz when visiting Germany considered the German timpani to be lacking in “sufficient volume” of sound. 53

Unlike modern string, wind and brass instruments, modern timpani are not able to manipulate their sound envelope quite as readily. The evolution of timpani sound has gone from one of short, pitch deficient percussive attacks, to one of a long sustained tone rich with near harmonic pitch. In fact, modern timpani with modern (thinner) heads are designed and built to have a long sustaining sound with each strike.  Creating sounds with a short envelope is quite impossible when fast articulated rhythms are written. The result, even with very hard sticks, is a sound with far too long of a decay, which often doesn’t complement the rhythm and articulation of the ensemble, especially smaller ensembles. This type of sound can in fact diminish the character of the style period rather than add to it as was the original intention of the composer.

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