This Jause is an excerpt from Classical Cake, Op. 15. In this excerpt, we’re talking with Martin Haselböck, founder and music director of Orchester Wiener Akademie, about historically informed performance.

TRANSCRIPT

How would you describe historical performance practice or historically informed performance?

It's a mixture of research and practical life.

I think the balance is not always easy to keep because you have to study, you have to read… But, at the same time, you have to be careful that your own inspiration — your own personal style — doesn't disappear behind the books.

So, the problem is to have your personal style, your personal narration — but based on enough scientific and historic evidence. We have to put our own interpretation in a scheme. You lever it where some extremes are wrong, and if you don't look for the extremes, you're boring because it's flat. So something in between means interpretation for me.

Are there any special considerations that you keep in mind specifically because you work with period instruments?

I've worked a lot with modern orchestras too and, for sure, you have a sound in your ear. You know you can achieve a sound.

There are already some very characteristic examples: for instance, in the Mozart slow movements or operas, you have always this balance of flute, then the first violins and bassoon in octaves, which is one beautiful sound on period instruments because it melds automatically.

With modern instruments, it doesn't meld automatically. But, you have this sound in your ear and then you tell your flute player, please play a little bit darker in your color. And you tell the violins that you have to dominate the sound a little bit more. So you learn a lot which you can use for modern instruments.

Why should today's musicians be exposed to these period instruments?

In the normal orchestras right now in Europe, if you're a trumpet player and you apply for a job, you have to be able to play baroque trumpet. The same with horn.

For the woodwinds, it's difficult. Clarinets can switch. Oboes cannot switch so easily, it's a different study.

But, I would recommend… I would tell any young player try to get both, historic and modern.