[Trombone-l] historically informed performances was Berlioz, Beethoven

[Jeff Albert]

On Jan 4, 2008 7:15 AM, Walter Barrett <walttrombone at optonline.net> wrote:

>
> At any rate, unless the strings all change to gut strings, and the
> trumpets and horns use valveless instruments, I don't think we can be
> faulted too much for using either an alto or tenor. This is not to say
> that our modern performances shouldn't be informed by what the
> practice was in the composer's day. Anything that we can come up
> with , here in 2008, with regards to authentic sound of the late
> 1700's, is only at best, our educated guess. (Howard's guesses
> probably being more educated than most of ours...)
>

I guess it is good to try to know the intent of composers, or
performance practices of an era, but since we are performing for
modern audiences, it is ok to offer modern performances.  It is very
easy to get caught up in the right or wrong way to do things
musically, but I have a fairly simple rule that guides me in those
decisions.  The right way sounds good and the wrong way sounds bad.

In terms of the original question about horn choices, it doesn't
really matter what they did then, or even what Friedman or Alessi
would do.  What matters most if which option will sound the best from
the specific individual in question.

I could ramble more, but I'll stop.


jeff
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