The present-day musician is used to and trained to reproduce the printed music placed before him with the greatest accuracy and perfection. He expects that practically all the details of interpretation (the sound pattern, tempi, expression, agogics and rubato, articulation and phrasing, even the emotional evaluation) have been set out as clearly as possible by the composer. His imagination has to move only within the confines of these directions and influences only the last refinements of the musical performance. This attitude of “fidelity to the original” has its origins in the second half of the 18th century, but was not expanded until the 19th and 20th centuries: only the composer knows his work in its ideal perfection and he thus tries to establish in written music as unmistakably as possible his image of how it should be. According to this principle, a performance is all the better the nearer it approximates to the composers ideal image. This highly “romantic” standpoint still dominates musical life today. When we consider that only the music of the last 150 years was written under these conditions, we can understand the problems facing the musician, as well as the listener, in the performance of music which accords with completely different criteria. The music of the early 18th century, that is to say, including Händel’s works, shows almost a complete lack of composer’s directions as to the desired performance: instrumentation and setting are often-stated only very vaguely, while widely varying alternative suggestions (such as harpsirhord, organ or harp) give the interpretation of the sound pattern a dimension which is absolutely alien to us; it is difficult to construe the old tempo marks as to what they actually mean, and in many cases they are missing. Expression marks are included in only a few places. Articulation or phrasing signs are usually absent, as are indications of emotion.
Basically there are two ways of solving this problem. a) Nothing is added to the written music. A technically perfect reproduction thus places in the foreground the very pronounced motion peculiar to this music. A certain noble monotony is accounted for by the historical position of this music: splendid, hut nevertheless unemotional preludes to the actual music - the music of the classics. b) The written music is in some way or other arranged, “interpreted”. This can be effected in such a manner that in sound pattern and expression the music is adjusted to symphonic music, resulting in the emergence of an opulent, luxurious tone which with comparatively minor claims produces a high degree of cultural experience; the musical statement is reduced to the sound, the “essential” element of this music not being seen at all; “neo~Baroque” in the sense that forms beyond its context can offer nothing more than superficial pleasures. - The interpretation can also be carried out by trying to ascertain the conventions existing at that time between composers and performers. In this connection it becomes evident that the lack of express directions by no means indicates the omission of corresponding wishes on the part of the composer. On the contrary: the performing musician at that time was far more intensively involved in executing the composition than is the present-day musician. He not only had to play or to sing, but also to establish the work’s emotional statement, its rhetorical dialogue construction, and present it in accordance with his personal temperament. At the same time, wherever it was necessary he had to embellish in a freely improvising manner, the appropriate spots having been either left out by the composer or noted only in skeleton form. This lack of interpretation directions is thus not a shortcoming, but was necessary for this music: the work was intended so to speak to receive its final compositional touch in the hands of the musician, new and different with every performance. The performing artist therefore had to identify himself with it, something which was increasingly possible the more he was himself creatively involved in the actual design of the work. This attitude of the performer towards the work, something completely unusual in our period of so-called serious music, has its origins inter alia in the role which the composers of that time adopted.‘They did not compose in an autobiographical manner (like the composers of the 19th and 20th centuries), but tried to represent general situations, conditions and emotions - always with the object of ensuring that the listener became a different, better person after coming to terms with the work. But even from the standpoint of form, the music of the early 18th century cannot be approached with the criteria of the later theories of musical form. Its structure is drawn primarily from the artistic and natural principles of rhetoric. A movement from a concerto is much more capable of explanation on the basis of an artistic speech or sermon, as set out in numerous text books on rhetoric, than by means of primitive ABA specifications. As a rule the dialogue form was chosen because the convincing defence of theses, as well as the confrontation of various aspects, can best be presented in the form of discussion or conversation.
This also explains the absence of descriptions for expression, articulation and phrasing. It would too much restrict the performers room to manoeuvre, too much curtail his imagination, if the composer prescribed such things. Admittedly the role of expression and articulation is a basically different one in classical and post-classical music. In the one case, expression in the compositionally established form is an irrevocable part of the work, while in the other it is the means to a more understandable pronunciation. This means that the same passage can certainly be played loudly in one interpretation and softly in another without affecting the substance of the music. It is difficult at the present time to assign such an indefinite role to dynamic aspects, which are regarded as the chief interpretative factor. - Nevertheless, also as regards the interpretation of Baroque music dynamic elements, in addition to articulation with which they have a good deal in common, the former is in the foreground. The only thing is that it is an entirely different kind of dynamic expression. It is not a matter of wide tonal areas, far-reaching intensifications, but of the microcosm of musical pronunciation. Every single note must, something like the syllables of spoken words, possess its own expression, a curve which compulsorily determines the beginning and the end of the tone. These linguistic dynamic aspects must also be applied in the case of notes to be articulated in groups, such as coloraturas. The “grand line", the ideal of romantic music, only appears to have been left behind; from many interrelated articulated tonal groups and single notes a fresh overall arc is taking shape in which, however, the construction bricks remain visible, Articulation and expression therefore, according to traditional principles, always have to be added by the particular interpreter.
The dialogue-type element is thus made apparent by a continual change in variously formed motif groups and figures, which are separated by commas and other breaks. This alternation between staccato and legato, from statement to objection, is explained in detail in the old tutorial works.
These considerations were decisive for our performance of Händel’s Organ Concertos. We tried to discover and shape the rhetorical programme of the individual concertos and movements, our aim being during the performance or the recording process to forget at last all the carefully acquired knowledge and to introduce natural and spontaneous music making. We had the feeling of learning a new language, first by spelling out words and translating with the aid of grammar books, until finally we felt we could speak it freely without a thought for grammar and studies.
All the details of interpretation just discussed belong to the field of ornamentation and improvisation which occupies a particularly wide area, precisely in Händel’s organ concertos. In this respect, of course, numerous solos within the movements, in fact entire movements and cadences have to be expressly improvised “ad libitum”, that is to say freely. Furthermore large stretches of the through composed organ part are an invitation to embellish the repetitions, to invent counterparts. In our recording all of these passages were really freely and spontaneously improvised by the organist. Neither the orchestra musicians nor the members of the recording team knew what the organist would actually play during the recording; in cases where the recordings were repeated he almost always played something different. The reason for this genuine improvisation was the unfavourable experience we had on previous occasions with arranged ornamentation. Spontaneity cannot be simulated, and one can hear whether an improvisation has been improvised or not. Thus with every performance these concertos take on a new face, one of which has been captured here.