Playing Bach HIS Way

Playing Bach His Way: Historical Authenticity, Personal Authenticity, and the Performance of Classical Music Author(s): Aron
Edidin Source: Journal of Aesthetic Education, Vol. 32, No. 4 (Winter, 1998), pp. 79-91 Published by: University of Illinois Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3333387 . Accessed: 07/01/2014 07:48
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Playing Bach His Way:HistoricalAuthenticity, PersonalAuthenticity,and the Performanceof Classical Music

ARON EDIDIN
You play Bach your way, and I'll play him his way. -Attributed to Wanda Landowska
In the last twenty-five years, the historical authenticity movement has changed the face of performance in classical music.1 Performances on archaic instruments, with performers striving to realize the composer's intentions and expectations regarding performing style (often by adopting styles known to be current at the time of composition), constitute an appreciable proportion of top-level performances of baroque and earlier music and a nonnegligible fraction of performances of later music. The movement arrived on a wave of intemperate advocacy and stimulated similarly intemperate opposition. Now that it has become clear that the movement's favored approaches to performance are here to stay but will not crowd out other approaches, the rhetoric has moderated, and it is widely agreed that the influence of the movement has, all in all, made the world a better place. But if it is widely agreed that there are many excellent historically authentic performances, there remains considerable scepticism about whether what is good about such performances has much to do with their adherence to composers' intentions or expectations or with their use of period instruments, styles, and practices. Indeed, a recent book by Peter Kivy is largely devoted to attacking the claim that historical authenticity per se is a source of aesthetic good.2 To some extent, such scepticism is a salutary response to continued hype in favor of historical authenticity.3 Still, there are babies in danger of being thrown out with this particular bathwater. A great virtue of Kivy's discussion is that he assesses the value of historical authenticity in the context of a very helpful characterization of the art of performing others' compositions. But closer attention to that very characterization will AronEdidin is AssociateProfessorof Philosophyat the New College of the University of South Florida.His most recentarticleshave appearedin the American Philosophical British and MidwestStudiesin PhiStudies, Journal of Aesthetics, Philosophical Quarterly, losophy Vol. 32, No. 4, Winter1998 Education, Journal of Aesthetic ?1998 Boardof Trusteesof the Universityof Illinois
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Authenticity and ClassicalMusic
show that some of his sceptical arguments have less force than he seems to suppose. It is not entirely clear to me whether Kivy himself rejects the babies or just the bathwater; it is in any case worth asking what limited claims on behalf of historical authenticity survive Kivy's attacks on the more extreme claims that constitute the "hype." Kivy's strategy is to begin by characterizing historical authenticity and the art of performing compositions. His discussion of the art of performing compositions yields a further sort of authenticity in performance. Kivy then argues that there is no good prima facie aesthetic reason to pursue historical authenticity in performance and some reason not to do so, since the pursuit of historical authenticity conflicts with the pursuit of the other, aesthetically valuable sort of authenticity. Historical authenticity has a number of dimensions,4 but I will limit my discussion to the one usually described in terms of fidelity to the composer's intentions regarding the performance of the composition in question, for it is here that the issues I want to discuss appear most clearly. As Kivy points out, speaking of fidelity to composers' intentions fails to reflect the variety of attitudes composers may have toward even the features of performance reflected in the directions they include in their scores (chap. 5). One way to avoid assuming too much strength for the "intentions" in question and to focus on the issue at hand is to speak of composers' suggestions regarding the performance of their compositions. In what follows, then, I will take historical authenticity to be a matter of following these suggestions. I will begin with Kivy's characterization of the art of performing compositions. The Art of Performing Compositions When a composition is performed, the performer5 makes audible the compositional artistry of the composer. But the performer may exercise musical artistry as well. What sort of artistry is this? Kivy suggests that it is closely akin to the compositional art of arranging and that in exercising this art performers create something closely analogous to the versions of compositions that are the products of the arranger's art ( pp. 128-37). Arrangers make artistic decisions about how the composition they are arranging is to sound, within constraints imposed by the fact that they are arranging a given composition rather than more freely composing or improvising. Substitute 'performers' and 'performing' for 'arrangers' and 'arranging', and the result describes the artistry of the performance of compositions. To the extent that such artistry is present in performances, they will reflect the style and originality of their creators, that is, the performers. Such style and originality constitute what Kivy calls the personal (as opposed to historical) authenticity of performances. He argues that as we value style and originality in
