Gebel & Carl Schuberth string chamber music

[matesic]

Alan - how would you define HIP? I think most ensembles these days have learned and adopted a great deal from the HIP movement, but done so musically rather than doctrinally so that most listeners hardly notice.

[eschiss1]

Depends. If this means playing things on pre-mediaeval instruments even if they were written tomorrow, then no, not so useful.  Playing Fauré, Alkan, Debussy... with attention to the way their composers are said to have wanted their works played- whether or not the performance is on a reconstruction of "the original Érards" (not an 'HIP' question, after all) - rather than in the tradition that has come down to us through others - can be very interesting to hear and in a good way, I'm told. (I think I'll go see if I have ready access to streaming some of those recordings I'm thinking of, whose Fanfare reviews (years ago, but I tend to re-reread my few issues of that magazine I've kept in my smallish room) came to mind here, and see what I think of them myself )


(BTW HIP is supposed - I thought anyway ... - to mean historically-informed, which includes performances on modern instruments that take account of - are "informed by" - historical practices - actual historical practices of the time of composition, etc., of course. Actually performing on reconstructions of older instruments has a different name, or so I thought...)

[Alan Howe]

Well, in my view it's all gone too far. The latest recordings of Brahms symphonies by, for example, Dausgaard (BIS) with the Swedish Chamber Orchestra of 40+ musicians or Järvi (Paavo - RCA) with the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen (of a similar size) are weedy in the extreme in music which requires more sustained, rich tone - and vibrato from the strings!

Mind you, Brahms approved of the Meiningen Orchestra, which apparently consisted of only 48 players. But did they sound like the SCO or DKB? Hmmmm......

Mackerras showed that it is possible to be historically informed in this repertoire without sounding doctrinaire about it. Nothing wrong with HIP as long as it's not rigidly so...

Anyway, back to Gebel/Schuberth...

[eschiss1]

I believe the historically informed spellings of his name were Gebel (or perhaps sometimes Groblin.) ;^) *ducks** and penguins out of the way*

*uptails all!! ***
*** Suggestions that he was related along the G-line to Jean-Féry Rébel, elementally-so (or perhaps a bit chaotically), are intriguing.

[Alan Howe]

Er, thanks, Eric!