Don replies to my post, that since Bach did not specify instruments for MO
and AofF, they should only exist on paper:

>John's just playing "word games", operating as if the only way he can
>define "HIP" is in the most strict manner.

Nyet.  My point is that Bach's music is in the polyphony, which can stand
alone-- apart from instrumentation.  Of course Mahler played "on whatever
is available" would certainly be detrimental to his vision of the final
product, being that he labored long and hard while orchestrating and
revised constantly.

>But, neither the HIP movement nor modern instrument performances of past
>music is about semantics; it's about *music*.

I would go further and say it's about the composer's intentions regarding
his music--realized *and*, if I dare say, unrealized.

The big question is, would composers like Bach embrace instrumental
improvements and demand that the instruments of his time to be thrown in
the trash can? Of course we don't know what went on in the composers mind,
but we do have hints.

Take the Well Tempered Clavier--(the research wasn't hard, found it on
page 1) One of the only directives is that these works are to be played in
a cantabile, or singing style.  With this in mind, would Bach choose the
harpsichord, clavichord, the forte piano, or the modern piano? Come now,
you know what the answer would be.....natural selection isn't just confined
to living things!

I understand how increasingly large orchestras can disrupt balance, and
instrumental improvements can cause havoc in certain infamous passages,
(such as the horn whoops that never made sense in the finale of Berlioz'
Sinfonie Fantastique, until the original horns were resurrected), and that
strings from posterity can be more agile than their modern couterpart; but
I'm not ready to give up modern string resonance and brass/woodwind
reliability for advantages that can be readily tended to by an alert
conductor and players.

If the HIP mov't brought people's attention to these matters, that's great;
but it's hard for me to imagine that Verdi would be happy with Gardiner's
HIP Requiem, or that Vaughan Williams, the god of glow, would be happy with
Argo's release of his music on catgut.  (The New Queen's Hall Orchestra)

John Smyth