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works of art quite generally, we ought to value them in performance in particular. It follows that personal authenticity is of aesthetic value. It is important to observe in this regard that the exercise of the compositional art of arranging is not limited to the arrangement and performance of existing compositions. The decisions that arrangers make about how the composition they are arranging is to sound are revisions of decisions made by the composer in composing the work in the first place. The original version of a composition is a version in the same sense as are later arrangements, similarly analogous to the "versions" produced in performance. The compositional art of arranging can be exercised alone, but it is also part of compositional artistry in general. How does this bear on the putative aesthetic value of historicalauthenticity? Answering this question will require some discussion of the sort of value that might be claimed for historical authenticity. The Space of Available Alternative Positions A variety of claims have been made on behalf of historically authentic performance. The most extreme entail that deviations from historical authenticity falsify the works performed and in so doing yield bad performances. Historically authentic performance is sometimes likened to the cleaning of paintings, which reveals the work that had lain concealed, or at least distorted, by layers of "historical accretion."6 Claims like these have indeed been widely advanced by friends of historical authenticity in performance. But it is important to recognize that there are alternatives to this extreme position other than wholesale scepticism concerning the beneficent aesthetic power of historical authenticity. One way to qualify the extreme view would be to hold that historical authenticity is but one source of aesthetic good among many, so that the balance of other sources could yield performances that are excellent though historically inauthentic or poor though historically authentic. Defenders of such a view might deplore all departures from historical authenticity but hold that flaws of this kind need not be fatal to excellence in performance. A further qualification would be to hold that historical authenticity is not necessarily or always a source of aesthetic good, but there is good prima facie reason to expect that it often will be a source of aesthetic good, that the excellence of at least some historically authentic performances will be a product of their historical authenticity. I think that this is the strongest defensible claim that can be made on behalf of the aesthetic value of historical authenticity.7 It is a claim appropriate to the defense of the status quo that I described above, in which approaches to performance that emphasize historical authenticity are here to stay but will not crowd out other approaches.
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Does the Composer Know Best? The range of possible strengths of claims on behalf of historical authenticity is available for each kind of historical authenticity. Regarding the practice of allowing oneself to be governed by the composer's intentions or preferences or directions or suggestions for performance, the position I hold is that there is good prima facie reason to expect that following such suggestions will often be a source of aesthetic good. It is not altogether clear that Kivy disagrees with me about this. His principal target is the stronger claim that it is always best to follow the composer's suggestions for performance. He argues persuasively that there is no good reason to think that the composer always knows best how best to perform her compositions. From this he concludes that "the composer's performing intentions, wishes, suggestions, and tentative hypotheses are, like anyone else's, subject only to the tribunal of experience" (pp. 178, 165). Now, the claim that a composer's performing suggestions are subject only to the tribunal of experience can be taken in at least two ways. It could mean that (1) to the extent that we are interested in aesthetic values, we have reason to follow a composer's suggestion only if experience has shown that this way of performing the composition in question is a good one. On the other hand, it could mean only that (2) the aesthetic payoff of following a composer's performance suggestion is ultimately to be judged by experience of the result of that way of performing. The second understanding is not altogether vacuous. It has the consequence that experience can show that following a composer's suggestion is not the best way of performing the composition in question. But unlike (1), it is compatible with the existence of weighty prima facie aesthetic reasons for following composers' suggestions. Are there such reasons? Kivy thinks not. Regarding the principle that the Composer Knows Best (CKB) he writes: "Common sense might suggest that CKB is a nonstarter. Composing is one kind of skill, performing another. Why should anyone think that talent or expertise in one should imply either in the other?" (p. 165). Kivy allows that some composers have been skilled performers and improvisers and that compositions may often be based in part on the product of improvisation. In such cases there may be a significant connection between the skills of performing and composing. But this does not provide much of a case for following composers' performance suggestions as a general rule (pp. 166-67).
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The odd thing about Kivy's discussion here is that it neglects his own characterization of artistry in performance. For in that characterization, Kivy has taken considerable pains to demonstrate the close kinship between the art of performing and the compositional art of arranging, and as I emphasized above, arranging in the relevant sense is part and parcel of composition tout court. If Kivy is right about this, then composing and performing are very closely related indeed. Still, a great composer need not be much of a performer. This may seem to show that Kivy's description of the art of performing is incorrect. But that inference requires an overly simple view of what is involved in performance. We can think of the process of performing a composition as involving two stages: one of planning and one of execution. The first stage can involve such things as deciding whether to observe the composer's markings and to follow the composer's suggestions in whatever other respects may be relevant. It can also involve decisions about matters not covered by the score or other suggestions from the composer. The second stage involves taking all of these decisions and putting them into effect-singing, fiddling, conducting, or whatever. It is in the first stage that the process is most closely akin to composition. After all, composing is itself a matter of producing plans for performance. To the extent that the performer is considering suggestions from the composer (or even potential departures from the score), the planning processes overlap. The stage of execution also involves something analogous to the compositional art of arranging. After all, even when all of the plans are made, there are details that do not get fixed until the singing or fiddling or whatever begins, and these details can make the difference between a great performer's "version" of the composition and a lesser version.8 But the process of "arranging" at this stage is quite another thing than the planning process. Moreover, there is at this stage also the matter of singing or playing the notes, or conveying one's intentions gesturally to an orchestra, and this involves yet another set of skills. Excellence in composing does not require these skills, nor does it require skill or artistry in the "arranging" that's done in performance. This is sufficient to explain why great composers can be poor performers. But what about the planning stage of performance? Here the arts of performer and composer are close kin indeed. I suppose it is possible that an excellent composer might lack skill in just those kinds of planning for performance that are the object of the performer's preparation. But though this is possible, esteem for a composer as such ought to produce the expectation of skill in the compositional art of arranging, and so in the sort of planning that may overlap with the performer's preparation. Esteem for a composer, then, provides prima facie reason to think that her suggestions
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concerning performance are apt to be good ones, and other things being equal, the greater our esteem for the composer, the weightier the reason for confidence in her suggestions. Such confidence will, of course, be defeasible. If it is defeated, it will be by way of the "tribunal of experience."9 This yields a sense in which "the composer's performing intentions, wishes, suggestions, and tentative hypotheses are, like anyone else's, subject only to the tribunal of experience." But this is a sense along the lines of (2) rather than the stronger (1). We are apt to have strong aesthetic reason to follow a composer's suggestion even if experience has not yet shown that this particular way of performing the composition in question is a good one. Kivy considers a similar argument of mine concerning the use of period instruments. The gist of his response is that [T]he whole argument is couched in terms of a "possible" rather than an actual outcome.... We have been brought, I hope, to that point in the argument where we will not so easily be satisfied with mere "metaphysical possibilities." It is "possible" that the Lisbon earthquake is a blessing in disguise, but it requires some pretty strong and significant presuppositions to make that possibility significant to anyone. And the "possibility" that every change from period to modern instruments, for all the advantages it might bestow, will be outweighed by unforeseen and unspecified disadvantages is one of the new "dogmas" [of authenticity]. (pp. 177-78) But, of course, we are not speaking here of "mere metaphysical possibilities." Still less are we speaking of advantages that necessarily outweigh all collateral disadvantages. My claim concerning the use of period instruments, and my claim here concerning adherence to composers' suggestions for performance, is that the "historically authentic" approach can be reasonably expected to bring frequent advantages. It will be helpful here to distinguish two perspectives from which approaches to performance may be assessed. One is that of the initial choice of an approach to performing, and the other is that of after-the-fact evaluation of performances. Kivy writes: "We shall now be impatient of any argument for adhering to the composer's performing intentions that does not cite chapter and verse. We shall insist on a plausible, verifiable story: how will the 'period' basset horn make the performance of Mozart better? How will a modern instrument make it worse? On which side of the ledger does each choice fall?" (p. 179). Here Kivy invokes the perspective of initial choice of approach, but his point is better suited to the perspective of subsequent evaluation. If following the composer's suggestions produces a better performance, it will do so in particular, specifiable ways. For a critic, praising a performance for its historical authenticity without citing the particular virtues produced by
