ColinLawson

Historical accuracy versus practical expediency: early instruments in the digital age
he 40th anniversary of Early Music offers an ideal opportunity to reflect upon the many practical and philosophical aspects of historical performance that have changed in a quite radical way. Early Musics first decade of life bore witness to some extravagant claims as to authenticity, a term which was still enjoying widespread currency. An LP of Beethovens orchestral music from 1982 was reckoned to represent the music in a form he would recognize,1 attracting the notorious strap-line the most original Beethoven yet recorded.2 Shortly afterwards, Richard Taruskins claim that historical performance was in fact the most modern sound around was already articulated in the pages of Early Music a full decade before its reappearance in Text and act (Oxford, 1995).3 Meanwhile, Clive Brown was certainly justified in querying the historical parameters of the Beethoven period cycles that were then proliferating. In 1991 he roundly declared in the pages of Early Music that the pedigree of many of the instruments was of doubtful authenticity, observing that there was infinitely more to historically sensitive performance than merely employing the right equipment, and that the public was in danger of being offered attractively packaged but unripe fruit.4 What were the aspirations of the time? Anobility of vision is encapsulated in the late Sir Nicholas Shackletons manifesto from 1995: Our primary objective in playing historic instruments is to gain a better feeling for what classical music actually sounded like when it was first heard in favourable circumstances.5 For insightful music-making, any instrumentmodern, antique or replicaneeds to work well as a piece of equipment, whatever that might mean. Yet Taruskins viewpoint was

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1 The Clarinet Instructor (London: Longman, Lukey & Co., c.1772) Royal College of Music, shelfmark g94)

continually borne out by what were sometimes loosely if not falsely described as original instruments. My own advocacy of the chalumeau within the pages of Early Music in 1979 was indeed made in the context of instruments that were designed from historical models by Moeck and others with very considerable freedom.6 Improved copies of instruments have a long and distinguished pedigree. As long ago as 1932 Arnold Dolmetschs pupil Robert Donington remarked of his teachers reconstructions: the old harpsichord has certain limitations [and produces] a jangle, slight in the treble but audible in the bass The new instruments, which remedy these historical oversights, have proved both purer and more sustained than any previous harpsichord.7 In the 1990s Robert Barclay made another rare foray into

Early Music, Vol. xli, No. 1 The Author 2013. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. doi:10.1093/em/cas160, available online at www.em.oup.com

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this same area by drawing attention to the fingerholes often placed on copies of the Baroque trumpet, so that the so-called out-of-tune harmonics of the natural series will not be unpleasant to modern sensitivity.8 He was able to claim that the natural trumpet was the one instrument not yet fully revived for use in the performance of Baroque music. Barclay observed that to a great extent the idiosyncrasies of the natural harmonic series were still considered to be beyond reliability in the recording studio or in live performance: The vented instruments that have resulted from this recent invention of tradition are often equipped with so many anachronistic features that the result is a trumpet which resembles its Baroque counterpart only superficially, whose playing technique is quite different, and whose timbre is far removed from that expected for baroque music. Modern musical life has certainly dictated a virtuosity and flexibility that incorporates some decidedly unhistorical elements. As Crispian Steele-Perkins has written, A dedicated performer needs a good copy of a genuine antique trumpet upon which he can train his or her lip, and a good modern fingerholed instrument with which to earn a living in an environment where time is money and where there are monstrous egos to be satiated.9 Revealingly, Barclay was also bold enough to claim that woodwind copies have been made entirely by pre-Industrial Revolution techniques and with appropriate materials and tools. This is certainly not the case. As an illustration emanating from my personal experience, the period clarinet has manifestly occupied a variety of positions on the historical spectrum (see illus.1 for a contemporary tutor). In this respect, it is representative of a wider woodwind and brass culture of reeds, mouthpieces, bores and materials. The manufacture of Classical clarinet copies has often been influenced by modern tastes formed from years of experience with the Boehm system. Replacement of ivory trimmings with plastic may (or may not) affect the sound. Mouthpieces made of ebonite rather than wood will have a greater effect on tone-colour, whatever the perceived gain in stability and consistency of response. The exigencies of air travel and the microphone offer no historical excuse for such transformations. The small hard reed that was characteristic of the clarinet in Mozarts Vienna has largely been eschewed in favour of the modern German cut (often

