Since the end of World War II, there has been a renewed interest in the music of the renaissance era. Gradually, this music that was once considered ancient or irrelevant has risen back into the mainstream Art Music world. The problem was, musicians in the 1950’s played the renaissance music the same way they played modern music. Some musicians questioned the wisdom of this, and began researching the instruments and practices of the earlier musical eras. The result was like finding an old tarnished work of art, and polishing and restoring it to its magnificent luster. The modern, bright brass sound was traded for the older, mellow, rich sound of older instruments. Over-vibrating strings and voices were replaced by a softer, straight-tone style. Slow, ponderous tempos were replaced with agile dances. It wasn’t enough to simply play the notes from the old scores – much more research and effort was needed to make the music come back to life. This approach to playing old music became known as performance practice, and was firmly rooted in the Art Music world by the 1980’s. Nowadays, it is expected that any performance of older music follow at least some, if not all, of the principles of performance practice.

The 1950’s approach to old music is similar to walking through a historical city – you admire the buildings, read a few historical placards, maybe buy a souvenir. The performance practice approach would be a historical city where there are people, in costume, doing the things that were done centuries ago – like stepping back in time. It’s more than an amusement, it is an experience!

On of my first exposures to performance practice early music was through the work of Paul McCreesh, performing the music of Giovanni Gabrieli, also featured in this previous post.

This week, a post was going around Facebook about the Worst Composer Hair in History. I’m glad someone finally called out Berlioz on the hideous mop he wore on his head.

Also mentioned in the post was Rossini‘s epic comb-over. Naturally, I immediately started hearing the overture to The Italian in Algiers in my head as I inspected his unsuccessful attempt to cover his shiny bald head. Fortunately for him, he also had an epic knack for writing melodies that are exciting, lyric, and most importantly, memorable – an honor which arguably makes him the most-borrowed-from-composer of Looney Tunes.

I guess I have to post the quintessential spring piece.

Antonio Vivaldi wrote a massive amount of music. Musicians tell a joke about him: did he write more than 500 concertos? No, he just wrote the same concerto 500 times. It all sounds similar, but that doesn’t make it dull – quite the contrary actually. If it weren’t good, it wouldn’t have survived 300 years!

Vivaldi’s Four Seasons are actually four violin concertos. The idea of attaching a non-musical idea (in this case, the seasons of the year) to a composition was fairly unique for the time. It was a wise move on Vivaldi’s part, because now this group of concertos are his most played work. Each concerto uses music to paint the sights, sounds, and smells of each season (Winter is a chilling storm!) To our modern ears and minds, this is a no-brainer – but in 1700, it was a little more cutting-edge. Eventually this idea (attaching a non-musical idea to a piece of music) became known as programmatic music, and is almost expected of any modern composition.