Donald Satz wrote:

>>What I still don't appreciate is that King does not employ female
>>soloists.  Does anyone else on the list have a problem with that aspect
>>of the performance?

Denis Fodor replies:

>Not here.  Back in Bach's day the socially correct role of women was
>pretty much limited to Kinder, Kueche, Kirche.  For a HIP band striving
>for historical correctness, today's political correctness must, alas,
>be superseded.  Such is the stuff of music's wonderful agony.

Good Grief!  I'm not a performing musician of any sort, so maybe I'm out of
the loop.

Unless the HIP *performance* is more important than the HIP *musicianship,*
that's absurd.  Last I knew, for example, AAM had female players.

We could apply that standard to lots of different criteria (race,
religion....) To reduce the argument to absurdity, in Bach's day, there
were very few soloists who had survived appendicitis or any of a huge list
of other diseases.  Does that disqualify a soloist too?

Finally, unless your PC crowd is more virulent than the ones I know, they
don't complain at, say, "HIP Shakespeare" where all the parts are played by
men and this is an integral part of the performance...so let's not get out
of hand about the Great Significance of Music Over Political Correctness.

My personal view is that an HIP band that insists on all male soloists
is putting on a musical play, not a concert.  Fine, I say, but I'm more
interested in a concert.

Feeling just a little more PC than I did half an hour ago,:-)

William Jenks