Classical music’s past is more radical than we think

“I wouldn’t want to hear recreations of my works’ first performances, as they were mostly dreadful.” So said the French conductor and composer Pierre Boulez to me, in a typically wry fashion, when we were discussing the art of historically informed performance.

Nevertheless, historical recreations fascinate me. Concerts are, by their nature, living things, but these recreations add context and insight to performances which were created in the moment. They offer ways of telling stories to audiences about how programmes are shaped and tastes have changed over the years. 

This is not preserving music in aspic – recreations are an act of living heritage.

For example, at the 2019 Aldeburgh Festival, the tenor Mark Padmore recreated Schubert’s famous benefit concert of 1828 which required chamber groups, solo singers, instrumentalists and a choir. It was a fascinating experience to have the concert put in context by accompanying talks and articles and hear the juxtaposition of famous and less well-known works, selected by Schubert himself, and given new life by some of today’s leading musicians. The experience allowed us a fresh glimpse into Schubert’s world, his circle of friends and the context in which the pieces were heard, without the limitation of just one musical line-up.

Sometimes altering the original programme can enhance its effect, allow us to seek new meaning. This year at Aldeburgh, we will recreate the festival’s first-ever concert from 1948, but will replace the new work then (God’s Grandeur by Martin Shaw) with the first performance of a new trumpet concerto by Robin Haigh (one of our Young Artists Programme alumni). Thus, new talent can both learn from the old and inform it.

We are also giving our audience the chance to experience a wonderful programme from 1961 when Rostropovich and Britten gave the premiere of Britten’s Cello Sonata (alongside Debussy, Schubert and Schumann), and marking the anniversary with heritage bellringing in our three festival churches (but have not tempted fate by organising the Aldeburgh ballooning events of past years!).

These days the big repertory pieces, such as romantic symphonies, are usually in the second half of the concert: contemporary audiences expect an evening to build to a dramatic conclusion. However, when I ran the BBC Proms, I planned a programme recreating that in which Mahler’s Fifth was premiered: it was placed in the first half, which stemmed from an era when Mahler’s symphonic output was less fashionable. After the interval were Schubert songs and a Beethoven overture. As that day would have been Stockhausen’s 80th birthday, we inserted the Proms premiere of his orchestral piece Punkte. I feared that no one would be left in the Albert Hall after the interval, but the audience got the idea and were up for the challenge.

Yet recreations can be too easy a hook for lazy programmers and there is no excuse for recreating a bad programme. Mahler conducting his fourth symphony followed by a performance of the same piece, when he presented it for the first time in Amsterdam, would have been fascinating to hear at the time, with no recordings available with which to get to know it. But without the man himself there is no reason to recreate it now – the music is so familiar that it does not need a repeat hearing as it did when it was brand new.

The past is also more radical than we sometimes care to imagine. If the first-ever Last Night of the Proms from 1895 was re-presented it would remind the audience (and commentators who need to have their opinions challenged by the facts) that the Last Night of the Proms has evolved over the years and that traditions can be made fit for purpose for the times in which we live. A recreation can remind us about the way in which tastes and fashions have changed and sometimes offer a reason to dive into unfamiliar musical territory. So the Last Night programme would feature a second half of music by Hawley, Wagner, Röckel, Grieg, Verdi, Cowen, Cavallini, Parry (not Jerusalem), Mascheroni, Paderewski, Thomas, Casella, Braham and Koenig. 

A recreation would allow us to investigate forgotten composers and celebrate Proms history. Bring in other music, to diversify and enrich the programme, and you strengthen the experience. 

The writer Somerset Maugham was right in saying that heritage should be a guide and not a jailer. So, let’s allow rare music to be heard, social, historical and cultural discussions to be kickstarted and an audience, new and familiar, to be given an unusual and intriguing musical diet – without a hint of aspic.

Roger Wright CBE is Chief Executive of the Britten Pears Arts. The 1961 recreation is on June 14 (Radio 3, June 24) and the 1948 recreation on June 15 (Radio 3, June 17). Info on the Aldeburgh Festival: brittenpearsarts.org