40 Chapter 3 - Performance Practice in the 20 th and 21 st Centuries Pre 1945 Many performance practices that were the common expressive currency of performers in the late nineteenth century were still prevalent among many leading performers during the first decades of the twentieth century. For a period of time these earlier practices co- existed with the new austere neo-classical style whose development was in part a rebellion against the perceived ‘overblown’ and self indulgent style of the late nineteenth century. There is significant documentary evidence in the form of early recordings that support the existence of this stylistic duality as documented by Timothy Day 1 and Robert Philip 2 in their analysis of the performance practices found on recordings from the first decades of the twentieth century. The neo-classical style and its new aesthetics were encapsulated in the compositions and writings of Igor Stravinsky. The now infamous positivistic quote from Stravinsky’s Poetics of Music encapsulates this interpretively hard edged new world: The sin against the spirit of a work always begins with a sin against its letter and leads to the endless follies which an ever flourishing literature in the worst taste does its best to sanction. Thus it follows that a crescendo, as we all know, is always accompanied by a speeding up of movement, while a slowing down never fails to accompany a diminuendo. 1 Timothy Day, A Century of Recorded Music, Listening to Music History (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2000). 2 Robert Philip, Early Recordings and Musical Style; Changing Tastes in Instrumental Performance 1900-1950 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992; reprint, 1994).
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Chapter 3 - Performance Practice in the 20th
and 21st
Centuries
Pre 1945
Many performance practices that were the common expressive currency of performers in
the late nineteenth century were still prevalent among many leading performers during
the first decades of the twentieth century. For a period of time these earlier practices co-
existed with the new austere neo-classical style whose development was in part a
rebellion against the perceived ‘overblown’ and self indulgent style of the late nineteenth
century. There is significant documentary evidence in the form of early recordings that
support the existence of this stylistic duality as documented by Timothy Day1 and Robert
Philip2 in their analysis of the performance practices found on recordings from the first
decades of the twentieth century.
The neo-classical style and its new aesthetics were encapsulated in the compositions and
writings of Igor Stravinsky. The now infamous positivistic quote from Stravinsky’s
Poetics of Music encapsulates this interpretively hard edged new world:
The sin against the spirit of a work always begins with a sin against its letter and leads to
the endless follies which an ever flourishing literature in the worst taste does its best to
sanction. Thus it follows that a crescendo, as we all know, is always accompanied by a
speeding up of movement, while a slowing down never fails to accompany a diminuendo.
1 Timothy Day, A Century of Recorded Music, Listening to Music History (New Haven and London: Yale
University Press, 2000). 2 Robert Philip, Early Recordings and Musical Style;
Changing Tastes in Instrumental Performance 1900-1950 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992;
reprint, 1994).
41
The superfluous is refined upon; a piano, piano pianissimo is delicately sought after;
great pride is taken in perfecting useless nuances – a concern that usually goes hand in
hand with inaccurate rhythm.3
Stravinsky’s words tell us much about the changing styles of the period; the ‘sins’ he lists
include a number of core performance practices that had, to varying degrees, dominated
the nineteenth century; the close association between tempo change and volume, the
search for micro-expressive detail and flexibility of rhythm.4 Timothy Day draws
attention to the resulting pedagogical outcomes of the modernist aesthetic:
Certainly through the middle decades of the [twentieth] century it was drummed into the
heads of music students that they should guard against any tendency to accelerate with a
crescendo; this was a mortal sin. It hasn’t been for very long, apparently; Strauss would
do it, and Rachmaninoff, and Elgar.5
Guitar Reference:
In the guitar world, the most public advocate of the style of the late nineteenth century
was Andres Segovia, a legacy which is extensively documented through his large number
of recordings.
During this period of time an interest existed in the performance practice of earlier
historical periods, but it was largely an isolated activity which had little impact on the
mainstream performance world. It was in this climate that Arnold Dolmetsch published
3 Igor Stavinsky, Poetics of Music, trans. Arthur Knodel and Ingolf Dahl (Cambridge, Massachusetts:
Harvard University Press, 1942; reprint, 1982), 124. 4 These core nineteenth century performance practices, and other significant expressive devices of the
period, are discussed in detail later in this thesis. 5 Day, A Century of Recorded Music, Listening to Music History, 150.
