You know, I know this will sound horrible to some, but I wonder if
anyone shares my feeling: This new acronym, HIP, makes me slightly
uncomfortable. It is of course sort of cool, sort of, well, hip, but
there is something vaguely snobby, elitist, and insulting about it.

I am a performer (are you all tired of these shameless
plugs?--http://www.serafinotrio.com there I did it anyway) and I play
on modern instruments. Fine. They're not the same instruments as Bach
or Mozart heard, perhaps, mine was made in 1937, but they're pretty
close, basically it comes down to steel vs. gut strings. And I resent the
implication that since I don't play on gut strings and use slightly more
vibrato than a "HIP" performer, that I am not playing in a "historically
informed" way.

I think a lot about the historical perspective of whatever work I am
performing (see previous post Re: Amadeus, a decidedly hip, unHIP film)
and the implications by the HIPsters that I am somehow not HIP strike
me as false and misleading and rather insulting. How is it possible *not*
to be historically informed if you are a conciencious, thinking musician?
Why are certain performance practices (attack, bow stroke, dynamic range,
rubato interpretation of subito pianos and tenuto marks) less historically
informed than others.

I am *not* putting down original-instrument performers in the least.
Some of my best friends hardly vibrate at all in Mozart.  Please understand
that.  But the term HIP is, to me, as offputting as Politically Correct,
and as insulting.

Dave Runnion
www.serafinotrio.com