The second of a series of blogposts originally published by Yellow Barn, and updated here in 2020. Written in conjunction with my artists’ residencies there and entitled ‘Faithful to the Sprit’, the residencies put into practice my work as an Edison Visiting Fellow at the British Library, exploring how recordings changed how we make and experience music.
'The biggest problem with today's playing is that people want to sound smooth and nice; everything is ironed out flat,' Raphael Wallfisch, Strad magazine
Judging from reactions to this online, these words resonated with and provoked musicians in equal measure, suggesting an opportune moment to examine these sentiments more closely. Though the focus of our upcoming residency is not necessarily performance practice, it is impossible to deny the differences between the (by modern standards) eccentric performances heard on early recordings and today’s smoother approach. Scholarly studies of early recordings attest to the fact that attributes we might today view as idiosyncrasies were integral aspects of performance styles of the time; characteristics not just of performers, but of composers’ own views and performances. Whether we choose to adopt the playing styles or not, before dismissing them outright as distasteful or self-indulgent, it is worth giving these stylistic habits due consideration, in the same manner afforded to written treatises in earlier music.
