The End of Early Music: A Period Performer's History of Music for the Twenty-First Century (review)

Abstract

The End of Early Music: Period Performer's History of Music for Twenty-First Century. By Bruce Haynes. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007. [xix, 284 p. ISBN-10 0195189876; ISBN-13 9780195189872. $35.] Music examples, illustrations, bibliography, index. Do we ever stop to consider philosophy behind our approach to performance other than acknowledging that we belong to a particular pedagogical tradition? My teacher studied with Segovia, your teacher's teacher studied with Galamian, and she can trace her pedagogical lineage back to Beethoven or even farther. More significantly though, we are products of our age, captives of current performance style that rules our conservatories, stages, and recording studios. Or are we? Recent years have witnessed an increasing number of superb books devoted to historical performance practice, some very specific such as Ross Duffin's How Equal Temperament Ruined Harmony (and Why You Should Care) (New York: W. W. Norton, 2007) that examine tree, whereas books such as Peter Walls' History, Imagination, and Performance of Music (Rochester: Boydell and Brewer, 2003) survey entire forest. In cleverly and intriguingly titled The End of Early Music: Period Performer's History of Music for Twenty-First Century, oboist Bruce Haynes views entire landscape. Bruce Haynes has made his mark as one of world's finest baroque oboists, as an instrument builder, and as author of several important essays on recorder and oboe. His pivotal article, Beyond Temperament: Non-keyboard Intonation in 17th and 18th centuries (Early Music 19, no. 3 [August 1991]: 357-81) demonstrated that woodwind players did and still can accommodate themselves to unequal temperaments. His other two books, The Eloquent Oboe: History of Hautboy, 1640-1760 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001), and History of Performing Pitch: The Story of A (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2002), firmly established Haynes's credentials as a performer/ scholar with experience, perspective, and authority to assess where we have been,go from here. He writes with joyful abandon of a pleasingly crusty warrior who is well beyond caring whether his strong opinions might offend some, and his direct conversational style is designed to communicate rather than impress. It entertains as well. Witty quips leap from pages, and puns abound. For instance, Haynes quotes a colleague's rant lampooning performances that disregard HIP (Historically Informed Performance): Historically Clueless Performance? Wild Guesswork Performance? Whatever Feels Right Performance? Whatever My Personal Hero Did Must Be Right Performance? Didn't Do My Homework So I'll Wing It Performance? Anything Goes Performance? History is Irrelevant Performance? Whatever They Did On My Favorite Recording That's What I Must Imitate Performance? (p. 11) Humor aside, Haynes provides an invaluable service by framing issue of performance style in clearly defined terms that set parameters for broader discussion that must occur if classical music is to maintain, or as some would say, regain its stature as a relevant artistic force. Although Haynes covers a vast territory during course of thirteen chapters, four main topics emerge: condescension of chronocentrism; designation of performance approach into romantic, mainstream, and period styles; historical aberration of canonism; and finally, text fetishism, its stiff and inflexible trail buddy. Chronocentrism, we learn, is the that one's own time or period is superior; equivalent in time of spatial concept of ethnocentrism (p. 14). In musical terms, this is manifested by applying our modern performance philosophy to music of all other eras rather than matching music of a particular era with performing style that goes with it. This attitude is now largely abhorred in progressive society, but still permeates music. …