42
his ground breaking book in 1915, The Interpretation of the Music of the Seventeenth and
Eighteenth Centuries,6 essentially a handbook for the performer.
Post 1945
During this period an objectivist style of composition developed with its associated
highly prescriptive scores, epitomized in the works of the Integral Serialists7. There was
a burgeoning interest in early music and the first commercial releases of period
instrument recordings appeared. Nicholas Kenyon drew attention to the work from the
late 1950s of Gustav Leonhardt, Frans Brüggen and Nicholas Harnoncourt and noted that
with the emergence of David Munrow in the mid 1960s:
Almost at a stroke, early music was removed from the realms of a specialist activity…
and put in a form where it could compete on equal terms with any kind of music making.8
At the same time there was an emergence of a new objectivism in performance with
focused and controlled emotional content and an associated rhythmic drive with
crystalline, balanced and powerful timbres.
6 Arnold Dolmetsch, The Interpretation of the Music of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries (Seattle
and London: University of Washington Press, 1974; reprint, third). 7 The Integral Serialists were concerned with the suppression of a composer's 'inherited' performance
practices. A solution that was embraced by the Integral Serialists was to set up a series of pre-
compositional parameters which would reduce the chance that the composer may sub-consciously
introduce tonal mannerisms belonging to earlier historical traditions into his / her use of pitch, rhythm,
dynamics and mode of attack. 8 Nicholas Kenyon, "Introduction: Some Issues and Questions," in Authenticity and Early Music a
Symposium, ed. Nicholas Kenyon (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), 3.
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Guitar Reference
This style of playing was dramatically announced to the guitar world by John Williams in
his concerts and recordings in the late nineteen fifties and early nineteen sixties.
Williams’ style combined a rhythmic precision and drive with a considered and
controlled anti-romantic expressiveness, ideally suited to the developing modernist
aesthetic. An interesting review in the Times for a concert at Wigmore Hall in 1962
reveals the romantic stylistic leaning of the reviewer. While the review acknowledged
William’s control and rhythmic poise; regret was expressed for the lack of ‘flexibility’ in
the romantic repertoire, the reviewer not appreciating the emerging modernist aesthetic.
He [Williams] can now boast a very controlled agility, which served him admirably from
viewpoints of rhythmic poise in a suite by Bach and two sonatas by Scarlatti. ... His
concluding romantic group by Villa-Lobos, Turina, Ponce and Granados was also treated
with sympathetic solicitude, but all this later music he still tends to interpret too
inexpansively in terms of black and white instead of enjoying the flexibility and wider
range of expressive colour for which it cries out.9
Late Twentieth Century
The diversity of modernist styles that developed in the period since 1945, to a large
degree remained current through the late twentieth century, even if in a more rarefied
isolationist context. Along with these styles however, there co-existed a post-modernist
interest in accessibility with an associated return to the foreground of the role of
9Cited from: Richard Sliwa, John Williams: The Guitarist (2007 [cited January 18 2007]); available from
http://plum.cream.org/williams/biography.htm.
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subjectivity in performance, tonality and an embracing of the music of non-western
traditions. As John Passler notes:
Rejecting the need for constant change and originality and the increasingly difficult and
often intellectual approach to music espoused by Modernist, they [the composers]
returned to more traditionally accessible notions of music.10
With the guitar’s historical predilection for cultural and stylistic inclusiveness, a
repertoire developed that drew on these newly emerging styles. While the guitar did
attract its modernist composers such as Luciano Berio (1925-2003) and Brian
Ferneyhough (b.1943) the strong roots that the guitar had in popular and folk culture still
dominated its compositional world. The works of Antonio Lauro (1917-1986) were
dominated by the folk traditions of Venezuela. After his modernist period the later works
of the Cuban Leo Brouwer (b.1939) were dominated by his country’s folk traditions and
African heritage. The Italian Carlo Domeniconi (b.1947) drew on Turkish musical
traditions for some of his major guitar works such as Koyunbaba, and Australian Peter
Sculthorpe (b.1929), drew on the music of the Asia Pacific region and Indigenous
Australia as a major source of inspiration.
