When it was reported last month that the conductor Sir Roger Norrington would be playing Land of Hope and Glory at the Last Night of the Proms this year without vibrato, a storm of cataclysmic proportions broke out. The grumblings about “historically informed practice” that had been growing since the Early Music movement first suggested in the 1960s that Bach should be played without vibrato finally exploded at the suggestion that it wasn’t just the Baroque and Classical composers, but the lush expressionism of the late Romantics that should be tempered, and in that heartland of traditionalism, the Last Night, of all places! It was the musical equivalent of burning torches at the gates of Buckingham Palace.

How could such a fuss arise from a discussion based on the minute vibrations of a finger on a string? The issue is the long-accepted modern use of a more persistent vibrato in orchestras, a practice that, most agree, came in after the First World War. For Norrington, this means that he is entirely vindicated in performing early Elgar without vibrato, “because that is how the composer would have expected to hear it”.

Vibrato has been controversial for as long as written records attest to its existence back in the 16th century. While the Baroque violinist Leclair talked about vibrato filling out the sound, and his peer Geminiani tried to use it as much as possible, Leopold Mozart, the father of the composer, was one of many down the centuries who warned against its overuse, for fear one might appear “to have the palsy”.

“In the 18th century vibrato was seen as an embellishment, like a trill, and was probably far more subtle than the strong, pitch-altering technique we use now,” says Margaret Faultless, the leader of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. “But as a violinist, I don’t believe people’s left hands should be stilted and rigid. There is definitely a way of keeping the left hand soft and alive without audibly wobbling away like an old-fashioned singer.”

How vibrato came to be the main orchestral means of expression, replacing other techniques such as portamento (a 19th-century penchant for sliding around on strings) and expressive bowing technique, is a moot point. Some ascribe it to aesthetic fashion, a yearning for modernity, some to metal strings, the influence of Hollywood and jazz or the enforced navel-gazing engendered by “flat” early recordings. Even Norrington admits that vibrato can sound beautiful on some orchestras, citing the Vienna Philharmonic’s “tiny, beautiful vibrato” or the panache of the Russians. “But that doesn’t mean I want cream on my cereal every day.”

“The debate has become oversimplified,” says the cellist Steven Isserlis, who ploughs something of a third way, playing on authentic gut strings but using vibrato with “informed instinct”. “The point about playing with no vibrato is that you have to compensate with the bow. If you spoil the resonance by digging in with the bow it sounds hideous. It’s like pouring ketchup all over your food.”

For Norrington, who has over the past ten years honed his Stuttgart players in expressive bowing and the dynamic phrasing and colouring of his “pure tone” philosophy, putting a lid on what he sees as a modern penchant for continuous orchestral vibrato is “like removing the fitted carpets from your Victorian house and enjoying the oak floorboards, because that’s how the Victorians experienced it.”

But the debate itself has become entrenched rather fruitlessly around the idea of playing “as the composer intended”.

“Nobody can claim they know what a composer would have liked,” Isserlis says, “Who’s to say Beethoven wouldn’t have loved the modern way of playing? All we can do is go back to what we think was the original sound. The music has to dictate the sound world.”

“In the end, one has to leave the argument behind and just listen,” agrees Simon Channing, the head of performance at the Royal College of Music and a convert to pure tone “in the right repertoire”.

“There are always merits of doing it both ways. If you advocate only limited ways of playing, you cut yourself off from some unbelievable music-making. Being open to ideas is what we try to teach our students now.” And it is this new openness to that is arguably the real legacy of Norrington’s promotion of “pure tone”.

So what of Elgar on the Last Night? “I never said that I would be playing Pomp and Circumstance without vibrato. I was entirely misquoted,” Norrington says. “The orchestra and I will take each piece on its merits, as always. And anyway, it wouldn’t matter even if we did play without vibrato,” he adds with a petulant twinkle. “With all the noise going on in the hall, no one would hear it anyway.”

The Last Night of the Proms is on Saturday, Sept 13 2008

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