Alfred Hook Lecture Series – Clive Brown: Re-connecting with the Past

Twentieth-century modernism focused strongly on the ‘law of progress’. Advances in scientific knowledge and technological skill encouraged the notion that artistic judgement, too, was superior to that of the past. This notion, which was particularly strong in musical performance, encouraged the idea that past practices should be replaced by new ones. Influential performers and pedagogues such as Artur Schnabel and Carl Flesch rejected traditional practices in favour of their own novel conceptions. They established new principles of ‘tasteful’ performance. During the past half century we increasingly questioned those principles. We began to explore the aesthetics of the past with the aid not only of documentary evidence, but also early recordings and piano rolls. We began to think more objectively about how that knowledge might be used to revitalize our understanding of performing practices in the mainstream repertoire of the Classical and Romantic periods.

Professor Clive Brown is a key researcher in the area of historical perspectives, repertoire, and performance practices on the Classical and Romantic eras. He has published widely in this area, and remains active as a concert violinist specialising in the historically-informed perormance of Classical and Romantic music. Clive Brown is currently Emeritus Professor of Music at the University of Leeds, School of Music and Guest Professor at the University of the Arts in Vienna.