Early Music - when does it stop being "early"

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I would say probably when clanky harpsichords gave way to decent sounding pianos.

Ah, but do you mean the early decent-sounding Piano (Christoferi), the noon (Broadwood), teatime (Erard), Evening (Steinway) or Late (Yamaha), cloughie?

Probably does not help as anything from Bach onwards sounds good on piano!

Byrd and the Elizabethan Virginals composers sound pretty good, too. (Just better on the instruments the Music was written for; just like Debussy.

[cloughie]

Ah, but do you mean the early decent-sounding Piano (Christoferi), the noon (Broadwood), teatime (Erard), Evening (Steinway) or Late (Yamaha), cloughie?

Anything from about 5.00pm onwards, ferney. Debussy, now there's a guy's whose music does justice to a modern piano, or even a Yamaha with other knobs on a la Tomita!

[Ariosto]

There's nowt wrong with early music - it's the HIPP lot who cause the problems!! I'm still waiting for my HIPP replacement ...

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I used to like harpsichords until Opera North amplified one in quite a small theatre in York. (The emoticons do not say it all; that would be unprintable.)

[uncleboko]

Interesting replies but I'm none the wiser. Perhaps one could say when they started having movements between which clapping was frowned upon but 1675 is good enough for me.

[Oddball]

Is anything set in stone here or is it entirely a matter of opinion? To my ears a great deal of "early music" sounds like "early rock 'n roll"!!

A great deal of truth in your comments uncleboko.

Apologising for not having read all the other posts, but it may be relevant that American music began along with the slave trade , in the 16th Century, when Palestrina was in full swing in Europe.

In fact there are still examples around of "original" American music, see for example Candomble religion, and the current pop group from North East Brazil, Bongar. See Lucy Durran's World Routes.