Authentic performance

The authentic performance movement is an effort on the part of musicians and scholars to perform works of classical music in ways similar to how they were performed when they were originally written. The movement had its beginnings in the performance of Medieval, Renaissance, and Baroque music, but subsequently came to incorporate the Classical and even Romantic eras as well. The two methods adopted by authentic performance artists have been to use historically appropriate instruments and to rely on written evidence from the past to gain insight into how the works were originally played.

Issues in authentic performance

The perceived esthetic benefits of authentic performance vary with what kind of music is being played. In rough terms, they can be characterized as follows.

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• Authentic performance is argued to achieve greater transparency of musical texture. The instruments have a less overpowering tone, so that the playing of one note interferes less with the hearing of simultaneous or neighboring notes.
• In orchestral performances, dynamic contrast is typically increased: the contributions of the brass instruments and timpani on accented notes stand out more, since the difference in volume level between brass and strings is somewhat greater than with modern instruments.
• Greater transparency and greater dynamic contrast lend themselves, in turn, to greater rhythmic energy. This is particularly important in the choruses of 18th century cantatas and oratorios. To the ear that has become attuned to authentic performance, older "mainstream" performances of such works often sound heavy and rhythmically dull. Paradoxically, for such listeners, the monumental character of these choruses comes through more clearly when they are performed with the lighter forces of the authentic performance movement.
• Many listeners appreciate the sheer sound quality of authentic performance instruments, finding it more beautiful and filled with character than what is heard from modern instruments. The same could be said of the human voice, when it is not required to compete with modern instruments in volume.

Variety of opinion

Opinions on the authentic performance movement vary widely, from very strong support to very strong opposition.

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A generally skeptical but moderated position has been taken by Charles Rosen, a distinguished traditional classical musician and author on music. One criticism Rosen has made is that the spread of authentic performance has depended very heavily on the recording industry. This results from two factors. First, the lower volume of authentic performance instruments means they tend to be ineffective in large modern concert halls, so that live performance is difficult to sustain financially. Second, the unstable intonation and lesser reliability of early instruments means that a high-quality performance is most easily obtained in the recording studio, where multiple takes can be spliced together to iron out mistakes, and it is possible to interrupt the music frequently to retune the instruments. A musical culture based predominantly on recordings is arguably an impoverished one, given that most listeners respond more intensely to a live performance than to a recording.

Related Topics:
Charles Rosen - Recording industry - Recording studio

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There are many listeners who enjoy both authentic performance and traditional performance. Such esthetically-flexible listeners might, for instance, enjoy Malcolm Bilson's vivid and stylish authentic performances of Haydn's piano sonatas on a replica 18th century piano–but also enjoy Vladimir Horowitz's interestingly idiosyncratic (and quite heavily pedaled) performances of the same works on a modern concert grand.

Related Topics:
Malcolm Bilson - Haydn - Vladimir Horowitz

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"Authentic" performances of Baroque music are usually in "chamber pitch" (tuned about a semitone down compared to modern concert pitch; see historical pitch standards). While listeners with relative pitch may not even notice the difference, such performances are often unpleasant (or even acutely painful) experiences for listeners with perfect pitch.

Related Topics:
Historical pitch standards - Relative pitch - Perfect pitch

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Authenticity or contemporary taste?

An issue in authentic performance that is seldom raised concerns just why performers want to be authentic. It might be argued that what authentic-performance participants want is not always authenticity per se, but particular benefits that come from authenticity, such as clarity, tonal vividness, and rhythmic propulsion. In fact, it is likely that musical tastes among classical music enthusiasts were already evolving in these directions even before the authentic performance movement had become a major factor.

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In this connection, it is worth considering two clearly documented authentic performance practices of the past that have not been widely adopted today.

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First, it is known from Mozart's correspondence that he was enthusiastic about the idea of performing his symphonies with very large orchestral forces, along the lines of 40 violins, with analogous numbers for the other instruments. Thus, the smaller size of Mozart's usual orchestra in the 18th century relative to modern symphony orchestras may well have been the result of economy, rather than a deliberate esthetic choice. Modern authentic performance orchestras, however, are characteristically small–even though for the more successful ones, funding would probably permit them to be larger, at least on occasion, were it considered desirable.

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A second example concerns a matter of authentic performance for string music of the later 19th century. Sources suggest that at this time, most string players made heavy use of portamento–a sliding of the finger along the string that causes pitch to glide from one note to the next. Portamento is used sparingly in the performances of contemporary musicians, and there is evidently little wish on the part of authentic performance advocates to revive it.

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The common factor of these two examples is that in each, adopting truly authentic performance practices would actually set back the goals of clarity, transparency, and rhythmic liveliness (large ensembles cannot synchronize their playing as easily as small ones can, and portamento blurs the boundary between one note and the next). This supports the view that the authentic performance movement exists in large part to satisfy musical tastes that were evolving in a particular direction in any event. To say this, of course, by no means devalues the importance or esthetic contributions of the movement.

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