Guitar Reference:
A representative style that emerged from within this changing aesthetic was ‘New
Romanticism’. Leo Brouwer’s Concerto Elegiaco is an example of this rekindled interest
in tonality, defined melodic structures, and rhythmic coherence. The liner notes of Julian
Bream’s recording of this concerto discusses the influences that shaped the work,
10
John Pasler, Postmodernism (Grove Music Online, 2007 [cited December 29th, 2007).
45
drawing attention to the composer’s own position ‘… [Brouwer] explains that, above all,
he aims to recapture a spirit of romanticism that affords him a period of rest and
tranquillity after the preoccupation with the avant-garde.’11
During this period there is also a noticeable domination of ‘authentic’ performances in
classical and pre-classical music with period instruments being adopted by mainstream
performers, along with the associated period interpretive practices.
One group of performers began to explore the timbral possibilities of using original
instruments or reproductions while adopting some period practices, but overall still
conforming to pre-dominant contemporary performance practices. This was particularly
noticeable in the constrained use of tempo flexibility. Of note amongst these recordings
were those by:
• Shin-ichi Fukuda: Schubertiana; a selection of 19th
century guitar music
performed on what is believed to be a Rene Lacote of circa 184012
• John Williams: Mauro Giuliani Concerto Op. 30 performed on an 1814 Gaetano
Guadagnini13
• David Starobin: Solo Guitar Music of Mauro Giuliani played on a copy of a guitar
by J.G. Staufer of circa 1829 built by Gary Southwell14
11
Gareth Walters, Julian Bream, Rodrigo: Fantasia Para Un Gentilhombre, Brouwer: Concerto Elegiaco
(London: BMG Music, 1987). 12
Franz Schubert et al., Schubertiana; Shin-Ichi Fukuda Plays 19th Century Music (Fukushima: Denon
Records, 1995). 13
Mauro Giuliani, John Williams Giuliani Guitar Concerto, Schubert "Arpeggione" Sonata (Sydney: Sony
Music Entertainment Inc., 1999).
46
A small group of performers and researchers embarked on a project exclusively
performing on period instruments, reconstructing lost techniques and applying period
performance practices as the dominant interpretative approach. Key figures in this
niche area of activity included:
• Carlo Barone: The music of Mauro Giuliani and Luigi Moretti performed on a
Gaetano Guadagnini made in 1837.15
This recording is notable for the use of period technique specifically in the choice of
the use of flesh and nail on the right hand fingers and flesh alone on the right hand
thumb for plucking the strings. There is also a distinctive application of tempo rubato
strongly influenced by the vocal treatises of Manuel Garcia’s Traite Complet du l’Art
du Chant (Paris 1840) and of Delle Sedie, L’Art Lyrique (Paris 1873).
• Claudio Maccari & Paolo Pugliese: A complete recording of the three concerti of
Mauro Giuliani Op. 30, 36 and 70 and the quintets Op. 65 and 102.
The guitars used for this recording were made by Carlo Guadagnini (1812), Gaetano
Guadagnini (1830) and a terz guitar of Antonio Gargenese (c 1880).16
Like Barone
14
Mauro Giuliani, Mauro Giuliani, Solo Guitar Music Performed on 19th Century Guitar, David Starobin
(New York: Bridge Records, Inc., 1991). 15
Mauro Giuliani and Luigi Moretti, Mauro Giuliani, Luigi Moretti, Carlo Barone Chitarra Dell'800
(Milano: Rugginenti, 1994). 16
Mauro Giuliani, Mauro Giuliani, Concerti Per Chittara E Orchestra, Quintetti Per Chittara E Archi
Op.65 E Op. 102, Solisti Claudio Maccari E Paolo Pugliese (Milano: Paragon per Amadeus, 2003).
47
these performers draw on the Italian operatic tradition, the bel canto and the vocal
methods of Garcia and Delle Sadie.
• Anthony Glise: A recording of the complete sonatas for solo guitar by Anton
Diabelli.
