The whole "Medieval" thing

[CHasR]

Hardly a day goes by when I do not listen to a piece of music crafted prior to 1600. Twas once a speciality of mine, in conservatory: Leonin & Perotin, Dunstable& Dufay, Machaut, deSermisy, Palestrina, Praetorius; fauxbordone, gemellus, organa, the 'Landini' cadence, et.al.
Pretty certain I can still set a tune out of a sheet of heighted neumes, or decipher a mystery canon a la Obrecht & Ockgehem. Always gettin that feelin from Issac, Schutz,& Lawes.
Once the noblest of endeavours; to re create the musicality of yore - but in doing so have we also re created its schtick? NEW ancient music? The 'Medieval Baebes?' Cute, but, please...I 'm still having legitimacy issues with Hildegard of Bingen, thank you very much.
Always being a staunch proponent of 'do whatever you want with your bagpipe'; I now have to ask, "what are we engaging in, musically, while pretending with our medieval reproduction pipes?" Why have so many "medieval pipers" firmly tied the spirit of those times to today's genres, making 'recycled' ancient music? Why has this genre of 'new medievalism' taken hold so deeply, yet only so in certain European countries? If it's acceptable to throw in a Chuck Berry riff on lute, for laughs, at the end of a 14th c piece; then why does having a lengthy shred in an all original death metal band on repro pipes seem a trope too far?
What's really behind all this now? What continued piping traditions are being lost with this ongoing pre-Josquin fascination? It is one thing to reproduce a vanished art; but entirely another to imitate that original art (often with unfaithful licenseciousness) in new work - even when seperated by centuries.
I'm starting this , as I feel the whole medieval thing has irrevocably and completely 'jumped the shark' (as we say in the USA), and in doing so has somehow lessened my appreciation for the beauties created during those miserable times; which were once truly a gem of heritage for us all. Comments?

[Yuri]

Charlie, I read and then re-read the post, cos I didn't quite get your point. is it that you bemoan the "neo-post-existential-punk" style? As opposed to playing (and singing, for that matter) in a way that recreates the original to the closest possible extent?If it is as I thought, the answer is: yes. I suppose the piping world has to go through the torturous process that the classical world already has gone through. Have you ever heard Bach played on the Boesendorfer, in all its glory, complete with the battery of pedals? Or, to be more horrendous, the Elizabethan virginalist's output? The most memorable one I remember is Martin Pearson's "Ye falle of the leafe" from the Fitzwilliam book played on the grand piano. Well, there is a shinig example how to murder a great piece of music by totally inappropriate playing style.
All in all I think these things have to take their course. This time heavy metal is the one. After all, not everyone has the imagination to write music suitable for their times and cultures, but playing in a business suit is sooooo uncool... So we (heavy metallers) just steal some, and pretend it was heavy metal in the first place, eh?

[CHasR]

Charlie, I read and then re-read the post, cos I didn't quite get your point. is it that you bemoan the "neo-post-existential-punk" style? As opposed to playing (and singing, for that matter) in a way that recreates the original to the closest possible extent?If it is as I thought, the answer is: yes. I suppose the piping world has to go through the torturous process that the classical world already has gone through.

mmm: Stowkowski /Bach.
My observation is, that all things 'neo-faux-medieval' have devolved into cliche & kitsch.
My concern is : At what expense?
Example: I piped a few tarantellas to a musician friend that hadnt yet heard the zampogna. Her first response: 'Sounds medieval"..not 'sounds Italian"... this is what Im getting at:
Recreating the Codex Calixtinus, or pasting it onto a soup can.

Impolitely:"musical necrophilia" vs "musical grave-robbing" .

[Yuri]

Erm, weeell, yeaaaahhh... Stokowsky, weeelll, no, not quite. More like Jonny Rotten/Bach.
I'm not sure which, if either, is preferrable, musical necrophilia or musical grave-robbing. I personally stick with musical music.

[projektio28]

Meaning. I think the word to sum up the feelings/frustrations that are being expressed here is meaning. As in, what "meaning" do people take from the various forms of musical expression.

I can see why people dig groups like Medieval Baebes. They evoke something that sounds ancient/medieval without necessarily drawing upon anything that is historically accurate. Having said that, and I really personally love their music, I've never bothered to read the liner notes to see if their chants/songs come direct from medieval texts. If they do, great! If they do not, great! They still sound amazing to me!!

