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West Coast Baroque
| Article
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18221 |
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Section : |
THE ARTS
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| Issue
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10 / 1990 |
1,535 Words |
| Author
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Philip Kennicott
Philip Kennicott, based in New York, is a writer on
performance arts. |
The early music movement has been so fashionable of late that one might think it was a recent invention. Not true. If the current generation of harpsichordists, viol players, and Bach specialists wanted to trace their musical genealogy, they could draw the family tree all the way back to Felix Mendelssohn, who effectively began the movement some 160 years ago in Berlin by introducing Europe to the wonders of the forgotten "old Bach." Although the family history clearly goes back several generations or more, the movement's recent and rapid strides into the main stream of classical music has led some observers to label the current crop of early music performers the "second generation."
For a decade or more this second generation has distinguished itself from its forebears by achieving popular success. From London, the unofficial capital of the movement, a steady stream of advances, both in terms of repertoire and artistic quality, has been eagerly snapped up by the public. The Renaissance and Baroque, once the traditional hunting ground of first-generation performers, have been pushed into the background as the Classical composers - Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven - are explored, studied, and recorded. Figures such as Roger Norrington, leader of the widely acclaimed London Classical Players, are pushing the limits of so-called "early music" by performing and recording nineteenth century composers such as Berlioz. Such pioneers have an almost cult popularity with eager audiences.
Against this background, it has always seemed strange that the United States has never fostered a world-class period instruments orchestra. Indeed, in New York, the self-proclaimed cultural hub of the country, a remedy was finally devised in the form of the
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