The recording is made using a guitar by Georg Staufer17
made in Vienna circa 1828.18
19 The performer notes that:
Throughout this recording I employed traditional 19th
-Century stylistic practices,
strictly adhering to interpretational norms current in Vienna during this period at
this time, there were strong links – particularly in Vienna between instrumental
performance and the Bel Canto style of singing.20
Glise also drew inspiration from the vocal trestise of Garcia.
The Pre-Dominant Contemporary Performance Practice
In his book Text and Act Richard Taruskin suggests some characteristics that he sees as
representative of late twentieth century taste:21
17
Glise spells the surname of this guitar maker as
'Staufer' whereas Watchorn uses the spelling 'Stauffer'.
New Groves Online also uses the spelling 'Staufer', this is the spelling that will be used throughout this
thesis. 18
Anton Diabelli, Anton Diabelli 1781 - 1858, the Complete Sonatas for Solo Guitar Op.29, Anthony Glise
Guitar (New York: Dorian Discovery, 1992). 19
In the CD liner notes Glise gives some background to his interpretation; 'in relation to performing the
Diabelli Sonatas, I drew inspiration from Garcia . This will be heard at times in the 'breath' taken before
fast passages, and breaking of phrases at the 'compositional end' of a musical idea.' See also Chapter 9 'A
Lesson with Garcia' and Chapter 4 'Expressive Emphasis'. 20
From the CD liner notes: Diabelli, Anton Diabelli 1781 - 1858, the Complete Sonatas for Solo Guitar
Op.29, Anthony Glise Guitar. 21
Richard Taruskin, Text & Act: Essays on Music and Performance (New York: Oxford University Press,
1995), 167.
48
1. ‘It is text-centred, hence literalistic.
2. It is impersonal, hence unfriendly to spontaneity.
3. It is light weight, hence leery of the profound or the sublime.’
I would like to add to that list the following characteristic:
4. A preference for uniformity and conformity.
The move to dominantly text-centred performance is clearly visible in the twentieth
century with the increasing number and type of instructions present in scores and with
composers gradually moving away from a reliance on the performer to contribute to, and
creatively interpret the score. Dahlhaus observes that this phenomenon was emerging in
early decades of the nineteenth century and draws attention to the compositions of
Beethoven:
That a composer who did not care a whit about Ignaz Schuppanzigh’s “wretched fiddle,”
as Beethoven called it, could successfully demand that performances be a function of the
text, rather than vice versa, can only have astonished early-nineteenth-century
contemporaries…22
The changing role of the text
A review of selected scores of guitar music from the early nineteenth century through to
the late twentieth century, highlights the changing number of notated instructions within
the scores that aim to control interpretive outcomes. The scores from the nineteenth
22
Carl Dahlhaus, Nineteenth Century Music, trans. J Bradford Robinson (Berkley and Los Angeles:
University of California Press, 1989), 10.
49
century represent works by leading guitarist composers of the period whose works were
performed internationally and widely published at the time. They had a significant
influence on the development of the guitar in the period and in the case of Sor and
Giuliani represented a broader mainstream compositional style; Sor representing the
Germanic/Viennese tradition and Giuliani the Italian operatic tradition. The notational
style these composers used was innovative in its indication of voicing; Thomas Heck
draws attention to the significance of this development and refers to it as ‘intermediate
notation’.23
Both Sor and Giuliani were represented by some of the leading publishing
houses of the period; Giuliani by Artaria, Cappi and Diabelli and Ricordi and Sor by
Meissonnier and Simrock. It would therefore have been unlikely that there would have
been a compromise on quality and detail. Being commercial publishing houses neither
would there have been extravagance. The editions therefore would have been typical of
the better quality publications of the period. The twentieth century works were selected
to give a broad cross section of styles and compositional influences and represent works
by both non-guitarist/composers and guitarist composers. The works have been published
internationally and have been frequently performed and recorded.
The following scores are surveyed:24
• Fernando Sor (1778-1839) - Fantaisie Elegiaque Op. 59 (1836); Bars 1 – 140
• Mauro Giuliani (1781–1829)- Sei Variaziono per Guitarra Op. 62 (1814); Theme