Practice in Context: Historically Informed Practices in Nineteenth-Century Instrumental Music

Historical performance research is undergoing a transformation as the research from different centers intersects in new ways. Practice in Context reflects this vibrant, diverse, and evolving field.

The Historically Informed Performance --shorted to HIP-- movement first dipped its toe into the nineteenth century by tackling the symphonies of Beethoven in the nineteen eighties. Since then, there has been a burgeoning of performances and recordings of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century repertoire on period instruments. But the advance of HIP into post-Classical repertoires has exposed the specific challenges nineteenth-century historical performance styles present to a ’period’ movement that is characterised by crisp, clean, light playing. Historically evidenced nineteenth-century style remains elusive to many professional performers even after four decades of marketing ’period’ performances of this repertoire. A real transformation of professional post-Classical HIP will only be possible if scholars and performers start to find new ways to inter-relate, which is central to the work of many of the contributors to this book. Editors Claire Holden, Eric F. Clarke, and Cayenna Ponchione-Bailey have brought together a diverse group of international contributors to present different perspectives and offer new possibilities to performers, scholars, and scholar-performers.

The book addresses a diverse range of pressing and exciting topics in nineteenth-century historically informed practices, focusing on new kinds of research that move away from traditional treatise archaeology. These include multi-disciplinary approaches, such as the use of empirical methods in the study of present-day HIP performance practices, and increased contextualisation through a closer relationship with cultural and social musicology. Practice in Context brings together scholars and performer/scholars who are interested in how historical research can contribute to greater understanding of the musical priorities and artistic decision-making processes when performing nineteenth-century pieces.

Claire Holden was awarded an AHRC (UK) Fellowship in the Creative and Performing Arts in 2010 (researching early nineteenth-century violin playing) working at Cardiff University as a researcher and teaching HIP modules. Claire joined the University of Oxford as Research Fellow in 2014, becoming Principal Investigator on the 5 year, AHRC-funded Transforming Nineteenth-Century Historically Informed Practice in 2016. As a violinist Claire performs with many period-instrument ensembles and has been a member of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment since 2000. She gives lectures, workshops and masterclasses in many UK and European universities and conservatoires.

Eric F. Clarke is Emeritus Professor of Music at the University of Oxford, and an Emeritus Fellow of Wadham College. He studied neuroscience and music at the University of Sussex and completed a PhD in psychology at the University of Exeter. He held posts at City University, London, was J. R. Hoyle Professor of Music at the University of Sheffield, and Heather Professor of Music at Oxford. He has published on various topics in the psychology of music, ecological approaches to music perception, musical meaning, music and consciousness, and musical creativity. He is a member of Academia Europaea, and a Fellow of the British Academy.

Dr. Cayenna Ponchione-Bailey is an orchestral conductor and Director of Performance at St Catherine’s College, University of Oxford. Her research focuses on the social-psychological and socio-political aspects of orchestral music-making; from the intricacies of co-performer communication in modern and historically informed contexts, to the politics of participation and orchestras’ geo-political significance. She completed her doctorate in Music at the University of Oxford under the supervision of Eric F. Clarke, was a post-doctoral researcher on the Transforming 19th-Century Historically Informed Practice at Oxford and has held a Leverhulme Early Career Research Fellowship at the University of Sheffield.