I was glad to read Jeremy Montagu’s letter (page 5) and see that in his NEMA lecture published in the December Tamesis he was not really demanding that early music should only be played on original instruments or accurate copies. I am convinced that as long as enough people play on historical instruments, the rest of us will be able to understand the kind of sound that the composer might have expected and therefore be able to imitate or adapt it to suit our own instruments.

However I am worried that things could go too far the other way. Are we going into a kind of post-early instrument period, even a post-early music period? Early instrument concerts seem to be becoming much less frequent on Radio 3 and I notice that there are no early music concerts at all at the Wigmore Hall in April. When I went to the Florilegium concert in Beaconsfield which I mentioned in last month’s Tamesis I was surprised and rather depressed to find that they still felt the need to explain their instruments to the audience.

Victoria

We are very sorry to hear of the death in January of Mary Tinsley and extend our deepest sympathy to her husband Mark.

The Lalande day with Philip Thorby on the 3rd March at Kew is virtually full but there is still room for keyboard or plucked continuo players, violin, viola and perhaps one or two tenors and basses. If you belong to any of these categories and would like to come, please let me know at once so that Philip can be sure of having enough music for you. People do not necessarily think of Philip as an orchestral conductor, but I can tell you from experience that he is as excellent at this as he is at everything else, and I am particularly keen to have more upper strings (A=415). David would also like bookings for Alan Lumsden’s Brumel day as soon possible.

There seems to be some confusion about the Baroque playing day. It will be similar to one of the Forum baroque chamber music days which I organise, but with a different selection of music and people to play with. Contrary to the impression given in Peter Collier’s note, it will not be necessary to eat your picnic lunch in the garden! Peter will send a map when you book, and if you have any other queries, please get in touch with him direct on 0161 281 2502.

Following my invitation in last month’s Tamesis I have already received a large number of provisional bookings for the Michael Procter Lassus weekend in April. If you have already sent me an e-mail or letter please follow it up now with the booking form (enclosed with this issue). Anyone else who would like to come should book as soon as possible.

By now the majority of you have returned your forms with your subscriptions for 2002. Those who have not should do so before next month, otherwise this will be the last Tamesis you receive. If you have not paid you will see the message "Subs Due" on the cover. One or two managed to re-use the window envelope when renewing, so perhaps next year I could arrange to print my address so that a little origami enables it to show through the window for its return. Some people are remarkably vague about their interests, so if they are recorded wrongly it may be that I was unable to decipher (or guess) your voice or instrument.

I notice with some alarm that the number of TVEMF members who claim to play the cornett has fallen to 4 from about 10 two years ago. True, some of these were dilettantes and there are still three regular players but they don't balance the 12 sackbuts. Where are the enterprising people prepared to spend some time mastering a truly wonderful instrument? Be prepared to do plenty of practice but expect to be in demand if you reach a decent standard.

The Renaissance day at Burnham seems to have been a success. There were some 37 participants and a goodly number of singers, which is very pleasing. Not enough tenors (so no surprises there), but only one soprano. Where were all those ladies who flock to the large-scale events? A moment of aberration caused me to leave my plan of the groups for all the sessions at home, necessitating a 20 minute car journey and information having to be relayed by telephone - thank you Victoria for taking over. This forgetfulness meant that things did not run as smoothly as hoped, but people coped pretty well. Many thanks to all the willing helpers who restored the school to somewhere near its original state afterwards.

There are two events coming up - both are already guaranteed a good attendance, which is not surprising as Philip Thorby and Alan Lumsden are among the most popular of conductors of Forum events. Sign up quickly if you still intend to come to either.

This probably all seems very obvious, but these are all common problems.

1. Make sure your form is legible. It’s surprising how many aren’t.

2. Put your complete address and phone number even if you think we already know them, and don’t put "same as last year". Last year is not necessarily easily found.

3. Don’t only give a mobile phone number. Committee members often forget to claim their expenses and calls to mobile numbers can be expensive.