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2 Basset Horn in F, Raymund Griesbacher (Vienna, early 19th century). Gift of Sir George Donaldson, 1900 (Royal College of Music, 242)

of softer strength), with a period mouthpiece design radically altered to accommodate it. Although there is considerable evidence that the five-keyed clarinet was the norm in Mozarts day, many players have been content to opt for a more generously mechanized instrument that is characteristic of a laterera. Such hybrids allow for greater volume to be produced, but at the expense of the kaleidoscopic chromatic scale that is a feature of the true Classical instrument. The temptation to employ electronic tuners during the manufacture of early wind instruments can produce a reliable chromatic scale, yet tends to discourage any excursions away from

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equal temperament. Different national characteristics of clarinets (and other woodwinds) have not always been reflected in the studio. This is important for Mozart; comparison of instruments made by Doleisch in Prague with those made by Griesbacher in Vienna (illus.2) reveals some fundamental differences in design.10 In terms of technique, a truly historical approach would require huge swathes of early English, French and Italian clarinet repertory to be played with reed against the top (rather than the bottom) lip, with a variety of articulation to match.11 Over the past 40 years, conductors (whose very presence is often historically anachronisticsee Peter Holmans essay in this issue) have been reticent in enquiring about the pedigree of orchestral instruments or the techniques of playing them. One prominent British pioneer was typical in showing no interest in such matters on a day-to-day basis, dreading only that unaccepted sounds would be emitted, especially from the winds. Yet in the early 1990s he wrote: Some of the publicists myths about authenticity have been exploded, but for us the simple fact remains the same: we like to use the tools designed

for the job in hand. Instruments good enough for Bach should surely be good enough for us.12 Perhaps it is inevitable that historical endeavours should weave a variety of paths between historical accuracy and practical expediency. One of my clarinettist colleagues recently wrote: the enterprise of playing old instruments must always be secondary to the enterprise of bringing the music alive in the way it wants to be. Old instruments are just a part of the unpacking of that wants to be.13 Such easy willingness to marginalize historical evidence must surely not be given too much encouragement. This is not to deny the value of soft evidence, such as C. P. E. Bachs remarks about the importance of moving an audience. And no clarinettist should forget that after the premire of Mozarts Serenade k361, one critic described Anton Stadlers clarinet as having so soft and lovely a tone that no one with a heart could resist it. In the recording studio as in the concert hall, such primary evidencerelating as much to the art of music-making as its craftcan be particularly influential and inspirational.

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Colin Lawson is Director of the Royal College of Music, London. He has an international profile as a period clarinettist and has played principal in several of Britains leading period orchestras, with whom he has recorded extensively and toured world-wide. His discography comprises concertos by Fasch, Hook, Mahon, Mozart, Spohr, Telemann, Vivaldi and Weber, as well as a considerable variety of chamber music. He has published widely, especially for Cambridge University Press. With Robin Stowell he is co-editor of The Cambridge history of musical performance (Cambridge, 2012).
1 The Hanover Band, Beethoven Piano Concerto no.1/Symphony no.1 (Nimbus ni2150). 2 Early Music News (July 1982), cited in J.Griffiths, Nimbus: technology serving the arts (London, 1995), p.178. 3 R. Taruskin, The limits of authenticity: a discussion: The authenticity movement can become a positivistic purgatory, literalistic and dehumanizing, Early Music, xii/1 (1984), pp.312. 4 C. Brown, Historical performance, metronome marks and tempo in Beethoven symphonies, Early Music, xix/2 (1991), p.248. 5 N. Shackleton, The development of the clarinet in The Cambridge companion to the clarinet, ed. C. Lawson (Cambridge, 1995), p.17. 6 C. Lawson, The chalumeau: independent voice or poor relation?, Early Music vii/3 (1979), pp.3514. 7 Cited from L.Dreyfus, Early music defended against its devotees: a theory of historical performance in the twentieth century, Musical Quarterly, xlix (1983), pp.3056. 8 R. Barclay, A new species of instrument: the vented trumpet in context, Historic Brass Society Journal, x (1998), pp.113. 9 C. Steele-Perkins, The trumpet, Early Music Today (February/ March 1998), p.12. Barclay also cites Andrew Pinnocks observation in the Galpin Society Journal , xliv (1991), p.192: We all fall from grace at the studio door. 10 Compare, for example, the basset horns nos.90 and 242 in the Museum of Instruments at the Royal College of Music, London. 11 See I.E. Pearson, Clarinet embouchure in theory and practice: the forgotten art of reed above (diss., University of Sheffield, 2001). 12 T. Pinnock, 20years of The English Concert, Early Music News, clxxiv (May 1993), p.1. 13 Antony Pay in Spirit of the orchestra (London, 2006), p.61.

Early MusicFebruary 201329