ABSTRACT
The second part of this book, ‘Reconstructing Romanticist Performance Style,’ begins with an examination of essential types of evidence for historically informed performance (HIP) Romantic style and their sometimes-surprising results. Beginning with Neal Peres Da Costa’s research demonstrating that the verbal instructions of key C19th performers and pedagogues seem (to us) at variance with their recordings, this chapter discusses how to avoid Modernist anachronisms in interpreting C19th performance data. Perhaps of greatest importance is the realisation that many elements of music scores did not have the same meanings for the Romantics as for us, particularly rhythmic and expressive indications. The Romantics’ adoption of a spectrum of rhythmic flexibility is discussed, and the complex meaning of ‘hairpins’ is carefully considered. Also included are contextualising discussions of C19th orchestral practices and the effects on style of performance spaces and Romantic listening. This last requires particular cultural contextualisation, rooted in an experience of Geist mediated by artistic truth, an expression of philosophical Idealism, and an experience of the Absolute particularly through the Sublime.