4. If you have e-mail, put the address (legibly!) on the form, but don’t assume that the recipient looks at their e-mail every day.

5. Put in a SAE if requested, even if you think you know what it’s for and don’t need the info. Self-adhesive envelopes make things easier for us.

6. Don’t expect an acknowledgement of your booking unless you put in a SAE. You can assume that you have been accepted unless you hear quite soon to the contrary.

7. Don’t send back the whole form, only the tear-off slip at the bottom. This will save you having to phone for information later.

8. Finally - DON’T FORGET TO PUT ON A STAMP. It’s a long way to the post office!

at Lains Barn, Sunday 5th May 2002, 10.30 - 17.00.

Viols, Recorders and Loud Wind. Conductors: Helen France and Simon Pickard. Cost: �10.00. Details from Rosalie Cornwallis on 01608-641037 or e-mail Cornwallisfarmersweekly.net.

Saint Mary’s Church, Slough: 23-31 March

Rehearsals have just started on Friday evenings of the passion chorales (originally sung by the Leipzig congregation) in Bach’s St John Passion leading to a performance in the context of a service on the evening of Good Friday, 29^th March at Saint Mary’s Church Slough. There may still be time to take part in this free event. The rest of the work will be studied during a workshop in Holy Week aimed at the under-30s. If you would like information about either of these courses, contact Revd Dr Andreas Loewe, Saint Mary’s Church Slough, 134 Albert Street, Slough SL1 2AU Tel 01753 694083 E-mail curatestmarys-slough.org.uk www/online bookings www.stmarys-slough.org.uk/5/jsb-event.htm

Vicky has asked if I’d like to reply to the comments in the last Tamesis on my talk. I hadn’t intended to do so, both because I was very pleased to have occasioned so much response and also because I agreed with much of the responses, and even where I disagreed they were fair enough expressions of opinion. Bear in mind that I was talking on a NEMA occasion and one very much tied to John Thompson and Early Music because it was the Margot Leigh-Milner Memorial Lecture. Ken Moore refers to Bach’s transcriptions of Vivaldi, Tschaikovsky’s Mozart (to my mind not much cop), and Sch�nberg’s Brahms (don’t know that one but I dislike his Johann Strauss intensely), though he doesn’t mention Stokowski’s (or Klenovsky’s, aka Sir Henry Wood’s) D Minor Toccata and Fugue which I enjoy immensely, both as a listener and a player, and much prefer either to hearing it played on a big nineteenth-century organ. A lot of this is time, place, and occasion. Even more, it’s personal taste. No, I don’t like Ray Leppard’s lush strings, but then I don’t care much for some of JEG’s quirkier efforts either. Nothing wrong with either of them if you like them, and audiences certainly do, but chacun � son gout.

I take Jackie Huntingford’s point about trio sonatas on the modern oboe - sure, why not? I’d be happy with them on the saxophone, too (no, I’m not joking or snarking; play things you enjoy on what you’ve got, and above all play it). But there is a difference, as I’m sure she’d agree, between playing for fun, and I’ve conducted orchestras with much odder set-ups than John Catch’s gamba on a viola line, and playing professionally, or perhaps I should say between playing for your own enjoyment and playing where you’ve asked people to pay to hear you, and then a difference, too, between playing professionally in a modern performance style context and in an early music performance style context, and it was the latter that I was addressing.

I don’t know, obviously, what stops her from ‘becoming proficient on a baroque instrument’, whether it’s the cost of an early oboe, the fact that she hasn’t twice a much time to practice, or that the control of the baroque reed plays hell with the control of the modern reed, and perhaps she needs to earn her living on that, and I hope she doesn’t mind me listing those possibilities because they all make essential points. We all have to do what we can within what we have and what we are. Nobody can play to top standard on two similar instruments which require quite different playing techniques, simply because one fights the other and inevitably one suffers. One can be much better off being a baroque string or woodwind and a modern brass, or vice versa. Nor can anyone live any normal life and double their practice time. And nor have any of us unlimited funds - we all have to eat and pay the rent. And it is so often external circumstances, where the work is, where most of one’s playing opportunities occur, whether work or pleasure, plus the justification of lashing out that much money on a minority aspect, that controls what one does. I spoke about that in connection with Musica Reservata. We compromised all the time, we compromised on instruments, on pitch, on temperament - we had to. We didn’t always like it, but there wasn’t any alternative within our reach.

