William Jenks wrote:

>At what point in a performer's training and/or career does one typically
>start take up older instruments and study the other issues that go along
>with HIP? Is this something that almost any college music performance major
>would study? I understand that the elite performers are specialists, but
>I'm thinking more of young people who are looking to get into a music
>career.

I've no authoritative information on this overall question, except to say
that from my own experience finding teachers willing to start with the
teaching of HIP techniques to a five-year old, and finding an appropriate
sub-scale Baroque violin for said child are no easy tasks:-)

However, it seems that by the time students reach college, there
are options available, at least at some music schools.  Whether the
students are *ready* for HIP training is another thing, of course.  As an
illustration, I recently received an email from a friend in the UK, who is
also friends with the Baroque violinist Sigiswald Kuijken.  He invited her
to sit in on a master class he was giving at London's Royal College of
Music earlier this spring.  Her overall assessment (which she says was
reflected in SK's need to restrain himself at times) was that by and large
the students weren't up to it, and needed vastly more work in learning
Baroque style and grace, even if they had the "right" instruments.  And
this in the land of the Academy of Ancient Music and the London Classical
Players!

That said, I think that most of the well known folks who play in the HIP
style began their studies at university, and honed their skills in the
years subsequent.

But that doesn't mean that "old dogs" can't learn new tricks.  A case in
point--in the early 1980s I attended a concert in Boston that featured
Joseph Silverstein (then still the concertmaster of the Boston Symphony)
and a HIP orchestra, I think mostly from the New England Conservatory.  I
forget all the details, but Silverstein had evidently been learning some
HIP techniques, and proceeded to play the Bach concerti and other works
using a gut-stringed instrument and a lighter bowing style, with lessened
vibrato.  Whether he had all the "moves" down to second nature like a
Kuijken would is subject to dispute (and my fuzzy memory), but there was
no doubt the difference in sound and style.  I did find my estimation of
Silverstein, both for his openness as well as his musicianship, going up
considerably.

Bill H.