Early Music revival

Early Music revival
Name	Early Music revival
Period	Renaissance, Baroque, Medieval performance revival
Countries	Various

Early Music revival The Early Music revival describes renewed interest in performing Renaissance and Baroque music and earlier repertoires using historical instruments, techniques, and scholarship. Sparked by antiquarian collectors, national conservatories, and conductor-scholars, the movement reshaped concert hall programming, recording industries, and conservatory curricula across Europe and the Americas. Revivalists engaged with sources such as manuscripts, treatises, and iconography to reconstruct repertories linked to courts, churches, and civic institutions.

Definition and Scope

The revival encompasses performance, editing, instrument-making, and musicological research focused on repertoire from Medieval through Baroque eras, with extension into Classical period practices. It intersects with institutions like the Royal College of Music, Conservatoire de Paris, Juilliard School, Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler Berlin, and publishers such as Breitkopf & Härtel, Oxford University Press, Bärenreiter. The scope includes liturgical traditions of Notre-Dame de Paris, repertories of the Florentine Camerata, and court music of the Habsburg Monarchy, the Spanish Empire, and the Ottoman Empire.

Historical Origins and 19th-century Precursors

Precursors appeared among collectors like Franz Joseph Haydn's patrons and antiquaries such as Franz Anton Hoffmeister; scholars including Franz Xaver Haberl and collectors like Heinrich Schütz's editors revived older scores. The performance of early repertory by ensembles associated with the Gewandhaus Orchestra, the Vienna Philharmonic, and salons of Paris featured arrangements by Felix Mendelssohn, who organized performances at the Gewandhaus and championed works of Johann Sebastian Bach through his association with the Mendelssohn family. Music printing firms such as Nikolaus Simrock and libraries like the British Library, Bibliothèque nationale de France, and Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin preserved source materials that nineteenth-century scholars consulted.

20th-century Revival: Key Figures and Movements

Early twentieth-century pioneers included conductor-scholars Arnold Dolmetsch, Harold Nikolaus, and Albert Schweitzer who promoted organ and keyboard traditions; musicologists like Gustav Jacobsthal, Heinrich Besseler, Gustav Reese, and Hubert Parry produced editions. Mid-century figures such as Gustav Leonhardt, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Alfred Deller, David Munrow, William Christie, Jordi Savall, John Eliot Gardiner, Christopher Hogwood, Ton Koopman, Emma Kirkby, Paul McCreesh, Trevor Pinnock, Masaaki Suzuki, and Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos advanced historically informed performance. Institutions and movements included Early Music Festival initiatives at Aldeburgh Festival, Festival d'Aix-en-Provence, Glyndebourne Festival Opera, Tanglewood, Biennale di Venezia, and broadcast outlets such as the BBC and NHK supporting recordings on labels like Archiv Produktion, Deutsche Grammophon, Harmonia Mundi, Virgin Classics, Erato Records, and Nonesuch Records.

Performance Practice and Authenticity Debates

Debates centered on ornamentation, pitch standards (A=415 Hz vs A=440 Hz), vibrato usage, tempo conventions observed in treatises by Johann Joachim Quantz, Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, Marin Mersenne, Giovanni Battista Martini, and Thomas Mace. Critics and defenders cited work by Leonard Bernstein and commentators at Carnegie Hall and Royal Albert Hall; scholarly interlocutors included Nicholas Temperley, Donald J. Grout, Bruce Haynes, Bruce Dickey, Margaret Bent, Suzanne Cusick, John Butt, and Richard Taruskin. Institutions such as Society for Seventeenth-Century Music and journals like Early Music (journal), Music & Letters, and Journal of the American Musicological Society drove methodological disputes about “authenticity” and reconstruction practices.

Instruments, Editions, and Scholarship

Instrument makers and restorers such as Carl Dolmetsch, Frank Hurley (organ builder contexts), Bernard Billeter, Wim Diepenbrock, and workshops tied to Amati, Stradivari scholarship influenced reconstruction of viols, lutes, harpsichords, baroque violins, and period woodwinds like the recorder, oboe da caccia, and krummhorn. Critical editions from Musica Britannica, Monuments of Music in the Netherlands, The New Bach Edition, Collected Works of Handel, Gesamtausgabe der Werke von Johann Sebastian Bach, The Works of Claudio Monteverdi, and series by Dover Publications and Cambridge University Press provided sources for performance. Musicologists including Gustav Reese, Manfred Bukofzer, Philippe Vendrix, Daniel Heartz, Ettore Beghelli, Stuart A. P. Graham, and Howard Mayer Brown advanced source studies and editorial principles.

Impact on Modern Concert Life and Education

The revival reshaped concert programming at venues like Carnegie Hall, Royal Festival Hall, Wigmore Hall, Teatro alla Scala, and opera houses such as English National Opera, Opéra National de Paris, and La Scala by integrating staged Baroque opera and chamber series. Conservatories including Royal Academy of Music, Conservatorium van Amsterdam, Curtis Institute of Music, Berklee College of Music, Santa Cecilia Conservatory, and university departments at Harvard University, University of Oxford, University of Cambridge, University of California, Berkeley developed curricula in historical performance. Recording awards like the Gramophone Award and Grammy Awards recognized period-performance recordings, influencing programming at festivals such as Oregon Bach Festival, Festival of Early Music (Victoria), and broadcasting by BBC Radio 3.

Regional Developments and Notable Ensembles and Festivals

In the United Kingdom ensembles such as The English Concert, The Academy of Ancient Music, The Monteverdi Choir, The Tallis Scholars, The Sixteen, and festivals like Cheltenham Music Festival and Greenwich Early Music Festival were influential. Continental Europe hosted Il Giardino Armonico, Les Arts Florissants, Concerto Italiano, La Petite Bande, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, La Chapelle Royale, La Folia Barockorchester, and festivals at Salzburg Festival, Festival Oude Muziek Utrecht, Bachfest Leipzig, Festival de Saintes, Festival Internacional de Música Antigua de Úbeda y Baeza. North American developments included Tafelmusik, Fretwork, Boston Early Music Festival, Aston Magna, Early Music Vancouver, Alfred Deller Consort-related projects, and ensembles tied to Juilliard and Eastman School of Music. In Spain and Latin America, groups like Al Ayre Español and festivals in Seville and Buenos Aires promoted Iberian repertory; in Japan, ensembles led by Masaaki Suzuki and festivals in Tokyo and Kyoto advanced Japanese engagement with Western early repertoires.

Category:Music revivals