12 - Performance practice in the nineteenth-century concerto

Summary

A modern audience attending a concert performance of a nineteenth century concerto in a standard concert venue generally expects to hear an uninterrupted performance of a complete concerto in a polished performance directed by a conductor. The performers expect to play all of the notes – and no more – of a modern published score. Nineteenth-century audiences were used to something rather different. They would have been aware of a wider range of performance possibilities than we experience today. A concerto performance might comprise just one or two movements of a three-movement work. The concerto might be played as an orchestral piece, or as a chamber, or even solo work. Improvisation might play a role in the performance, not just in the cadenzas, but perhaps in a prelude, or in some embellishments to the composer's original. These and other factors would have given nineteenth-century audiences and musicians alike some strikingly different expectations to those of today. Perhaps most significant of all, these expectations would have been realized on instruments and orchestras that were fundamentally different from their modern counterparts, at least in the early part of the century.