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such authenticity is not enough.10 But in the cases of the composers we respect the most, we will have reason to expect good results from following their suggestions even before we know just what advantages will eventuate. What Kivy describes as the actual practice of most performers embodies just the sort of approach these considerations might lead us to recommend: The composer's performing intentions do hold some special, prima facie authority over all others. That is to say, they are not necessarily where we stop; but they are perhaps necessarily where we must begin. A performer who played a work her way without first determining and evaluating the composer's way, if available, would, we think, be guilty of some kind of musical hubris. Thus it would appear that the composer's performing intentions may have something like the weight, in "performing ethics," of what moralists have referred to as a prima facie duty or obligation. (p. 186) When he asks after the source of this "prima facie obligation," the best Kivy can come up with is our "culture of authorship." "It is within this system of wants and goals that the composer's performing intentions function: a peripheral (or perhaps more than peripheral) result of the culture of author and text" (pp. 186-87). But there is more to it than that. Our respect for the musical judgment of the composers we admire is no mere artifact of the "culture of authorship," and this respect provides a (defeasible) aesthetic reason to honor their suggestions regarding the performance of their compositions. Personal Authenticity There is, then, prima facie reason to choose an approach to performance characterized by historical authenticity, at least with regard to following composers' performance suggestions. It is not entirely clear to me whether or not Kivy agrees that this is so. But he does think that there is a countervailing prima facie reason to eschew such a choice. The reason is that the choice of historical authenticity constrains the degree of personalauthenticity that performances may exhibit. Personal authenticity, it will be recalled, is a matter of the extent to which a performance reflects the originality and personal style of the performer. As Kivy puts it, When we say of a musical performance that it is "authentic" in the sense of being "personally authentic," we are praising it for bearing the special stamp of personality that marks it out from all others as Horowitz's or Serkin's, Bernstein's or Toscanini's, Casals's or Janigro's: we are marking it out as a unique product of a unique individual, something with an individual style of its own-"an original." Because performances are works of art, we can praise them for two qualities
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Authenticity and ClassicalMusic that they (but not only they) are particularly valued for having: the qualities of personal style and originality. (p. 123)
The problem with the pursuit of historical authenticity is that it conflicts with this originality: For what gives the concept [of personal authenticity] its life, what bestows upon the performer the status of artist and on the performance the status of art, is the real, full-blooded possibility of the performer finding a better or at least differentway of performing the music from the way the composer has specifically envisioned and explicitly instructed. This is what bestows upon the performance personal style and originality-what makes it the performer's "version" of the work and not just the composer's "version." (p. 142) This constitutes an aesthetic reason to eschew historical authenticity because of the aesthetic value of originality and personal style: But if, as it does indeed seem, style and originality are agreed on all hands to be always highly desirable qualities for works of art to have, then there can hardly be much point in "defending" them to anyone. So to expatiate on the authority of personal authenticity in musical performance is, apparently, as pointless as praising profit to a capitalist. I believe that the authority of personal authenticity in musical performance as I have stated it is, indeed, all there is to say. If you believe that performing is a kind of composing and performances versions of works in the sense that arrangements are, as I do, then you must believe, too, as I do, that personal authenticity in performance is an indefeasible desideratum. (p. 260) Matters, though, are not nearly as simple as this suggests. To see why not, we must return to the nature of performing in classical music. The Predicament of the Classical Performer The practice of performing compositions in classical music is a matter of ceding to composers a great measure of control over audible music making (over, that is, what happens in musical performance). Once a composition has been chosen for performance, the authority of the performer to shape the performance is limited to the domain of "interpretation." This domain is, to be sure, broad enough to encompass all the variety that can obtain among what we recognize to be performances of the same composition. Variations in the practice of performing compositions correspond to variations in the extent of the domain of interpretation. Still, the art of performance in classical music is one of exercising musical artistry within severe constraints (that is, those involved in performing the chosen composition). To adopt or reject an approach of historical authenticity is to choose a marginally broader or narrower set of constraints (p. 270 ff.).ll How does this choice bear on personal authenticity?
