The Concept of Tradition in the Early Music Movement

Jerzy's question:

On page 6 of Shelemay's Toward Ethnomusicology of the Early Music Movement: Thoughts on Bridging Disciplines and Musical Worlds Shelemay writes "I draw the analogy between 'The Lost World' and the BEMF not because either seeks to resurrect a lost path, but because of the manner in which both of these endeavors construct and transform the past in the present..." This brings to mind Handler and Linnekin's ideas on re-inventing tradition.



For those who have seen "The Lost World," write a 2-3 page response breaking down this analogy making sure to reference Handler and Linnekin. For those who haven't seen the film, write a response on the early music movement as it pertains to the re-inventing of tradition.

I haven't seen "The Lost World" since I was little, so I went for the second option. My response:



In “Tradition, Genuine or Spurious,” Handler and Linnekin define tradition as “a model of the past…inseparable from the interpretation of tradition in the present,” noting that “[T]he ongoing reconstruction of tradition is a facet of all social life, which is not natural but symbolically constructed” (276). Their definition stands in contrast to earlier models, such as Shils’ which distinguished “genuine” from “spurious” traditions based on their relationship to past practice. Handler and Linnekin present Hawaiian and Quebecois communities as case studies, arguing that their traditions are genuine regardless of how consciously reconstructive or “naively inherited” they are.

In “Toward an Ethnomusicology of the Early Music Movement,” Shelemay describes a musical community that fits into this conception of tradition in a unique way. She acknowledges the general perception of the early music movement assumes that its primary goal is to present historically accurate reenactments of Renaissance (and other “early” Western) music. Interviews with members of the movement, however, contradict this perception. The performers have a range of reasons for playing early music – surprisingly, several cite a desire for freedom. Joel Cohen describes people getting involved because they could “make it theirs” – he himself “wanted some space” (9). These musicians understand that it is impossible to be entirely faithful to the past, in part because of the limit of historical knowledge. They are aware that the very study of past performance practices that informs their music-playing renders it distinct from the music of the past – to quote Cohen again, “[N]obody ever did that before…they just played.”

This attitude on the part of early music players suggests that they conceive of tradition in the same way as Handler and Linnekin. In accepting the idea that one’s interpretation of the past inevitably influences any attempt at recreating it, one’s outlook on faithfulness to the past understandably broadens. The variety of approaches to early music described by Shelemay – from re-arranging pieces to fit different instrumentation to adapting past performance practices to modern pieces – with its lack of concern for being labeled “spurious,” reflects this newer conception of tradition.

To be fair, the early music movement does not have the same concerns as the Hawaiian and Quebecois communities described in Handler and Linnekin. Though the idea of tradition is common to them all, early music players stand out in that they are not defining their collective identity with their treatment of traditional practices. That is, Hawaiians/Quebecois perform what they consider traditional practices partly as a way of marking themselves as authentically Hawaiian/Quebecois. Early music players, on the other hand, have a variety of goals in their performance. The analogous goal might be to mark themselves as authentic re-enactors of early music, but I would argue that the additional level of removal here – they do not present themselves as having inherited the tradition, but simply as having chosen to perform something from the past – makes it different.

In addition to the conceptions of tradition of early music players themselves, there are the attitudes of the listening public to consider. As Shelemay notes, “the ‘otherness’ of the past remains ever-present, both a motivating force and strong drawing card for…many in the audience (as well as critics in the media), who revel in productions of works ‘you read about in history books but never hear’” (9). I imagine that this “drawing card” creates a commercial temptation for musicians to misrepresent the historical faithfulness of their performance. If the public has an appetite for a genuine recreation of the court of Louis XIV, reservations about tradition in the manner of Handler and Linnekin will remain backstage.