Hi Philippe,
first of all, congratulations on your last projects. I've been off the forum lately, but I visited now your youtube channel, heard your last classics, and enjoyed your work as always (I especially liked the orchestral part of CPE Bach's flute concerto). The orchestral part of Mozart's Dies Irae was also very effectively programmed, and Hummel's chamber music was a nice surprise. Also, after listening to Charpentier I felt like having... some Lully? :-)
@William said:
Also, perhaps this brings up the question - with all the current "original instrumentation" mania - I seriously wonder what composers of the time would think, if given the choice of having their piece performed by "original instruments" or the London Symphony. Or perhaps, the Vienna Philharmonic. Or the Philadelphia Orchestra. Is their music actually represented - or perhaps just IMPRISONED - by "original instruments" ?
Yours is the obvious question, isn't it? But, as old masters are not here with us to choose, we choose for them... and the war begins 😊. I would say we simply have more options now... which would healthily mean more freedom, but usually means more dogmas, and conflicts. We now have the freedom even to have them VSLized 😊 What I find insane is to elevate our choices or preferences into "rules" or "true representations", as some ancient music fanatics claim (though they themselves would not accept the conditions in which old musicians worked, and performed; they, "purists", accept only their instruments 😊, and, of course, what they think was their stylistic conventions...) If we play that game, we could not only talk about "music prisons", but actually "music madhouses" 😊. In this regard, I totally agree with you.
Anyway, I'm the kind of guy who downloads a Spectrum emulator on a i7 - 8Gb PC just to play a game called Match Point, which I enormously enjoyed as a kid. So, go figure what old masters would have preferred if they were among us today...