From the Archives
Twenty years ago: These musings were set off by a timechart showing what was happening in Europe throughout the period 1100 – 1625 in music, art, literature and history generally……
EARLY MUSIC? WHAT IS IT? WHY IS IT?
Of course, we think of Early Music as extending well beyond 1625. How far beyond is debatable but the point is we DO think of Early Music. Why? Why should EARLY Music Fora etc. have sprung up – not only in Britain but on the Continent and in North America, Australia and elsewhere? Is there a comparable “Early Art” movement, or “Early Literature” or “Early Architecture”? Is there a watershed around the year 1700 in any of these other fields? Not to my knowledge at least.
I remember the well-known essayist and music lover Bernard Levin wondering in print on one occasion why such a large proportion of of the great composers were German. I know exactly what he meant. I used to wonder the same thing. But that was when I thought (as Bernard Levin may still think) that serious music began with Bach. In fact, on the timechart out of 26 named composers in the period 1100 – 1625 not one is German.
These Italian, Burgundian, Netherlandish and English composers are “our” composers – “early” composers. You could never hear any of them at the Proms – at least when I used to go (c. 1945). The mould was perhaps first broken in the early 1970’s (I think it was the Palestrina Mass Assumpta est Maria with Andrew Parrot’s choir singing in St Augustine’s, Kilburn – Early Music still hadn’t been allowed to cross the threshold of the Albert Hall itself).
So why this very particular watershed? Why are not Giotto, Van Eyck, Leonardo and El Greco called “Early Painters”, not to be seen in the great art galleries except on rare occasions, and viewed predominantly by members of NEPA (The National Early Pictures Association), NWERF and other ERFs?
John Austin
This article first appeared in the NWEMF Newsletter December 1991, and was then republished in the June 2011 Newsletter
