It never came. Hogwood's death in September, aged 73, was mourned as the end of an important chapter in musical regeneration. It was nothing of the sort. The early music revolution had long since died of its wounds, most of them self-inflicted. What had begun as a movement became the establishment. Symphony orchestras, learning from the upstarts, adopted lighter textures. Nikolaus Harnoncourt conducted the Vienna Philharmonic. Wealthy operagoers at Glyndebourne are treated to the vegan accompaniment of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. Early music, like other revolutions, ran out of ideas and sold its assets to the oligarchs. Christopher Hogwood, it must be said, was partly to blame.
Which is not to belittle his achievements. Hogwood exuded a viral enthusiasm for playing music in the style in which he believed it was conceived. Fortified by a welter of evidence, much of it drawn from his capacious bookshelves, he led BBC radio listeners on his regular programme to lend their ears to a different sound in music they loved to distraction.
Engaging with sceptical record producers, he argued that there was no better way to renew public interest in classics. His Academy was the first professional ensemble in this country that played on period instruments. He used singers with small voices who could not surmount a modern orchestra. He overcame Musicians' Union opposition to import specialist players from America and elsewhere. His livelihood was on the line with every rule he broke.
Yet, amid his fervour, he never lost sight of what a middle-brow audience would tolerate, what the market would bear. He was an entrepreneur in the manner of George Frideric Handel, one of his presiding passions, and he saw no shame in making good money from his investments. His Cambridge house was filled with watercolours and instruments of every kind, more harpsichords than you could find in most state museums, and every visitor was invited to play one.
His scholarship was neither dusty nor methodical. He would seize upon a tiny manuscript discovery and convert it into a vast theory. If the theory crashed, he disowned it. Ascetic yet tactile, intellectual without rigour, ideological though malleable, Hogwood was an appealing set of contradictions in the service of a revolution that he was among the first to declare finished.
"My interest in this kind of music became exhausted," he told the German magazine Opernwelt in 1984, "because we did not know whether or not what we were doing was authentic. Although the whole world thought that this type of music-making had a musicological foundation, the very opposite was the case: we had to do a lot on ‘feeling'."
His honesty went largely unheeded. Early music had become big business. Universities had chairs in it, monthlies and quarterlies were published, cities held festivals and competitions, ensembles once formed had still to be fed. Hogwood went to Boston to convert the venerable Handel and Haydn Society to period instruments. Though he stepped down from the Academy in 2005, he continued to support it financially while suggesting it served no further purpose.
In every revolution, there comes a moment the morning after victory when the leaders say, "What do we do now?" Christopher Hogwood will be remembered as a revolutionary who asked that question and never found an answer.
Which is not to belittle his achievements. Hogwood exuded a viral enthusiasm for playing music in the style in which he believed it was conceived. Fortified by a welter of evidence, much of it drawn from his capacious bookshelves, he led BBC radio listeners on his regular programme to lend their ears to a different sound in music they loved to distraction.
Engaging with sceptical record producers, he argued that there was no better way to renew public interest in classics. His Academy was the first professional ensemble in this country that played on period instruments. He used singers with small voices who could not surmount a modern orchestra. He overcame Musicians' Union opposition to import specialist players from America and elsewhere. His livelihood was on the line with every rule he broke.
Yet, amid his fervour, he never lost sight of what a middle-brow audience would tolerate, what the market would bear. He was an entrepreneur in the manner of George Frideric Handel, one of his presiding passions, and he saw no shame in making good money from his investments. His Cambridge house was filled with watercolours and instruments of every kind, more harpsichords than you could find in most state museums, and every visitor was invited to play one.
His scholarship was neither dusty nor methodical. He would seize upon a tiny manuscript discovery and convert it into a vast theory. If the theory crashed, he disowned it. Ascetic yet tactile, intellectual without rigour, ideological though malleable, Hogwood was an appealing set of contradictions in the service of a revolution that he was among the first to declare finished.
"My interest in this kind of music became exhausted," he told the German magazine Opernwelt in 1984, "because we did not know whether or not what we were doing was authentic. Although the whole world thought that this type of music-making had a musicological foundation, the very opposite was the case: we had to do a lot on ‘feeling'."
His honesty went largely unheeded. Early music had become big business. Universities had chairs in it, monthlies and quarterlies were published, cities held festivals and competitions, ensembles once formed had still to be fed. Hogwood went to Boston to convert the venerable Handel and Haydn Society to period instruments. Though he stepped down from the Academy in 2005, he continued to support it financially while suggesting it served no further purpose.
In every revolution, there comes a moment the morning after victory when the leaders say, "What do we do now?" Christopher Hogwood will be remembered as a revolutionary who asked that question and never found an answer.
Like this article? Share, save or print using the icons below:
