period performance rant

[merchimerch]

So this afternoon I went and saw Russian Ark which was nifty - slow at places, but in a very Russian way. The whole movie had the feel of a Dostoevsky story where all the characters are very ghost-like and you sort of get thrown into the narrative (if you can call it that) with little preparation, never getting to know the characters much. Anyway in the movie this stranger is moving around the Ermitage with a European from the 18th Century and they are experiencing different moments in the Ermitage's history as they walk through the various gorgeous salons. It made me want to go back to Russia so badly! I never made it to St. Petersburg and I would really like to. Another thing on my list of things to do when I become a rich famous errrr....ethnomusicologist. Anyway the one thing in the movie that made me cringe was the way that they portrayed the musicians - I can appreciate not making the actual soundtrack period, especially since the Marinsky theater orchestra (the group that played the soundtrack)isn't a historical performance group - though I do think it is interesting that it is so very important to make the visuals period, but the audio doesn't need to be - part of that is becuase we don't have recordings of 18th century performance, all we have is antique instruments that we replicate to make historically informed performances. But this time the non-periodized soundtrack leaked into the visual world - the instrumentalists in the movie were all playing modern instruments. It made me cringe. They were obviously working so hard with the details - period dress, gorgeous costumes, etc - even period music stands (though the music on it was obviously a modern edition, but that's probably a little too picky). Anyway, I found it amazing that they wouldnt' at least have the instruments on screen periodized, I know they did this for Immortal Beloved and I think for Amadeus too - the visuals were at least correct, even if the audio was with modern instruments.