Let's pretend for the moment that MB takes not a single note from any medieval musical manuscript. I don't think that people should feel guilty if they don't know it's not from "historically accurate" music. In fact, they might delve into the liner notes of their CD to discover they are not pulled from such manuscripts, and then choose to source out accurate modern recordings of actual old music. Maybe that leads them to other artists/groups who are closer to 100% accurate. Most people I know never bother to read their liner notes and don't care. But we shouldn't discount their ability to hear something they like and find meaning in it.

Sting recorded a CD called "Songs from the Labyrinth" which took a fairly faithful interpretation of the lute music and song of the English court composer John Dowland. Was there a little poetic license with Sting's interpretation? My ear cannot tell, but knowing Sting, probably. It's still a beautiful collection of Tudor-era songs I would otherwise not have known about.

Are folk metal bands like In Extremo cliche? Or are they helping musicians/people to discover old instruments that might still be hanging on the wall in a dusty museum, had they not decided to incorporate them into their sound? I give them credit for being innovative, but I doubt they feel they are doing anything other than creating new music.

I believe it is the meaning that each of us takes from what we listen to musically that is the most important thing in the world.

Matt

[sean an piobaire]

So Charles..............
The Medi-evil thing that You're talking about, doesn't really have any appeal here in the USA because we don't have a history of Folk Music being "mined" for themes by ART MUSIC composers. Until the appearance of the Piano playing middle class of Europe, who needed
sheet Music for their parlors ( thus freeing Beethoven from dependence on the Nobility &
the Church) the Art Composers re-packaged, re-represented, and developed Folk Music themes, motifs, etc. into Art Music for the elite people who would not go near a Pasture or a Cow Shed.
As Rich people could afford refined White Bread (which became a status symbol along with
White Sugar)......... the Poor people of Europe were given the idea that
their own Folk Music was not worthy enough to listen to, and only Art Music could redeem
them, as being more cultured & intellectual people, fit company on occasion, for the Elites.
Thus, Art Music BECAME a kind of Folk Music of all Europeans, in my opinion.
Europe had this kind of Folk-to-Art "Tradition" for 100s of years all the way back to those dear old Moyen Ages.
Now-a-Days, the "Real" Medieval Music scene is almost totally the preserve of Academics,
playing and listening to each other, along with a very small percentage of Art Music
audiences who mostly listen to Symphonic Music and who find that the "Early" Music is the foundation of all Western Art Music and is delightfully compelling.
I would also like to observe that The Jazz Scene has largely gone Academic as well, but I'm not going to get off on a tangent..........
The Heavy Metal meets Medieval comes through to me as a big "Screw You" to the Art Music scene in Europe, similar to the Punk Music business that "took on" the Pop Music business of the 1970s. Most Punk Bands sounded to me like the worst "Garage" Rock & Bands people who could barely play their instruments, all along with Anti-, Nilist-, Anarcho-, Doom & Gloom lyrics,
badly sung. BUT THEY MADE MONEY AT IT, and it's surprising how long some of the bands have lasted. A fashion statement more then anything else, a Magnet for Poseurs along with the Super Hard Core adherents. EU-ROPE METAL MEDIEVAL is just such a Fashion Swing on a small scale. Would it point people to a larger appreciation for Academic Medieval Music, yea, even playing and making Medieval style Music and Instruments ? I don't know, but there is always people who don't "Fit In" to ANY of the group stereo-types.
As it Happens I'm looking at my DUFAY COLLECTIVE CDs "Miri It Is", "Dance in the Garden of Mirth", "On the Banks of the Seine", and lastly L'Estampida" really great recordings by a wonderful group of Musicians. Hoo-Rah !!! for the Academies !!!!
Sean Doo-Fay Folsom

[s1m0n]

The Medievil thing that You're talking about, doesn't really have any appeal here in the USA because we don't have a history of Folk Music being "mined" for themes by ART MUSIC composers.

Sure you do. See the use of 78-era fiddler Wm. H Stepp's version of Bonaparte's Retreat as the 'hoedown' melody in Aaron Copeland's Rodeo.

