minstrel: Re: Early music cut off?

[Tibicen]

Tadhg wrote

> I think early music has more to do with the intent to play the music
> in a historically authentic way.  It started with baroque and
> earlier, but now there are people who play Mozart on authentic
> period instruments and I've even heard of a recording of Debussy
> being done with an authentic "period" 1890s piano

A useful distinction I've seen in the mundane early music world is
"early music" refers to a time period, and "historically informed
performance" refers to the practice of presenting historically
accurate re-enactment of music of any period.

BTW, I understand there's a reason for the definition of early music
including the Baroque.  See _Authenticity in Music_ by Leppard.  At
the beginning of the 20th century, music before about 1800 was
essentially lost -- "educated" people considered it "primitive" and it
was not studied or understood.... or performed.  The extent to which
that was true is mind-boggling.  e.g. the first production in Europe
of *any* Handel opera after his death was in *1920*, and the first
professional production in the USA of *any* opera of Handel's was in
*1965*.  e.g. the first performance in England of J. S. Bach's
_St. Matthew Passion_ was 104 years after he died (1854) and the
reviewers slammed it.  And forget earlier composers, e.g. the ones
from our period.

The fact that if you want music from our period you can reliably go to
a library and pull down a book, or order one from a bookstore, or buy
recordings at a record store, is a *very* recent phenomenon -- as in
the last 30 or 40 years.  

The early music *movement* -- and this is why it is called a
"movement" -- was/is a revival movement through the 20th century to
bring this music back, and understand it and perform it.  The term
"early" seems to arise from the state of music history in the 20th
century; it meant "any Western music from before the 'common practice
period'" -- i.e. "any music from before the music our culture says is
the oldest worthwhile music".

And that's why, as I understand it, the Baroque gets lumped into
"Early".

-- Tibicen