I'm finishing up a very helpful book, Frederick Dorian's The History of Music in Performance.
I've gotten a lot out of it. One of my weaknesses, frankly, is history. I would never sit down and memorize the people and places of historical events. People who do have really gained a framework, a kind of matrix from which to make comparisons and trace influences. But lazy people like me need to hear the stories over and over until we realize that Bach was the proto-Classical composer, for example, the genius choirmaster, undiscovered in his time, who while never stepping out of the baroque was definitely stepping forward into something new.
One of Dorian's thematic arguments has to do with the development of the written score as a binding controlling device for all performances of a musical work. In the old days, there wasn't too much written down, in terms of dynamic markings, etc. The composer ordinarily conducted his own work, and thus the interpretation would be defined, not by written symbols, but by performance. But it was more than that. There was a kind of fluid understanding about the music that could be made from the score. The written instrumentation might be only a suggestion--other combinations of instruments might be possible. He maintains that the concerns with the coloration of the sound are later concerns, of Berlioz, for example.
Another fun comparison has to do with different composers' use of rubato. Mozart's idea was that all the slowing occurred in the right hand, "and the left hand knows nothing about it."
It's a good book, learned but gossipy, opinionated but well-annotated. I recommend it.
I've gotten a lot out of it. One of my weaknesses, frankly, is history. I would never sit down and memorize the people and places of historical events. People who do have really gained a framework, a kind of matrix from which to make comparisons and trace influences. But lazy people like me need to hear the stories over and over until we realize that Bach was the proto-Classical composer, for example, the genius choirmaster, undiscovered in his time, who while never stepping out of the baroque was definitely stepping forward into something new.
One of Dorian's thematic arguments has to do with the development of the written score as a binding controlling device for all performances of a musical work. In the old days, there wasn't too much written down, in terms of dynamic markings, etc. The composer ordinarily conducted his own work, and thus the interpretation would be defined, not by written symbols, but by performance. But it was more than that. There was a kind of fluid understanding about the music that could be made from the score. The written instrumentation might be only a suggestion--other combinations of instruments might be possible. He maintains that the concerns with the coloration of the sound are later concerns, of Berlioz, for example.
Another fun comparison has to do with different composers' use of rubato. Mozart's idea was that all the slowing occurred in the right hand, "and the left hand knows nothing about it."
It's a good book, learned but gossipy, opinionated but well-annotated. I recommend it.
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