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.

Nomenclature

• Authentic performance and period performance refer to attempts to re-create exactly the performance details of the past in a modern performance
• Historically-informed performance refers to performances which choose some performance practices and omit others, sometimes for purposes of audience appeal.
• Performance practice refers to details of performance technique which were used in performances within historical styles periods, as well as they can be ascertained.