ABSTRACT
In the last decades of the twentieth century, authenticity became an end valued by many performing artists and audiences. Authentic performance could be a goal in any performing art: drama, dance or music. The authentic performance of music has, however, generated the most attention. The so-called “early music movement” is responsible for a phenomenal growth of interest in the authentic performance of music. This movement is one of the most striking developments in the history of music performance and amounts to little less than a revolution in musical taste. The interest of artists and audiences in authenticity led philosophers to reflect on the concept of authentic performance, particularly as it applies to music. Authenticity in performance became an issue because modern performances of
old works often differ dramatically from the original performances. Consider, for example, an eighteenth-century performance of a composition by Bach and some modern performances of the same work. The musical instruments of the eighteenth century differ dramatically from the instruments of our time. For example, baroque violins were strung in gut, were played with short, convex bows and had fingerboards shorter than those on modern instruments. Consequently, the sound of a baroque violin differs markedly from the sound of a modern instrument. Performance practices have also changed. While players of modern violins use almost continuous vibrato, most eighteenth-century violinists used it only sparingly, as a special effect. As a result a modern performance of a work by Bach can sound quite unlike an eighteenth-century performance. Significant changes have also taken place in dramatic performance. In Shakespeare’s day, for example, males took all dramatic roles. Boys acted the parts of women. This article will focus on the authentic performance of music. In recent years, talk about historically authentic performance has fallen out of fashion
among members of the early music movement. Likely this is because performers of early music have come to have doubts about whether authentic, or completely authentic performances, are attainable. As a result, talk about authenticity has been replaced by talk about historically informed performance (HIP). References to authenticity are often in scare quotes: “authenticity.” (See, for example, Kelly 2011.)
Peter Kivy has expressed doubt about whether there is more than a terminological difference between authentic and historically informed performance (Kivy 2002). Stephen Davies has similarly maintained that nothing is to be gained by abandoning talk of authenticity (Davies 2001: 208). Some members of the early music movement see a link between the concepts of authenticity and HIP. Bruce Haynes, a distinguished performer on baroque oboe, writes that, “[a]uthenticity is … central to the concept called HIP” (Haynes 2007: 10). Whatever it is called, members of the early music movement have a goal in performing that is not possessed, or possessed to a smaller degree, by other (“mainstream”) musicians. This goal might as well be called authenticity. Members of the early music movement have variously characterized their goal.
Ton Koopman, the distinguished harpsichordist, organist and leader of the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra, states the goal of the early music movement in these terms: “In the context of early music, the meaning of the word ‘authenticity’ is clear: the performance of music on period instruments, using rules of performance practice from that same period, according to the ideas developed at that time as skillfully and as accurately as possible” (Koopman 1987: 2). More recently, Thomas Forrest Kelly, a past president of Early Music America, has written that members of the movement have “all sought a kind of authenticity, a contract with the music that made no apologies, made no adjustments, and tried to hear it as those for whom it was intended might have heard it” (Kelly 2011: 95). The role of the philosopher is to attempt to capture precisely what is meant by these and other accounts of authenticity and to reflect on other philosophical issues that arise from talk about authenticity. The first philosophical issue is a conceptual issue. We need to analyze the concept
of authentic performance and decide what counts as an authentic performance. Once authentic performance is defined, questions emerge about the value of such performances. We need to ask whether reasons can be given for thinking authentic performances are aesthetically superior to inauthentic ones. Moral issues also arise. Perhaps moral reasons can be given for or against the authentic performance of some works. These normative and definitional issues are intertwined and cannot be completely separated. We should begin an analysis of the concept of authentic performance by
identifying the desiderata that a good definition of the concept will satisfy. For a start, we do not want a stipulative definition of authentic performance. Rather, a good definition will capture and refine what members of the early music movement mean when they talk about authenticity. A good definition of authentic performance will also represent it as a goal that performing artists can attain, at least some of the time and to a large extent. Finally, authentic performance should be characterized in such a way that it represents an attractive aesthetic goal. That is, authenticity is supposed to be an aesthetic good and, if possible, it should be defined in a way that it is represented as such. We cannot rule out the possibility that no definition can satisfy all of these desiderata. Before we can proceed with the examination of these proposals, a couple of pre-
liminary points should be made. For a start, we need to consider the requirement that authentic performance be defined in a way that authentic performances are attainable. This requirement should not be applied too strictly. Each definition of
authenticity establishes a goal for performers. No matter which definition is adopted, our ignorance of parts of history may make these goals unattainable in some cases. This is most obviously true in the cases of works that are lost or partially lost. Modern performers cannot give a completely authentic performance of an incomplete work. (Musicians could, fortuitously, play all the notes in an incomplete work, but this would not be an authentic performance of the work. As we will see, authenticity involves fidelity to something in the past and accidental reproduction of a work is not such fidelity.) Even when scores survive, authentic performances may not be possible. We may be too ignorant of the performance practices of certain periods (the early Middle Ages, for example) for the authentic performance of some works to be attainable. The fact that authenticity is not always achievable should not be taken to establish that the concept of authentic performance has no application. Authenticity should, however, be defined in such a way that it is a goal performers can reasonably hope to achieve on a regular basis. Fortunately, our musicological knowledge is quite good and such a definition should be available. The second preliminary point identifies the sort of authenticity we are trying to
define. The authenticity of concern to the early music movement is “historical authenticity.” This sort of authenticity is to be contrasted with “personal authenticity.” A personally authentic performance is faithful to a performer’s individual genius. That is, a performance characterized by personal authenticity is not a slavish recapitulation of another performance. Rather, it is the product of a performer’s individual interpretation. Historical authenticity involves fidelity to something historical. As we will see, different accounts are given of the item to which historically authentic performances are faithful. It has been suggested that performances cannot be both personally and historically
authentic (Kivy 1995: 138-42). In fact, there is no necessary incompatibility. For a start, every performance of an existing work, even the most personally authentic, is historically authentic to some degree. (Without some degree of fidelity to the past, a performance could not be a performance of an existing work.) Even a high degree of historical authenticity is, however, compatible with personal authenticity. The two sorts of authenticity are only incompatible if historical authenticity demands a fidelity that is imitation of some past performance. Historical authenticity can, however, be defined in such a way that performers have scope for individual creativity. (In practice, the trend in the early music movement is towards increasingly individual, even outré, performances.) Given such a definition, work can be highly historically authentic and personally authentic. To the extent that creativity in performance is an aesthetic good, a satisfactory definition of historical authenticity will not demand complete fidelity to past performances. (For the rest of this chapter, talk of authenticity is talk of historical authenticity, unless otherwise specified.) The key to defining authenticity is specifying the sort of thing to which a histori-
cally authentic performance is faithful. Three main proposals have been presented. According to the first proposal, an authentic performance is one faithful to the sound of performances at the time of composition. (This version of the proposal applies only to the performance of music. If it were extended to cover opera and drama, it would also have to mention fidelity to how performances looked.) The above passage from Kelly (2011) suggests such an approach to authenticity. Alternatively, an
authentic performance of a work is one faithful to the intentions of the work’s composer (or author). The third proposal suggests that the authentic performance of a work involves fidelity to a score and the performance practices employed at the time of the work’s composition.
