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Authenticity and Early Music

by Nicholas Kenyon

A critical collection on historical performance and musical authenticity

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Paperback New English

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AlbakiReads Editorial

A critical collection on historical performance and musical authenticity

Edited by Nicholas Kenyon, this collection examines the debates surrounding historically informed performance in early music. Its essays question what “authenticity” can mean when performers try to honor composers’ original intentions while confronting the practical and artistic limits of reconstructing past styles. The volume frames the historical performance movement not as a settled method, but as an ongoing argument involving scholarship, interpretation, and contemporary musical practice. With contributions from several music scholars and critics, it brings together differing perspectives on the assumptions behind “historically correct” performance and the tensions those assumptions create.

Good fit for readers who enjoy

  • Students and scholars of music history and performance practice
  • Musicians interested in historically informed approaches to early music
  • Readers seeking critical perspectives on authenticity in musical interpretation

Themes

Historically informed performanceAuthenticity and interpretationEarly musicComposer intentionMusic scholarship

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Book overview

Nothing has more profoundly influenced the development of music making over the last two decades than the growth of the historical performance movement. Perceived by some as a threat, an indication of our loss of faith in our powers of musical creation, and by others as part of the evolution of modern attitudes towards performing styles, this trend towards "historically correct" interpretation has inspired lively debate among scholars and performers. Examining and questioning the prevailing basis for the so-called "authenticity" movement, this collection of papers deals with the conflict between approaching early music performance with respect for the composer's original intentions, and the shortcomings, according to many musicians, that this produces. The contributors include Gary Tomlinson, Will Crutchfield, Howard Mayer Brown, Robert Morgan, Philip Brett, and Richard Taruskin.
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