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On one hand, of course, adding constraints limits the sorts of personal originality and style that a performer will be able to display in performance. But our practice of performing compositions in classical music already severely limits such originality. One need only compare the leeway accorded classical performers with that enjoyed by jazz musicians to appreciate the extent to which classical performance is a matter of living with constraint. Whatever originality is exhibited is a matter of making the best of a rigorously constricted set of options. When the matter is put in this way, one might be excused for wondering why anyone would want to participate in this sort of practice at all. The answer must be that letting composers (especially great composers) plan most of the features of performances, and taking the task of performers to be one of realizing the virtues of those plans, produces performances that are musically rich in ways not otherwise attainable.12 We willingly trade certain for ways of exhibiting ways of exhibiting the style and originality of performers the style and originality of composers. This observation may be amplified by using Kivy's analogy between performing and arranging. The root aesthetic rationale for arranging rather than composing ex nihilo is much the same as that for performing compositions: to avail oneself of the compositional artistry of the original composer. Arrangements are typically thought of as joint products of the arranger and the original composer (hence the standard "slash" attribution, for instance, Bach/Busoni). Moreover, such arrangements are typically not valued for their reflection of the style and originality of the arranger; on the contrary, they are apt to be prized for the degree to which they preserve the style of the original in its new guise. Note that this is not to say that originality and personal style are not highly valued in arrangement, but what is most valued is the originality and personal style of one of the cocreators (the original composer) rather than the other cocreator (the arranger). This is quite appropriate given the extent to which the musical outcome is the work of each. A parallel view of performance would recognize that performances of compositions, like arrangements, are created jointly by composer and performer, with the composer's role in important respects the more decisive. That originality and personal style are valued in performances does not yet tell us whose originality and personal style matter. Ideally, perhaps, we would prefer lots of originality and personal style from both parties to the creation of performances. Indeed, it seems to me that we are apt to value originality and personal style more from performers than from arrangers. This makes sense because of an important disanalogy between performing and arranging. What an arranger collaborates in producing is the same sort of thing that the original composer produced. Reversing the perspective, the original composition is, as I emphasized above, an arrangement in its own right. The balance of contribution of
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the original composer and the arranger is something like a zero-sum game; the more the arranger contributes, the less is contributed by the composer, and vice versa. Arranging is done by changing the original score, and the more is changed, the less remains the same.13 But this feature of the musical art of arrangement is not shared by performance. Artistry in performance is not primarily a matter of revising the score but rather of determining details not specified by the score. The performer's and the composer's contributions to a performance need not be competitive; we may thus hope for an excellent performance to reflect the originality and personal style of both parties to its creation. This disanalogy between performing and arranging is, of course, a consequence of a more basic difference. Performance produces a version of the composition not by replacing some of the composer's instructions with other instructions (as does arranging), but rather by executing the composer's instructions. The performer's version is produced by the way those instructions are (or, occasionally, are not) carried out. We might even say that the performer typically produces a version of the composer's version of the composition. This distinction remains no matter how much by way of performing suggestions we decide to include in what we count as the composer's version. (Analytic philosopher that I am, I am tempted at this point to introduce the term 'version*' for the sort of version produced in performance, that is, one in which every possible parameter is of necessity given a precise value, and say that a performer typically produces a version* of the composer's version of the composition. But