musical neepery

Fairly technical but really interesting musicological article by Charles Rosen, reviewing a book claiming that the advent of recording changed musical performance practices. Rosen agrees, and even defends the fact:

When all the Beethoven quartets and all the Haydn symphonies were put on records, it was no longer a performance that was being recorded, but a body of music. The emphasis had shifted. Performance is properly ephemeral; musical works endure. Occasional mistakes in performance do not matter that much in the concert hall, but they are always hard to stomach on a record when one is listening to it for the tenth time.

But Rosen says that other factors were also at work changing performance practices. Romantic stylizations such as string portamento and piano chord arpeggiation fell out of fashion not because of a preference for cleaner recording styles, but because they were being used indiscriminately, "smear[ing] sentiment thoughtlessly over everything like goose fat" (this is one of Rosen's more abstruse technical terms). Properly used with restraint, they could be marvelous effects, and Rosen would like to see their return. But with caution. Verdi refrained from marking a ritard on a score where he clearly wanted one. "Can you imagine what most conductors would do if I did write one?"

The article is also informative on how practice should differ depending on occasion. Brahms asked for exaggerated tempo changes in his works, but only when they were new:

Such exaggerations are only necessary where a composition is unfamiliar to an orchestra or a soloist. In such a case I often cannot do enough pushing or slowing down to produce even approximately the passionate or serene effect I want. Once a work has become part of flesh and blood, then in my opinion nothing of that sort is justifiable any more.