Conclusions from Troubadour Recordings

The are as many recorded attempts at reviving the performance practice of the Troubadours as there are scholarly theories in books, and the controversy surrounding live performance is all the more noticeable. Critics of Orientalism cry foul on proponents of Arabic style performance practice of this literature on the grounds that Orientalist fantasy propels them to look too hard for something that must be there. In turn, those proponents hold to the notion that the cultural material that must have been transmitted is fair grounds to expound on the possibility and thus infuse the reconstructed tradition with such Arabic flavor.

Yet in all of the controversy, polarizing arguments take the critics an unhealthy distance from the actual material being presented by performers. Much of the criticism of the work of Binkley and Munrow is directed toward the use of exotic instruments as signifyers of Arabic culture (and thereby meant to capitalize on Orientalist marketability). It doesn't help the case of either of those performers that much of their early work does not in fact offer particularly novel rhythmic theory, relying instead on existing work on the subject. The work of Rene Clemencic, however, drew enormous praise for his use of French folk instruments and native reciters of the Occitan poetry. The "folk" approach is thereby viewed in contrast to the "Orientalist" approach.

The missing observation is that Clemencic's highly nuanced and effective use of ornamentation, by virtue of his deliberate non-use of Orientalist signifyers, flies safely under the radar. Obviously the result of painstaking scholarship combined with an intuitive sense of musicality, the recordings made by Clemencic and his group are exciting and fresh. The critical protest directed toward Orientalist interpretations has probably led to a critical reaming of Arab-sounding ornamentation, resulting in a return to more austere practice [citation needed - see Haines]. And yet ornamentation (and sometimes quite a lot of it) is a critically important part of expressive performance practice not only of Arabic music but also of Classical, Baroque, and Jazz musics. The fact that we don't have a record of what those ornaments or in-between notes actually were is no excuse for not trying to find them, and thus we torture an otherwise well-disposed audience with something antiseptic on the pretense of scholarly ass-guarding. Also, the experimentation with Arabic performance practice (and therefore ornamental practice) is useful as a starting point in trying out rhythmic and ornamental practices on Troubadour melodies. The results of such experimentation don't have to signify anything in particular, though it is up to the scholar-performer to prune the trial data toward plausible ends using his or her own musicianship.