I will forbear.) If this is right, then the essence of personal authenticity in performance is not "the real, full-blooded possibility of the performer finding a better or at least differentway of performing the music from the way the composer has specifically envisioned and explicitly instructed," though that would be the essence of personal authenticity in the composition of arrangements. Unlike the arranger's, the performer's version of a composition need not replacethe composer's. The essence of personal authenticity for performers is the creation of "the performer's version of the work and not just the composer's version" rather than "the performer's version and not the composer's version." In any case, this disanalogy between performing and arranging compositions appears in the context of a broad similarity: both activities produce results that are joint creations of the performer or arranger and the original composer, with the latter in a dominant role. We value the presence of originality and personal style in such products, but what we look for first is the originality and personal style of the original composer, though at least in performance we may often expect an appreciable role for originality and personal style on the part of both cocreators.
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It is, then, far from clear that historical authenticity detracts from the virtues of originality and personal style as those might be exhibited by performances. Whether it detracts from the performer'sexhibition of originality and personal style is itself a complicated matter. I have suggested that artistry in performance is at root a matter of how the performer realizes the composer's version of the composition-the creation by the performer of a version of that version.14 The choice of historical authenticity as an approach to performance enriches the content of the version identified as the composer's. As Kivy puts it, "in establishing certain performance practices as 'historically authentic'... and adopting them as, therefore, required rather than optional, one is for all intents and purposes extending the concept of the musical 'text' to include these things" (p. 271). In the artistic interpretation of a musical text in performance, a fuller text has advantages and disadvantages. The extra elements of the text will rule out certain ways of interpreting other elements; in this sense the performer's options are more limited. On the other hand, there is more text to interpret. How matters come out on balance will surely depend on both the composition and the performer. But again, it is far from obvious that this sort of expansion of what is included in the text must detract on balance even from the performer's exhibition of originality and personal style. This indecisive conclusion depends on the claim that the extra elements included as "text" in historically authentic performance are themselves to be interpreted in performance. Even if the performer has decided to honor a wide range of the composer's suggestions for performance, the matter of how those suggestions are carried out remains for the performer to decide. But Kivy thinks that the true nature of the historical authenticity movement rules out this understanding: If the establishing of historically authentic performance were carried to its ultimate (and presumably desired) conclusion, performance would collapse into text, and what we used to call "performance" would now have the logical status of prints (if you like) rather than true performances. Such a "performance" of a Bach partitia would have the personal authenticity of Bach but not of a performer. All differences in performance, as all differences in prints, would be either aesthetically irrelevant or aesthetic defects. (pp. 270-71) The quest for historically authentic performance is a quest for closure-for absolute control of sound production, whether or not that can, in practice, ever be achieved. And the "gap" between "text" and production-I purposely refrain from calling it "performance"-under this discipline is of an entirely different "logical" or "ontological" nature from that of the gap between "text" and "performance" properly so called. It is a gap to be closed, not to be cherished: it is a "defect" in the sound-production "machinery." (p. 272)
