Melodrama by American Baroque Orchestra and Mark Bailey

Description for Melodrama

Unleashing the exploration of things previously unimagined is the truest result of inspiration.

The musical sounds captured in the grooves of early sound recordings convey an array of performance styles that, while common to the romantic era, have been diminished or in some cases dismissed altogether in the modernist age. Portamento, the audible upward and downward sliding from one note to the other by soloists and ensembles, tempo fluctuation in varying forms beyond what appeared in the score, and occasional misalignment among musical lines that appear simultaneously in the music are just some of the prevailing means of musical expression heard in abundance on cylinders and 78 rpm discs – even on early radio broadcasts – that helped to captivate listeners who had been born into the world of romanticism.

Individual musicians and musical ensembles rendered these stylistic conventions of the time differently from one another, however. To attempt to replicate specifically what is heard on certain early recordings, because of the variety of execution, would mean favoring one manner of romantic-era style over another depending on the chosen discs. The goal of this project, however, was not replication but to allow historical renditions to inspire new interpretations that creatively and even boldly embrace many of the same musical features of the past. During our rehearsals, some of the portamento, tempo fluctuation etc. was prescribed; other instances arose naturally as the music was being actualized. Most strikingly, allowing the instrumentalists to focus on the expression of their individual lines without necessarily making certain compromises for the sake of absolute vertical metrical precision yielded instances of richness and particular interest, even if the various sections were not always exactly in sync (a quality frequently heard on early recordings as well).

The intention of these eight pieces as performed on this recording, therefore, is to bring forward important expressive elements and characteristics inherently part of the romantic era and to give them voice today in the context of our living musical presence. In other words, the point was to find an old-new groove.

Mark Bailey