In an article in Sunday's New York Times, conductor Roger Norrington says that symphony orchestras should drop the vibrato.
In listening to historical recordings, Norrington reports, he finds that the use of vibrato as anything more than an occasional expressive device is a relatively recent invention; it became fashionable among soloists in the early 20th century, starting with violinist Fritz Kreisler, and spread to major orchestras by the 1930s. The music of such 19th-century composers as Brahms, Berlioz and Wagner, he argues, was intended to be played without the constant fluctuation of pitch that is now standard practice, and even such early 20th-century composers as Schoenberg and Berg wrote with a steady tone in mind.
Norrington is one of a group of conductors, mostly British, who brought the performance of Classical- and Romantic-era repertoire on period instruments into the mainstream of the classical music marketplace during the 1980s and '90s. His Beethoven symphony cycle with the (period-instrument) London Classical Players for EMI/Virgin Classics is considered a landmark, though critical opinion of the set was and is divided. Norrington continues to work occasionally with such period-instrument groups as the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, which he led in a much-discussed program called "The Mahler Experience" in 2001; however, he now makes his living primarily with such modern-instrument bands as the Camerata Salzburg and the Southwestern German Radio Orchestra (of which he is music director) and by guest-conducting major symphony orchestras.
A pure tone, Norrington says, is not desirable simply for the sake of authenticity. Constant vibrato masks the texture and emotion of orchestral music. "When the glamorous makeup falls away, the sound of an orchestra gains in many ways," he writes. "The texture becomes transparent; you can hear right inside the sound. Discords are more serious and astringent.
"But music is not about sound," he adds. "Sound is simply its material (as paint is for painting). What music is about is gesture, color, shape, form and, especially, emotional intensity."
— Ben Mattison
"Time to
Rid Orchestras of the Shakes"
Roger Norrington - The New York
Times - 16 February 2003
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