Pablo Massa wrote:
>Since 20 years or little more, the recording market offers almost
>everything concerning Medieval and Renaissance music. I'm not sure
>whether there's anything among these repertoires that hasn't
>been recorded yet (unless it hasn't been discovered yet).
I tend to believe the opposite, that there's TONS of stuff that's sitting
in vaults, monasteries and the like that hasn't been performed for 400
years and more. (Whether something catalogued is considered "discovered"
is subject to debate, perhaps).
As a different case in point, think of the dances from Praetorius'
"Terpsichore". There have been many recordings of music from that
collection, but they often tend to be out of the same several dozen
that have been recorded before, whereas there must be several HUNDRED
in "Terpsichore" that have yet to make it to the studio.
>My questions are:
>
>1) Was there actually a "boom", or the spectrum of ancient
>music recordings simply grew along (or proportionally to) the increasing
>global discographic offer?.
My own purely personal observation over the last 25-30 years is that the
proportion of the so-called "classical" recordings repertoire consisting of
Med/Ren has been holding its own, if not growing. Globally, the opposite
may be true, if the percentage of classical music with respect to the
market keeps dropping, as is often said.
{In thinking of "Medieval" music, I tend in my own mind to neglect
plainchant, as in the "Gregorian" type--though Hildegard's style of
plainchant seems less relentlessly "Dark Ages" in its style as performed
nowadays, so I'd include it in the Medieval mix. But that's purely
arbitary on my part.}
>2) If it existed, how exactly may this discgraphic "boom" be dated?.
I've read that some folks consider the modern "boom" to have begun in the
50s, with the LPs put out by the New York Pro Musica led by Noah Greenberg.
"The Play of Daniel" on Decca is one that's often cited, though hardly the
first in the series. There certainly have been earlier recordings, such as
the Monteverdi Madrigals done in the 1930s with Nadia Boulanger's group.
But Monteverdi may be a bit late in style for this particular thread.
Todd McComb's Early Music FAQ site has much more information, such as:
http://www.medieval.org/emfaq/performers/nypm.html
for groups such as the Pro Musica. However, the place to start is here:
http://www.medieval.org/emfaq/
>2) Why happened then and not before?.
Probably lots of reasons--lacking the knowledge to interpret the older
manuscripts, or to "flesh out" the often sparse notation. Lack of
knowledge how to APPROACH the music, or perhaps lack of the techniques
needed to pull it off. All of these took time to figure out.
But it's all speculation on my part, and I'm sure more knowledgeable List
members like Todd will point out the errors in it.
Bill H.
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