Early music and pinkos
I just read an interesting article in American Music, 24/4 (Winter 2006): "Noah Greenberg and the New York Pro Musica: Medievalism and the Cultural Front" by Kirsten Yri. The gist is that Greenberg's Trotskyism led him to specific decisions in his performing editions of Play of Daniel and Play of Herod. It also explores the broader cultural substrate of early music, folk music and the Left, particularly the widespread tendency (not just of the hard Left but certainly embraced by them) to see the Middle Ages as a Golden Age. The nostalgia for community and social meaning overwhelmed the realities of starvation and serfdom. A cynical capitalist might be forgiven for thinking that Marxists loved the Middle Ages because then the workers knew their place.
Of course, Greenberg was not the only one constructing the social meaning of early music. ("Constructing the social meaning"...God, I can't believe I'm using that phrase!). The recorder in particular was steeped in socialism (National and international). On the other hand, that was not the only possible narrative. The other story was specifically Catholic, with a leading light in the early years of the revival being Vincent d'Indy. If Vatican II had never happened and the Church had had the resources to put into performances of its patrimony, we would have a different view of early music today.
The question then arises: did early music in general have "a meaning" and did that meaning change? Looking over the past 30 years, I'd say "yes". In the 70s, all forms of early music, even Baroque, were anti-establishment. That generally had a Marxist tinge, just because there were no broad anti-establishment movements that were not of the Left (The Libertarian Party was founded in 1972, but was not really important - if it is important - until 1980. And the individualist strain of hippiedom was just that: individualist.) Since then, a number of things have happened. Baroque music has gone Establishment with the development of star conductors and soloists. The orchestra was always the the model par excellence of capitalist art: the privileged Boss conforming the workers to his will, each player with his specialized job. A baroque orchestra is a smaller shop, with fewer specialized jobs, but its basic nature is the same. Meanwhile, Renaissance music has been divorced from the peasantry. We expect skills from instrumentalists that are more in line with their highly trained professional forebears. The Church has begun reclaiming early music from the secularists, with the gradual and fitful return of the Latin Mass. And even the "we're all peasants here" Renaissance Fairs increasingly seem to eschew serious early music performers, finding more value in hiring pub singers with guitars. In addition, there is now new music that can be listened to without offence to the ears, so there is less impetus to make newness out of the old. Overall, I'd say that early music nowadays has very little political or social significance; we play the stuff because we like it.
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