[sean an piobaire]

Yes Simon !!!
I really drew you out on that one ! I did not qualify my broad statement for a reason,
& it's just to get a rise out of some C&F readers !!!
I can now add the words <a LONG HISTORY in the USA of Folk-to-Art> Huh?
So I can see that somebody is out there..... BREATHING,
and it's SIMON of (Admiral) Vancouver, B.C. (Ha-HA) !!!
So what about a critique of the rest of my writing ?
Why get hung-up on my 1st sentence ?
Aaron Copeland (born in Brooklyn in 1900, died in 1990, original last name: KAPLAN)
was a Folk Music "Miner", but what about these Americans:
George Gershwin (Brooklyn 1898-1937),
Charles Ives (Danbury Conn.1874-1954),
Roger Sessions (also born in Brooklyn 1896-1985), and so on.
This is a short list, add to it guys !!!
Folk Music into Art Music really was a recent 20th century fashion in the USA,
& maybe for 3 Composers, being born in the crossroads of the USA
at Brooklyn, New York, helped a lot,
as the place featured a very large FOREIGN, ETHNIC population, Hmmmm?
So what about a really long term history of "Mining" in the USA ??? Something that gets into the AIR YOU BREATHE ? We had no Official Church, and we didn't have any Nobility after 1783.....& I'm talking about European History, and as any Continental types
(playing Uilleann Pipes) can tell you, Our History of the USA is mercifully SHORT (and awful) when compared to long term (Awful) European History.
Anything before 1492 is PREHISTORY in the USA.
NOW......... for another un-qualified "DICHO" from me:
I DEFY YOU TO FIND ONE PERSON IN ONE THOUSAND OF MY FELLOW COUNTRYMEN WHO KNOW WHO AARON COPELAND IS (or was), OR A TITLE OF ANY OF HIS MUSIC......
(current population of the USA last time I looked is 387 Million, Please do the math for me)
Oh but they have heard his Music through one medium.....wait for it......
FILM SOUND TRACKS !!!
Which have been around for a short time, circa 1929 on, for the Sound on Film stuff.
Some examples of "Euros" in Film Sound Tracks:
Antonin Dvorak (1841-1904) mined a lot of East (or as some would have Central) European Folk Music, and for my money, his "New World Symphony" has been "Mined" by film "Composers" for countless Western Cowboy shoot-em ups....anything "Medieval" requires the mining of Carl Orff's "Carmina Burana" (1st performance at Frankfurt 1937). Then there's Ralph Vaughan Williams, a Welshman In An English Country Garden. Come on, this is a short list, make it more complete. You'd be surprised how many Euro Composers live in Hollywood...the Brit Graeme Revel comes to mind (He sampled Eric Rigler's Irish Pipes for his keyboard, so he doesn't need a live Piper anymore). More Comments Please Show off your Erudition !!!!
S of F

[sean an piobaire]

BTW: I don't see any HEAVY METAL MEDIUM EVIL ROCK BANDS ON OUR "AMERICAN"
SCENE....are there some bands doing this in Canada then ?
In thine Godda Da Vida, Now........thy BAAAAA-BEEEE !!
Sean

[s1m0n]

The US isn't Hungary, but then again, no other nation comes close to matching the hungarian corpus of folk/classical music. However, the US stands firmly in the second rank with whole bunch of other nations. The us is unlike no other european nation in this regard.

[Yuri]

Well, I don't know about the numbers, but there was quite a bit of much earlier folk tunes mining. In the corpus of the Elizabethan virginalists there is a very considerable number of folk tunes set to the virginal/harpsichord, with the compulsory variations added. they are truly delightful. (This last one sounds like i'm some sort of Victorian lady, but then, hey, language is language. You choose what suits the moment. I mean, I could have said "they are really cool, man.")
And then you go back to a time when probably there was no such thing as separate "folk" music, the time of the Parisian polyphony (Perotin, Leonin etc.) If you listen, there is just too much of tunes (if you listen to them shorn of the other voices, that is) that are very very suspiciously "folksy" sounding. What survived is nearly all church music, and in those times they made a very strong divide between church and secular music. If there is so much "folksy" motifs in church music, just how much was there in secular?
Anyway, to get back more to the point, there is something in old medieval music that seems to appeal to th heavy metal fan. Maybe it's the preponderance of fifths?
By the way, Sean, it makes 3 870 000 people that know what an Aaron Copland is.
And I'm sure you are very well aware that Orff's Carmina Burana has only the text lifted from the original, but not the music.

