Home >  A & E

Friday, October 26, 2001

By Andrew Druckenbrod, Post-Gazette Classical Music Critic

Embracing paradox and odd logic is part of the territory with an early music performer. Violinist Andrew Manze (Man-zee) has not only walked that fine line, but hoisted it up to a high-wire act of great entertainment and excitement.

		ANDREW MANZE AND RICHARD EGARR Where: Synod Hall, Oakland. When: 8 p.m. tomorrow. Tickets: $8-$30. 412-682-7262.

The 36-year-old British performer didn't wrest period performance from the clutches of the academics in the '70s, but he has taken the new approach to a new level. Whether with harpsichordist Richard Egarr, with the trio Romanesca or as orchestral director of the Academy of Ancient Music, Manze delivers fiery, expressive performances of early music usually given somber, boring treatment. His playing makes baroque music more accessible while actually increasing its artistic credibility. I caught up with him while he was still in Oxford, England, prior to his appearance tomorrow sponsored by the Renaissance & Baroque Society.

You are lucky in a sense that you had a generation of period musicians before you that broke the ice with regard to classical music. Do you feel that?

Today I had lunch with Christopher Hogwood, who in many ways is one of those figures ... I was listening to his records when I was a student. They were the pioneers, that generation. They did all the hard work to get period music accepted ... They've made life much easier for people of my age, because I can now do a concert with a baroque violin and the audience is not surprised. They are not thinking, "What's that weird noise?" A lot of the hard work was done by the pioneers like Hogwood, Nicolas Harnoncourt, Gustav Leonhardt.

So what's the role of the new generation?

I feel now it is our job -- the younger players like me -- to follow in their footsteps and maybe because we have more time and opportunity, we can sweep up some of the things they just didn't have time to do. One of my inspirations on playing the baroque violin is the fantastic German Reinhard Goebel. He made a wonderful record in the '70s of German music before Bach. For the last 10 years I have gradually been playing all the music of each of those composers. [Goebel] did a record of one piece from each.

How did you get into baroque music?

When I discovered baroque music myself it was actually thanks to some friends, one of whom is Richard Egarr. They encouraged me to try the music, and so I tentatively did with their help. After I dipped my toe into the music, as it were, I then realized how comfortable and natural a home I had found in baroque repertory -- this was where I should be. At that time I was a student at Cambridge University, but I wasn't a music student. I was actually studying classics, Latin and Greek. I went to study at the Royal Academy.

You play with a passion and aggressiveness that is or at least had been, untypical for early music players. What drives this?

I was learning the music with friends and we were all of the same mind, let's experiment, let's try things. No one was saying you can't do that. I only read the books after I had that initial love affair with the music. I didn't allow the books to paint the picture of the music for me.

I sort of had an instinct for how music should go, and then I read the books to see whether it confirmed my instincts or denied it. I find generally that books are written by musicians and I found that, at heart, whatever strong rules [there are], there is always room for personal freedom inside of them, even the very strict ones.

Mozart's father wrote a book on how to play the violin, but even so he is writing for a middle-of-the-road amateur or young professional. But all along there's an assumption that the top soloists don't need to read this book. The brilliant soloists at that time and arguably over the last 400 years, have been outside the rules. I am not saying I am a brilliant musician.

The great composers were great players that were so brilliant that they re-wrote the rules. Now if we play the music within prescribed limits that they weren't within, then we are maybe not doing the music justice.

Now that you are directing the period music flagship, the Academy of Ancient Music, do you consider yourself a spokesman for early music?

I don't really believe in the concept of early music. Whenever I do a concert, the fact that the piece I am playing is 200 or 300 years old isn't in my mind at that moment. What I am thinking is that I am performing this piece for this audience right now, and there is a sense of it being very contemporary. I have done a lot of early music and I have specialized in it, and that suggests that I am not interested in other sorts of music. I generally love music and I will very happily listen to somebody playing Brahms.

But you use a period instrument, make your own editions and pay attention to treatises of the time on playing, right?

I use the baroque equipment -- the violin and the bow and the gut strings -- not so much because I have a historical view or there is something ethical about it. I use it because I love the sound and the feel of it in the repertoire. This is going to sound silly, but the baroque violin is the best violin to use for baroque music. What I mean is the way the instrument makes colors, it treats the music so well. It's a very sensual reason because of how it feels rather than an intellectual one of what it is.

Some people have criticized me, saying my Bach is too south European instead of north European -- too sunny rather than cold. I don't mind that, because I play Bach the way I do and there's not much I can do about it short of playing in a dishonest way. There are many quotations in the old literature about how we must make an instrument sing as expressively as the human voice.

Can you tell me a little about the program you will perform?

Richard and I are working on the Corelli Sonatas quite intensively at the moment. We are bringing a Handel and Bach and Corelli program. Corelli links the two. By special request I am also playing the Bach Toccata and Fugue, the famous organ one, that was probably not written for organ. We don't know what it was written for, many suspect that the violin is the next obvious instrument. In my version, I tried to constrict myself to the sort of violin writing that Bach used himself.

Will you be improvising in this concert?

Yeah, I will be, particularly in Corelli. We supposedly have some of his ornaments written down. I am not going to do them, because they are his and were written down for musicians who weren't able to improvise themselves -- slavishly using his ornaments wasn't a good idea.

That's one of the early music Catch-22s. You don't have much information on how past players improvised, but when you do find cadenzas and or some ornaments written out, it's bad to play them!

It's a paradox that we face: We have originals, which maybe means we shouldn't do them. That ornament should be something improvised and of the moment. I don't regurgitate ornaments -- they are fresh every day.

Is there a theme you want to get across in this concert?

Not really a theme, but this music is all written within two decades. I hope what people will get is how much variety, how different all the pieces are. I think Bach and Handel would be groaning about how highly faithful performances have been. Safety was not what they were after -- freedom of individual expression and seeing how far you could go.