What is it about the idea of rhetoric that so fascinates musicians? It's a word that I hear thrown around in rehearsals by my colleagues, abused by my forebears in their articles and books on period-performance (pace Bruce Haynes), and generally misunderstood by the modern gut-string community. Only last week a collaborator enjoined me to "phrase more rhetorically" in a sonata I was performing, and, even as I write, one of my Boston colleagues is blogging about Quantz, "The End of Early Music", and the importance of performing with the "rhetorical consciousness" of an orator.
In a sense, I know what these people are trying to say: phrase more, differentiate more, emote more, show more. But are "phrasing, differentiating, emoting, and showing" actually related to musical rhetoric? It appears that many people think so, some even going so far as to distinguish the "romantic" style of mainstream modern players from the "rhetorical" style of period-instrumentalists.
There are a number of problems with this popular viewpoint about early music and rhetoric. First, on the most basic level, the word "rhetoric" meant something very different to 17th- and 18th-century musicians than it does to baroque performers today. Virtually all of the extant sources, from Burmeister to Mattheson, discuss rhetoric in music as an important skill that a composer needs to develop -- not something for a performer to worry about. Upon reflection, this makes perfect sense: treatises constantly compare musicians to orators, and the orator's first task is to consider the argument of his speech and arrange its content accordingly. In music, this is all within the purview of the composer. The 18th-century view of rhetoric was so composer-centric, in fact, that even improvisors seem to have been exempted from thinking about it methodically: most treatises include a separate set of guidelines for the creation of extemporized fantasies.
If this seems a mere linguistic squabble, consider a far deeper problem today's musicians cause when they label playing as "romantic" or "rhetorical": they create a false dichotomy between two equally valid, equally useful, elements of expressive playing. An arresting irony lurks behind the fact that "romantic" musicians often find "rhetorical" performances unmusical, while "rhetorical" musicians often find their "romantic" counterparts unexpressive. But, upon reflection, doesn't this make sense? Should we be surprised that practicing only a single aspect of expressive music-making results in a paltry performance?
In reality, all musicians of all eras have tried to move their listeners in performance. All music tells an emotional story, and a good performer in any style turns that story into an expressive performance. This is as true for Quantz as it is for Heifetz, Rubinstein, or Malcolm Bilson. Not only is the "romantic - rhetorical" dichotomy useless for describing the true beauty of these artists' performances, but it encourages others to limit themselves to a single category. Ultimately, the magic of Heifetz's "romantic" playing is the clear, actor-like portrayal of affects and characters; similarly, in Bilson's "rhetorical" hands, the fortepiano sings with an emotional depth that few modern pianists can match. (Of course, while Bilson's and Rubinstein's expressive goals may be the same, no listener could claim that they play in the same way. But the difference is not a matter of "rhetoric" and "romanticism," but [to extend the comparison with language], of dialect, pronunciation, and hardware.)
A further ill-effect of the "rhetorical" revolution is that it has encouraged grotesque exaggeration in performers. It's one thing to try to get inside of the music, play expressively, and bring this expression to an audience; it's something else to turn "rhetorical gestures" into the main substance of a performance. So many HIP musicians seem to believe that once they've identified an affect, their work is done. The image of Stephen Colbert vowing "to feel the news at his viewers" seems to find an echo in those purely-"rhetorical" musicians who believe that depicting the music at their listeners is enough.
I still find that, despite my professional baroque affiliations, I derive much of my listening pleasure from early- and mid-20th-century recordings, which manage to combine stylish gestures with real emotional depth. With hundreds of excellent, expressive models at our disposal, why do we period performers still hold to an anachronistic misconception about "rhetoric", while ignoring so much else?
In a sense, I know what these people are trying to say: phrase more, differentiate more, emote more, show more. But are "phrasing, differentiating, emoting, and showing" actually related to musical rhetoric? It appears that many people think so, some even going so far as to distinguish the "romantic" style of mainstream modern players from the "rhetorical" style of period-instrumentalists.
There are a number of problems with this popular viewpoint about early music and rhetoric. First, on the most basic level, the word "rhetoric" meant something very different to 17th- and 18th-century musicians than it does to baroque performers today. Virtually all of the extant sources, from Burmeister to Mattheson, discuss rhetoric in music as an important skill that a composer needs to develop -- not something for a performer to worry about. Upon reflection, this makes perfect sense: treatises constantly compare musicians to orators, and the orator's first task is to consider the argument of his speech and arrange its content accordingly. In music, this is all within the purview of the composer. The 18th-century view of rhetoric was so composer-centric, in fact, that even improvisors seem to have been exempted from thinking about it methodically: most treatises include a separate set of guidelines for the creation of extemporized fantasies.
If this seems a mere linguistic squabble, consider a far deeper problem today's musicians cause when they label playing as "romantic" or "rhetorical": they create a false dichotomy between two equally valid, equally useful, elements of expressive playing. An arresting irony lurks behind the fact that "romantic" musicians often find "rhetorical" performances unmusical, while "rhetorical" musicians often find their "romantic" counterparts unexpressive. But, upon reflection, doesn't this make sense? Should we be surprised that practicing only a single aspect of expressive music-making results in a paltry performance?
In reality, all musicians of all eras have tried to move their listeners in performance. All music tells an emotional story, and a good performer in any style turns that story into an expressive performance. This is as true for Quantz as it is for Heifetz, Rubinstein, or Malcolm Bilson. Not only is the "romantic - rhetorical" dichotomy useless for describing the true beauty of these artists' performances, but it encourages others to limit themselves to a single category. Ultimately, the magic of Heifetz's "romantic" playing is the clear, actor-like portrayal of affects and characters; similarly, in Bilson's "rhetorical" hands, the fortepiano sings with an emotional depth that few modern pianists can match. (Of course, while Bilson's and Rubinstein's expressive goals may be the same, no listener could claim that they play in the same way. But the difference is not a matter of "rhetoric" and "romanticism," but [to extend the comparison with language], of dialect, pronunciation, and hardware.)
A further ill-effect of the "rhetorical" revolution is that it has encouraged grotesque exaggeration in performers. It's one thing to try to get inside of the music, play expressively, and bring this expression to an audience; it's something else to turn "rhetorical gestures" into the main substance of a performance. So many HIP musicians seem to believe that once they've identified an affect, their work is done. The image of Stephen Colbert vowing "to feel the news at his viewers" seems to find an echo in those purely-"rhetorical" musicians who believe that depicting the music at their listeners is enough.
I still find that, despite my professional baroque affiliations, I derive much of my listening pleasure from early- and mid-20th-century recordings, which manage to combine stylish gestures with real emotional depth. With hundreds of excellent, expressive models at our disposal, why do we period performers still hold to an anachronistic misconception about "rhetoric", while ignoring so much else?
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