GG: able to retrain performance habits

[Bradley P Lehman <bpl@umich.edu>]

Here's one clipped from today's discussion on the HPSCHD-L listserv, from
another harpsichordist.  I thought it would be interesting over here on
f_minor along the lines of yesterday's discussions: practicing on mistuned
instruments, the usefulness of early instruments, etc. 

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...a passage from Taruskin's Text and Act (New York, 1995):

"One musician whom I particularly admire, a lutenist, once told me that
when he began to experiment with improvisatory practices to accompany
medieval song, he deliberately mistuned his instrument so that his fingers
would not be able to run along familiar paths. 

"And here, in my view, is where the 'old instruments' are valuable and
perhaps indispensable in achieving truly authentic performances:  as part
of the mental process I am describing.  The unfamiliarity of the
instrument forces mind, hand, and ear out of their familiar routines and
into more direct confrontation with the music.  It has a kind of
*Entfremdungseffekt,* which serves the same purpose as in modernist
literature.  The presentation of a familiar object (the music) in an
unfamiliar context (the instrument and the new problems it poses) forces
one to see it freshly, more immediately, more observantly--in a word, more
authentically.  Notice, though, that this is primarily a heuristic benefit
to the player, and only secondarily an aesthetic benefit to the listener. 
The common claim, which I quote from a recent record review in the very
magazine in which this essay first appeared, that 'Baroque instruments,
played in an appropriate manner, have a greater expressive range than
their modern equivalents' is the purest gabble.  If played in an
appropriate manner, modern instruments too would be capable of anything
the player wished to produce on them.  But they are not played in that
way, and, for reasons outlined above, they probably never will be.  For
players of modern instruments have neither the impulse nor the means to
free their minds from their habits in the way the old instruments compel
one to do."  (pp.78-79)

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I think GG was one of the few players of modern instruments who actually
did have the impulse and means to free his mind from such habits, with
approximately the same mental effect as if he'd played old instruments. 
That's one of the things that makes his work most interesting.  Other
thoughts about this? 

Incidentally, apropos of the last two sentences of the quote, one of the
reasons I most admire Nikolaus Harnoncourt as a conductor is that he's one
of the few who *do* get modern players to free their minds from unexamined
habits and play pieces freshly, as if they were written yesterday.  (Watch
his rehearsal videos and performances of the Beethoven symphonies, for
example.)  Same reason for admiring GG as a pianist. 

Bradley Lehman ~ Harrisonburg VA, USA ~ 38.45716N+78.94565W
bpl@umich.edu ~ http://www-personal.umich.edu/~bpl/