Historical Performance Archives

Conversation with Margriet Tindemans (1996)

Dutch-born Margriet Tindemans is one of the most sought-after players of early bowed string instruments world-wide. She directs the Northwest Center for Early Music Studies and is on the faculty at the University of Washington. She has recorded for Harmonia Mundi Germany and France, Erato, Accent, Classical Masters, EMI, Smithsonian Collection, Eufoda, CRD, Koch International Classics, and Wildboar. I thought it would be interesting to read the views of an Early Music specialist, since we often read what the typical cellist thinks of the Early Music world. In other words, we get to hear from the "other side" in this interview. For those of you who don't know, when an Early Music person refers to a "Modern Cellist" they are referring to the typical cellist today, who does not attempt [...]

By Tim Janof|2022-08-22T14:21:22-04:00August 30th, 2021|Categories: Internet Cello Society Archive, Artistic Vision, Beyond the Traditional, Interviews, Performance, Repertoire|Tags: Historical Performance, Authenticity, Viola da gamba, Early Music, Performance Practice, Bach, Ornamentation, lntonation|

HIP, To Be Fair — by Brant Taylor

During my years in high school and college, discussions of what is now referred to as historically informed performance (HIP) could generally be summed up like this: a player belonged either to the “modern/romantic” camp or to the “authentic baroque-y” camp. Highly impressionable students forming fledgling opinions tend to view such things through an unnecessarily black-and-white lens. But something’s also changed in the larger musical community’s awareness and acceptance of what “historically informed” means. While a certain tribalism existed during the early decades of the HIP movement, today we are in a more enlightened and accepting place where, for example, wonderful and highly varied performances of Bach’s Cello Suites are noticed first for their musical merit rather than for whether the player uses gut strings or an endpin. In teaching [...]

By Brant Taylor|2022-03-07T00:11:22-05:00December 17th, 2015|Categories: Artistic Vision, In the Practice Room, Performance, Repertoire, Self Discovery, Teaching|Tags: Brant Taylor, Historical Performance, Chicago Symphony, cellobello, CSO|

On “What Makes a Baroque Cellist”: Foreign Languages (Part 2) — by Guy Fishman

In the previous segment of this blog post I began providing an attempt at an answer to “What Makes a Baroque Cellist.” I ended with the assertion that what unites many of my favorite early-music practitioners—who in fact often enjoy active careers playing music from all eras, including our own—is a love for language. I promised that this love is what helps define a “baroque” player, at least of the sort that I admire. I’d like to illustrate how this is in the following. There are volumes upon volumes written by brilliant women and men on the causes for the dawn of late-nineteenth century isms: Expressionism, Cubism, Dadaism, then Neoclassicism, Minimalism, etc. When tonality had outlived its usefulness to some composers, they created new languages. Their favorite performers had the [...]

By Guy Fishman|2017-10-30T05:05:17-04:00September 15th, 2014|Categories: Artistic Vision, Baroque, Self Discovery|Tags: cello, language, Baroque, Guy Fishman, Historical Performance, Bach|