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Kivy's evidence for this conclusion is slender (pp. 273-77),15and my own reading of the practices of at least the more prominent performers involved in the historical authenticity movement is different.16 But this is not the place to dispute this issue. Descriptions like Kivy's of the "logical conclusion" of the movement have indeed appeared among the hype surrounding historically authentic performance. I share Kivy's distaste for this view of "performance." It is among the bathwater of authenticity hype that ought to be thrown out. But what of the baby? I have argued that there is good prima facie reason to expect that historical authenticity (in the sense of following composers' performance suggestions) often will be a source of aesthetic good, that the excellence of at least some historically authentic performances will be a product of their historical authenticity. I have argued further that there is no clear prima facie reason to expect that the expanded notion of the musical "text" consequent upon historical authenticity will, on balance, compromise the exhibition of originality and personal style that we value in performances. Indeed, I have claimed that there is no clear prima facie reason to expect that historical authenticity will, on balance, even compromise the exhibition of the performer'soriginality and personal style. I conclude that an aesthetically principled choice of historical authenticity as an approach to performance can reasonably be made.17
NOTES 1. I am here using the term 'classicalmusic' in its most usual use, for the entire range of what is also called 'art music,' rather than for a particularstyle or period of such music. 2. Peter Kivy,Authenticities (Ithaca,N.Y.: Cornell UniversityPress, 1995).Subseto this workwill be by chapteror page numbers,in parentheses, quentreferences supplied within the text. 3. The continued presence of such hype is documented repeatedly in the essays (Oxford,U.K.:OxfordUniversityPress,1995). 4. Kivy describesthree,which he labelsauthenticityof intention,sound, and pracin chapters2, 3, and 4, respectively. tice, and which he characterizes 5. Forsimplicityof expositionI will assume a single performer throughout. 6. See, for example, quotations from Christopher Hogwood and John Eliot 58. Gardinerin Time 122,no. 10 (September 5, 1983): Magazine 7. I also think that a strictlyparallelclaim can be defended on behalf of the aesthetic value of some sorts of historicalinauthenticity. See Aron Edidin, "Look What They'veDone To My Song:HistoricalAuthenticityand the Aestheticsof the Arts, 1991),pp. 394-420. Note that the lesser performercan copy all of the planned performancedecisions of the otherwithout matchingthe resultingperformance. 9. It should be noted that our esteem for the composerswe admireis itself based on the experienceof hearingtheircompositionsperformed. 10. Examplesof both sorts of praise abound in the literatureof performanceand recordingreviews. It is perhapsworth emphasizing that a critic'sclaim that a 8
Musical Performance," Midwest Studies in Philosophy (Vol. XVI: Philosophy and contained in Richard Taruskin, Text and Act: Essays on Music and Performance
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11. 12. 13.
14.
15. 16. 17
certain virtue of a performance was a result of historical authenticity may itself be disputable. As Kivy puts it, we increase or decrease the number of parameters that we take to be constitutive of the composition itself. I develop this point in much more detail in "Performing Compositions, British Journalof Aesthetics 34 (1997): 323-35." It does not quite follow that someone else's arrangement will reflect the composer's originality and personal style less than does the original version. Features of the original scoring might, for example, obscure a composer's harmonic, melodic, or contrapuntal style by making important voices less audible than they can be made to be by rearrangement. In such cases, exhibitions of the personal style of an arranger can enhance rather than inhibit the exhibition of the original composer's style. The performer may, of course, compose and perform an arrangement in the conventional sense of another composer's composition. In this case, the artistry of performance will be a matter of how the performer (or anyone else who performs it) realizes that arrangement. The case concerns the movement's treatment of cadenzas and other "intended" loci for performers' creative contributions. "At least the more prominent" because these are the ones I am familiar with. It should be noted that the fact that a performer can reasonably make an aesthetically principled choice of historical authenticity as an approach to performance does not entail that another performer can reasonably decline such a choice or, indeed, make an aesthetically principled choice to ignore considerations of historical authenticity. The burden of my "Look What They've Done to My Song" (note 7) is to argue that any of these choices may responsibly be made.

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Playing Bach His Way: Historical Authenticity, Personal Authenticity, and the Performance of Classical Music Author(s): Aron

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Authenticity and ClassicalMusic

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11. 12. 13.

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