Returning to some of Ken’s excellent points. Why can’t horn players have a gallimaufry of horns? I’ve got a German valve horn, a French handhorn, an English one, and a Bohemian one, and a trompe de chasse which is about as close as we can get to a corno da caccia, and all together they cost less than the baroque oboe that maybe Jackie hasn’t got, and certainly less than a first class professional modern oboe, and I was never a professional horn player. Had I been a professional on that instrument I’d certainly have reckoned on needing more. As wind players, we are working on the cheap, compared with what violinists and other string players have to put up with. Look at the front desks of our better orchestras and work out how those players could set up the string sections of the composers he mentions. Seriously, it isn’t the audiences who ‘finance this variety’ - it’s the players. Either we buy the tools to do the job, or, fair enough, we admit that we’re compromising. And don’t come back on this with the old one about six harpsichords or pianos on the platform - plan the programme to suit what you’ve got.

What worries me for sound just as much as the right period is the right place. So often what we see is a mixture of instruments, some French, some German, some English. OK, players did travel and did take their instruments with them, but we could often get better results by saying ‘this concert is playing Mozart, Haydn, and Beethoven as it was in played London in 1820’, or ‘as it was played in Paris in 1794’, or whatever you choose. Yes, Wagner did sound different in Paris from how it sounded in Bayreuth, as Ken says, but both are genuine Wagner - what’s fake Wagner is a mixture of the two.

I think I’ve responded to most of John Catch’s points en route, save for his most important one: that what we really mean is ‘I think it sounds right’ - well, of course, what else? We build up what knowledge we can, but ultimately we can’t prove a damn thing. We guess and, if we’re honest, we don’t dress it up with appeals to scholarship and so forth, we can only say ‘I think this is right and if you disagree, I think my guess is better than yours.’ But I do believe quite strongly in trying to eliminate the negative; we may not know what’s right but we do often know what’s wrong, and so by eliminating those things that we know are wrong, we inch nearer and nearer towards the truth.

And above all, enjoy it, and best wishes to you all, Jeremy

*****

I sympathise with Mary Kenchington's troubles (Letters, January) about attending TVEMF events when they are held on a Sunday. I had exactly the same problem -- but in reverse -- when they always seemed to be held on Saturdays. I wrote then to Tamesis, suggesting that meetings might occasionally revert to Sundays, and as I recall received a rebuke from someone (can't remember who) who suggested that I was being inconsiderate in not remembering those who sang in church choirs and/or played the organ for services. So I settled down to missing a lot of events, sometimes whinging gently to a member of the committee and being told that that’s the way things were. But the last few months have been bliss: Sundays are back in fashion, and I've been able to go to Victoria Helby's Baroque day and David Fletcher's Renaissance day as well as some of Philip Thorby's events.

So it's swings and roundabouts. I don't know whether Saturdays or Sundays produce the greater number of participants. (Perhaps there are now some data on this?) And of course a lot depends on what's convenient for the organisers and tutors, as well as the lower costs that Victoria mentioned. I'm sure, though, that in due course Saturdays will come round again....

While I'm writing, may I mention that in the Events for February 1-3 in the January issue, and for several months before, Roy Marks is listed as giving a Benslow course entitled "Learn to play the recorder in a weekend". I've looked in the Benslow January-June 2002 brochure, and see that the blurb reads:

It seems to me that recorder players have to take quite enough flak without this sort of thing. (Perhaps my attitude is not positive enough.) That aside, this course is in fact run not by Roy Marks - who will be playing viols with the Rose Consort at a concert in Nottingham that Saturday - but by a tutor called Rae Strong. Quite how the confusion crept in I don't know, but perhaps Roy is owed an apology?