[Celtpastor]

Here in Europe, the "bagpipe-side" of the "mediaeval"-scene has some very special roots: "Mediaeval-Market"-bagpipes, like You'd hear them on all these InEx, CC a.s.o. recordings - as well as on "historical" reenactments all through Europe, were invented only in early 80es - and never meant to be "authentic" or "reconstructions" in any way by their inventors, such as Klaus Stecker or Jens Guentzel (Roman Streisand actually claims to have invented them - well, he was the first to fix a Stecker-shawn to a set of Pakistani GHB... ). These instruments were developed in the former GDR for the "mediaeval markets" there, which gave people a certain space not entirely controlled by the Stasi. After German reunification, these instruments spread into western Germany and other parts of Europe - suddenly wrongly seen as "authentic reconstructions" by many . In between, they're copied by makers in Belgium, Netherlands, France, northern Italy and some Eastern European countries.
Here, they're the typical "beginner's instrument": Noisy, impressive, incredibly easy to play (open fingering with no technical rules at all - since they're not rooted to any tradition!). Many turn, as soon as they get deeper interest in pipering, to half-open German "Shepherd's Pipes" (following Praetorius' descriptions), played half-open with French fingering-technique. So, it's a funny instrument to start with, but most pipers here won't take those "Market"-Pipers seriuosly... If You follow the iconography - e.g. the typical 13th century carvings in many churches - real mediaeval bagpipes rather looked like the Veuze (only one short drone) than those absurd "Market-monsters"...

[CHasR]

Thank You for clarifying that.
So, are you saying that the very root of the "neo-medieval-bagpipes" idea, was to reach back in time far enough to find an instrument completely undientifiable to the cultural police during the early 1980's, categorize it as an authentic(ressurected) folk tradition, and basically use it to rock-out with decadent western music?
If so: that kind of shakes the foundations of academic perception of period-repoduction bagpipes, dosent it? Also kind-of reinforces my assertion that "medieval music", as a genre, has become total cliche (unless the source MS is quoted and performed according to current scholarship). What are your thoughts?

HI SEAN! howyadoin?

[CHasR]

....., but then again, no other nation comes close to matching the hungarian corpus of folk/classical music.

ahhh, unless one counts the innnumerable zampogna, ciaramella, colascione, vocal, etc melodies (not to mention the Alberti Bass) that every European composer who made the "Grand Tour" ( not to mention the many that didnt) walked away with, after visiting Italy.

[sean an piobaire]

Hi Charles ! I'm doing OK and out in Illinois, only a day and a half drive from Philly.
When are you coming out to visit?
You better explain what an Alberti Bass line is cuz not many here made it to a Conservatory.
Thanks Yuri for doing the Math on Aaron Copeland....I myself could only name Appalachian
Spring, Billy the Kid, and Rodeo as his compositions off-the-top-of-my-head.
There's much more to Copeland than that, as he was 90 years old when he passed away.
I also liked his Mexican Sketches as performed by Lalo Shiffrin on one of his Orchestral albums
around 1968. I had that record in my Vinyl Collection for years and I might still have it.
Quien Sabe ????
Thanks for a brief history of the Modern Markt Pipes Reverend !
Yes Simon, Hungary, in the persons of Bartok Bela, Kodaly Zoltan, Manga Janos & Sarosi Balint
AND the work of so many other people of the Dance House Music movement of the 1980s,
really did a great job for Hungarian Folk Music, so complete it's the envy of the rest of Europe,
me thinks. The first two men I named here did many conversions from "Folk to Art" as well.
It's good to add them to the list. Any more names ?
I looked up the Medieval Baebes web site, looks like the "Celtic Women" show on a smaller
budget, with a Pseudo Medi-twist. Great for reclaiming Britain's past and casting into Pounds Sterling in the present. OH for the Days of the Hansa League !!!!! Sturde Becker Awake !!!!
Zippy-do-DAH !
S.F.
P.S. I mis-spelled Zipity on purpose !!!