Telemann, Hogwood and the listener/composer/performer relationship

When one looks at articles published in music journals (especially during the 1950s), one has a feeling that the affect of music on the human spirit is due only to reasons that are connected to the score or to other factors of the composition. Until the late 1980s very few examine the possibility that listening to music has something to do with the interaction between the general experience of the listener at the moment of listening with other factors such as performance and the score. I have recently bought a CD of Hogwood performing Telemann (after interviewing David Shemer) and it reminded me a distant listening experience which I would like to share.

Byron’s wild musical life

More than ten years ago, when I did my BA in music in the Tel-Aviv University (read my about page) I had quite a wild life. Some of the fines memories of that period are connected to music. The reason that I want to share with you the following private memory is that it raises important general questions concerning how musical memory works (especially after years pass) and what are the roles of the listener, performer and composer in the creation of musical experience.

A personal memory

So here it goes. I had a fight with my parents, with whom I lived at that time, and I spoke about it with a friend of mine. She said that she is renting a flat with her friend and that they have a spare room. The flat was on Shenkin Street, which is one of the coolest places in Tel-Aviv. They offered that I will stay in the flat for as long as I wish without paying anything. Since I was a poor student, this was an offer I could not turn down.

What really happened there

If you are expecting that I will share with you a wild experience that I had with these girls, you are likely to be disappointed. Yet one experience did remain dear to me. I remember that I was sitting in the living room with one of the girls during a very hot day. There was no air condition in the flat and anyone who knows Israel in the summer can understand how hot and humid it can (especially in Tel-Aviv). Our solution was to listen to a CD of Telemann that she owned. The experience was amazing. I cannot remember what music we heard. I just remember that recorders were among the instruments and that the energy that this music had was striking.

It was the first time that I heard Telemann and the experience was nothing less than a revelation. Months later, I bought a CD of Telemann and I was disappointed. It was not the same music. When most people speak about ‘music’ in the context of classical music, they usually mean ‘composition’. I am not sure, but it could very much be that some of the compositions on the CD that I bought and the CD that I have heard first, were the same. It seems to me that the difference had something to do with the performance of Telemann’s compositions (and I am using the word ‘compositions’ and not ‘music’ on purpose).

The reason that I think that it was due to performance, is because that during the last month I bought a CD of Telemann performed by The Academy of Ancient Music, directed by Christopher Hogwood (recorded on the label L’Oseau-Lyre). I acquired the recording after I interviewed David Shemer on the performance of early music. This interview made me curios about some of the performers that he mentions.

Watch this video of the Fourth and final movement (Presto) from Georg Philipp Telemann’s concerto in E minor for recorder, traverso, strings and basso continuo, TWV 52:e1

(Jean-Marc Goujon, traverso; Luis Beduschi, recorder; Ensemble Matheus, conducted by Jean-Christophe Spinosi; Victoires de la Musique Classique; 8 February 2009)

Can’t stop listening

I am listening to this recording again and again and I have no words to describe the pleasure that it gives me. In a sense I have rediscovered Telemann. Or perhaps it is not Telemann that I have experienced again, but the performance of Hogwood. It cannot say for sure whether the recording I heard more than ten years ago was by Hogwood. I will probably never know the answer to this question. Yet, if it was by Hogwood, I would not be surprised. This CD (the one that I just bought) contains a concerto in E minor for Recorder and Flute. The sound seems to me so familiar.

The role of composers and performers

The performance of Hogwood is very energetic, clean and in a sense very modern. This brings me to the thought that what cached my attention might have been Telmann’s music, the sound of historical recorders, the performance practice of The Academy of Ancient Music under Hogwood or the combination of all this. This is why I think that the musical experience is a result of many factures (and not only the acts of composers or performers) that have various degrees of importance. It is never just the ‘genious’ composer or the ‘great’ performer. Yes, they are very important. Yet performance is also about the recording (including the many people who are involved in producing it in and out of the studio) and the moment of listening to the music. 

Share your musical experiences

Is the personal story that I mentioned above, a matter of a reducibale-irrelivant-personal experiences? I admit that research on music, trying to be objective, or at least deal with things that can be easliy measured, finds such stories unimportant. My view on this issue is different. The experiece of music should be examined, I think, not only in the context of musical analysis of the score, but also in that of performance and listening. Are your significant musical experiences connected to important personal memories? Feel free to share them with us by commenting below.

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