Donald writes:

>John Smyth wrote:
>
>>... but it's hard for me to imagine that Verdi would be happy with
>>Gardiner's HIP requiem.
>
>I'm not big on composer intentions, and I wouldn't venture to guess what
>makes Verdi happy.  The significant element to me is not whether Verdi
>would be happy with Gardiner, but whether *I* am happy with Gardiner.
>Verdi isn't buying or listening to the cd.

It's still fun to guess if Verdi would be mortified by a HIP of the Requiem
after he had the chance to hear his music on modern instruments.  Let's
take the ffff Bass Drum thwacks in the Dies Irae--surely an suggestion of
Biblical thunder.  (Indulge me).  Our contemporary bass drums certainly do
the job better.  Why not go one step further and incorporate real thunder
or digital samplings of instruments to erase infallibilities all together?
(A question for the philosophy department--I don't know how to explain why
this would be undersirable, but it would.)

Is there objective evidence available that would suggest that composers
would have a posthumous disposition towards our contemporary "improved"
instruments?

I would be interested in the following:

1) Documentation or hearsay from composers indicating frustration,
(requests to instrument makers, discussions with expert players, journal
entries)

2) Indirect actions or behavior by composers, (dicarded orchestral
passages, re-written passages, high or low notes in parenthesis)

3) Looking at composers whose creative activity encompassed periods of
marked instrumental improvements.  (Composers who have revised older works
with the advent of certain instrumental improvements.)

Don asks:

>(you) feel a need to diminish the world of HIP and go about the business of
>finding deficiences in the concept.  What's the motivation? I have no idea.

Though I know the Truth, (HIP has been an enriching and positive experience
for the art of Music), introducing deficiencies is an old educational
technique called disputation--it causes the "believer" to constantly refine
his "thesis," (in this case, why HIP is beneficial to our understanding and
appreciation of music), and for the "disputer," he is provided the needed
substance behind an accepted Truth.

Of course I could get off my butt and read a book on the subject.....

John Smyth