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User Name Thread Name Subject Posted
GUEST,Anne Lister sans cookie Playing medieval music medievally (83* d) RE: Playing medieval music medievally 22 Aug 18


I'm baffled by the contributors to this thread who are concerned with what a modern audience might or might not like, or whether the performances are "an acquired taste". As there is a considerable amount of contemporary music that isn't to my taste I am wondering why people think we should make historically informed performances fit in with their own predilections.
Returning briefly to my own focus, there are some aspects to the story I'm working on which are not in line with modern views (for example, there is a very unpleasant character who is described in graphic detail as a leper ... today's audiences have told me they feel uneasy about this as these days we have sympathy with the sick) - but my exploration of how the story works is altered profoundly if I try and accommodate modern audience expectations. It may be that once I've completed my studies and simply take the story on the road as a story I may make adaptations, but the point really is one that keeps cropping up with some traditional songs: are we preserving history or tradition if we alter lyrics, music or stories to fit in with contemporary tastes? It's a philosophic point I first remember reading about in Borges - if someone today writes Don Quixote, is it as valid as when Cervantes wrote it?   
The bigger point, though, is that medieval music won't be to everyone's liking, and nor should it be. It may not have been to everyone's liking when it was first composed, either.


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