At 10:44 AM 10/29/2003 -0800, Owen wrote:
>Along the lines on Jon-O's question about de-formalizing early music
>performance.
>
>Well, you don't have to get silly about it and mimic performance
>venues which are really not going to work for our music. But one very
>successful way is to remember how it may often have been performed
>then. What this means mostly is not separating the enjoyment of food
>and wine from the performances.


I have attended two performances in Santa Fe recently, one by the Cellist
Matt Haimovitz, and other by an Iraqi ud player with string quartet (I've
temporarily forgotten his name, but it doesn't matter).  Matt played in a
club up on a low stage, with an audience of maybe fifty, he played a
mixture of JS Bach preludes and contemporary music, and he used modest
understated reinforcement.  The ud performance was in the Awakenings Museum
on a low stage with an audience also around fifty, the music was composed
by the ud player and arranged for quartet by the cellist in the quartet,
and was sort of traditional, but could probably be described as "world
music," which seems to be increasing in popularity.  That performance also
used modest understated reinforcement.  Both performances were fairly
informal, in that the performers/composers chatted a bit between numbers,
but not exactly intimate, given the size of the audiences.  In both cases,
CDs were on sale during the intermission.  I find myself preferring this
kind of performance, of which I have experienced quite a few over the past
few years.  I like the relatively small venues, the informal atmospheres,
the fact that the performers seem relaxed and try to interact with the
audiences, that the performers dress rather informally, and in particular
the use of reinforcement, which in all honesty is probably required in
halls of this size.  I think contemporary audiences expect and accept
reinforcement, if they are exposed to "pop" music, and if it is tastefully
done. In my opinion its use enhances the performance aesthetically rather
than detracting.  In the case of "world music," it makes it possible to
combine instruments that would normally be so different in output level as
to be incompatible.  Would it be "authentic" to do HIP early music this
way?  I no longer know how to define that term.  It certainly seemed
authentic in the context of these performances.   And it certainly ain't
"authentic" to record it on CDs or to broadcast if on FM.

Think about Nigel Kennedy or the Italian chamber group that played in
Berkeley a few years ago with the pastel music stands the name of which
also escapes me at the moment.  Il Giardino something or other.

JB