Most conservatoires, even those with a Historical Performance department, teach emotions (if at all) within a late romantic framework, focussing on the intensity of the performer’s emotional engagement, and modelled on the concept of the performer “expressing” their emotions through the medium of the composed score. But we have plenty of easily accessible and self-consistent period evidence as the basis for a more historically-informed approach. And, like every other aspect of musical and dramatic presentation, the performance practice of emotions changed over time, and between one location and another. But handling emotions is a performance skill that must be taught, learnt, rehearsed and practised, like any other element of a well-rounded delivery. Many directors and teachers do not work directly with performers’ emotional engagement. Nevertheless, even amongst Early Music practitioners, the search for emotional intensity is often neither historical, nor informed.
But nowadays, in a development that owes more to changes in current social norms than to improved historical awareness, emotion has become a buzz-word amongst academics and performers aiike. As a student in London in the early 1980s, I was told by some tutors (who should have known better) that there was no place for emotion in early music.
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