florida state university college of music performance practice

within the Passion narrative. Others presented the movements in an objective manner,
never straying from the dynamic initially introduced from the outset of the movement.
Overall most conductors articulated within a decayed martellato manner.
However, occasionally there were moments within the work where expressive legato was
employed to contrast with the default marcato articulation. Pitch is one of those
categories in early music that has gained tremendous fashionableness and wide
acceptance within performances. Twenty-six recordings (68%) of thirty-eight used the
lowered A=415, commonly known as “Baroque” pitch standard.
Choices of ornamentation show that nearly all of the conductors followed the
ornamentation when specifically written in the score but normally would not go beyond
to add additional ornaments. This suggests that many conductors still do not feel
comfortable in adding elements of ornamentation, that element of music is as strongly
associated as the essence of the Baroque period as monody. Perhaps the spirit of
Werktreue still looms heavily in this area of contemporary music making. With that said,
the larger choruses, “Herr, unser Herrscher” and “Ruht wohl” were more likely to receive
additional ornamentation than the shorter choruses and chorales.
In examining the practices and choices that conductors made during the past
twenty-five years in this representative work of the St. John Passion, several deductions
can be made concerning the enterprise of early music in contemporary society. Just like a
softening of the authenticity, rhetoric has given way to a more liberal and accepting
designation as historically informed practice, so too has early music undergone a period
of relaxation and acceptance for various interpretations. No definitive conclusion can be
reached regarding if recordings are becoming faster or slower. However, interpretations
are demonstrating more artistic decisions that add to the expressiveness of movements,
but this fact cannot be construed as the expressiveness that was part of the Romantic
ideal. Furthermore, there cannot be any stereotypical designations assigned to conductors
of particular nations as being consistently slow or fast. Conductors who were fortunate
enough to record the St. John Passion more than once showed an unusual amount of
consistency in regards to the musical elements of interpretation. This was particularly
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