HIP - a refreshing perspective

[Maury]

Again the issue of HIP should not be defined as what we like or don't like. If we are adhering to HIP then we need to research what was the actual historical performance practice of a particular time. My point was simply with late Romanticism the conductors and orchestras we have in recordings, both historical and hifi, have a pretty direct connection to the late 19th C. Since styles, tastes and fashions change, HIP should not be one unchanging set of techniques and expression. There is no obligation to prefer HIP either to some other anachronistic performance practice. This is almost directly analogous to Shakespeare performance styles through the decades and the degree of relation to Elizabethan/Jacobean stagings. 

[Ilja]

It's a live recording, of course, from London's Festival Hall back in 1988, so it was never going to be particularly hi-fi. Problem is, I grew up hearing Brahms this way - my dad had an LP with Rudolf Kempe conducting the Berlin Philharmonic - so it's hard not to hear something leaner as less desirable. No doubt all this explains why I prefer the cpo Dietrich Symphony. Oh dear, how does one escape one's past with all its prejudices...?

Oh, solid point and in fact what I was hinting at in my earlier post when I wrote about out the importance of tradition. In my case it partly works the other way around. My loathing for Celibidache's glacial tempi was mainly caused by being dragged to some of his performances with the Munich Phil in the early 1980s. Hearing those works again in a less idiosyncratic performance was truly eye-opening in many cases.
On the other hand, and to reinforce your statement, I find it difficult to even tolerate Tchaikovsky's symphonies 4-6 in a different version from Mravinsky's DG set. Those were my first classical LPs, gifted to me by my grandparents, and I know every single note of them. I try to be open-minded, but I simply find myself unable. Having said that, I think it's important to be aware of that baggage.

[Alan Howe]

Well, as Hurwitz says, in a real sense it's not HIP or non-HIP that matters, but whether a performance is any good - or not. Of course, this is rich territory for critics because this is where subjectivity comes in - and also where a living is to be made!

At 70 years of age I have some 55 years of listening experience and record/CD collecting - and a shedload of prejudices. When I began listening to music HIP was hardly thought-of, let alone established. The main repertoire was dominated in Europe by conductors such as Klemperer and Karajan with their respective full-sized orchestras - and in the USA by the conductors at the helm of the major orchestras: Bernstein in New York, Szell in Cleveland, Reiner in Chicago, Munch in Boston, Ormandy in Philadelphia, etc. There were differences between them, of course, but little dispute about what the main symphonic repertoire was supposed to sound like.

For years I knew no different. Over time, especially in the last decade, other approaches have entered the mainstream - some I like (e.g. Mackerras in Brahms), some I don't (Norrington in almost anything). In unsung repertoire my prejudices usually re-emerge (e.g. in preferring cpo over Naxos in Dietrich's Symphony), but most of the time one has no choice anyway because multiple recordings simply don't exist, and in any case conductors normally make sensible 'middle-of-the road' decisions as to the appropriate performing style.

However, I am largely the product of my listening past. I grew up with Karajan in everything from Beethoven to Verdi and Wagner - and Schoenberg! I bought his recordings on LP and again on CD. I probably have the vast majority of the ones he made (and re-made). So shoot me down (metaphorically speaking)!

Oh, and by the way: I'll take Celibidache in Bruckner, especially his 7th in Berlin, but not much else.

[terry martyn]

Talking of Celibidache, and digressing for a moment, I was sitting in the Festival Hall next to the Buffalo,New York State, High School Band.  I can't remember the programme but remember how he cavorted and the snorting comment of the boy sitting next to me. "A triple encore", he muttered, and it was not said in awe!