2: Authenticity: Faithful expression 

             What does it mean to be ‘Authentic’ in performing music of the past? This question, along with numerous other similar questions, often arise to me whenever I have to make a conscious, interpretative choice whether in the means of expression or execution. The (often heated) discourse on the topic has been going on for centuries parallel to the interests of old music starting in the 19^th century. Let us go through the shift in paradigm of what it means to be faithful (and to the music, scores, or composer), and examine the rise of music as work-concept with its origin in the 19^th century until becoming Stravinsky’s ideal ‘transmitter’ performer, and eventually in our contemporary context.

"In the performance of [Beethoven] works, (and generally in all classical authors,) the player must by no means allow himself to alter the composition, nor to make any addition or abbreviation."¹

             2.1: At first glance, this statement cannot appear clearer in its demands, and the task of ‘being faithful to the music’ seems obvious. But the obligations in the statement definitely carry different weights and meanings in our days compared to Czerny’s time. The book Pianoforte-Schule which contains this statement was published in 1839, 16 years after the departure of young Liszt, but it is not far-fetched to believe how they might have discussed the matter during their time in Vienna.

             The shift of musical paradigm to the work-concept or Werktreue was already in its midst at that point as Lydia Goehrs pointed out in her book: The Imaginary Museum of Musical Works. She went on to talk about its gradual process that began in the late 18th century and solidified around 1800. It was driven by changes in aesthetic theory, the social status of composers, and the institutionalization of music as a fine art. The ideal of Werktreue became central to musical practice, requiring performers to faithfully reproduce the composer's intentions.

"The ideal of Werktreue emerged to capture the new relation between work and performance as well as that between performer and composer. Performances and their performers were respectively subservient to works and their composers."²

             2.2: Czerny most likely valued fidelity to the works of Beethoven (and probably the other composers) by the time he started teaching Liszt. An incident occurred in 1816, six years before their encounter, when Czerny received a backlash from Beethoven in public for performing his Quintet op.16 in “the brilliant style”, quoted: “He should be ashamed; people do know the piece!” Czerny soon received an apologetic letter from the composer on the next day, in which he wrote: “You must pardon a composer who would have preferred to hear his work exactly as he wrote it, no matter how beautifully you played in general.” Czerny later claimed that the letter “cured me from my addiction [Sucht] to making changes in the performance of his works.”³ The other notable evidence for the preferred distinction between a ‘serious composition’ and music in the brilliant style includes:

Czerny’s suggestion in a chapter ‘Concerning Cadenzas, Fermatas, and More Extended Elaborations’ in his book: A systematic introduction to improvisation on the pianoforte: opus 200 (1829), stating that:

Naturally, only the more cultivated taste and broad experience of the performer can determine their suitable application. In works of profound content and serious character (for example, Beethoven’s Sonata, D minor, op. 29 [now Op. 31 no.2]), employing any kind of additional material would be very ill advised. On the other hand, preferably in compositions intended for a glittering, delicate, or sentimental manner of playing, — in variations, potpourris, arrangements of vocal works, or whatever products of popular taste, there are abundant opportunities where just such little impromptus are appropriate, indeed are often a necessity, in order to adorn a possibly rather dull and dragging passage.⁴

Johann Nepomuk Hummel also gave his remarks on the practice of the “present day” regarding the final fermata in concertos or solo pieces in his ‘Anweisung zum Piano Forte-Spiel’ (1828):

The pause denoting that an extemporaneous embellishment was to be introduced, appeared formerly in concertos and generally towards the conclusion of the piece, and under favor of it, the player endeavoured to display his chief powers of execution; but as the Concerto has now received another form, and as difficulties are distributed throughout the composition itself, they are at present but seldom introduced. When such a pause is met with in Sonatas or variations of the present day, the Composer generally supplies the player with the required embellishment.⁵

             2.3: This raises the question of Liszt's own interpretations. By all accounts, his performances were free from the constraints of "performing tradition," particularly during his years as a touring virtuoso, showcasing his facilities in his unmatched techniques and his incredible improvisations, taking liberties that were by no means less ‘drastic’ than what Czerny committed in 1816. He constantly sought new ways to interpret older works. Liszt expressed the necessity in the realization of “progress in the style of the execution” in a letter dated 1857, "The letter killeth the spirit," he concluded.⁶

             Liszt seemed to believe that continuous evolution in the means is necessary in conveying the essence of a composition. This approach sometimes led to exaggerated performances, drawing criticism. For instance, during a performance of Beethoven's Kreutzer Sonata with Ole Bull, his liberties in interpretation provoked disapproval from the audience.⁷ This approach to music making resonates with Frederic Chopin, who “never played his works twice with the same expression, and yet the result was always ideally beautiful.”⁸ Their conviction also coincide with what Heinrich Neuhaus categorized as the fourth type of performance, which he claimed to be “without contest the best” out of his four styles of performance in The Art of Piano Playing:

The fourth type; finally. is the performance illumined by the penetrating rays of intuition and inspiration; a contemporary, vivid performance, backed by unostentatious erudition, imbued with love for the composer that prompts the wealth and diversity of technical methods; a performance, the slogan of which is: "The composer is dead, but his music lives on!” or, if the composer is alive: “And he shall go on living in the distant future too!”⁹

             2.4: This is by no means a simple task, especially considering today’s context where the performers are expected to perform music from the past according to its associated styles (that originates from contemporary understanding of the subject). Will Crutchfield pointed out that modern phenomenon of the “revivalist orientation” has weaken the link between the compositional style and the contemporary music culture and its performance style.¹⁰ He continued to state that “If the thriving triangular relationship between composers, performers, and the public had not been broken down, historically informed performance would be neither likely nor desirable today.”¹¹ This broken link shifted the role of a performer to an executant, with no credibility in the creative process. One can still feel the present of the like of Ravel saying, “I do not ask my music to be interpreted, but only for it to be played,”¹² or Stravinsky’s ideology in his description of difference between an interpreter and an executant:

The idea of interpretation implies the limitations imposed upon the performer or those which the performer imposes upon himself in his proper function, which is to transmit music to the listener.

The idea of execution implies the strict putting into effect of an explicit will that contains nothing beyond what it specifically commands.

It is the conflict of these two principles execution and interpretation that is at the root of all the errors, all the sins, all the misunderstandings that interpose themselves between the musical work and the listener and prevent a faithful transmission of its message. Every interpreter is also of necessity an executant. The reverse is not true.¹³

               In all fairness, we can recall how Beethoven “preferred to hear his work exactly as he wrote it” and sympathize with this demand. But fidelity in Stravinsky’s context seems to put so much emphasis on putting the work’s “original intention” as the highest truth,¹⁴ a task not only impossible but also holds a danger as Gary Tomlinson expressed:

The authentic meaning of a musical work is not the meaning that its creators and first audience invested in it. It is instead the meaning that we, in the course of interpretative historical acts of various sorts, come to believe its creators and audience invested in it. . . Locating authenticity in the creators’ original intent poses a question that we no longer believe we can answer: what was that intent? Authentic meaning becomes an inscrutable cipher closed away in a time that no longer exists, an unsolvable enigma standing between us and fruitful historical enquiry¹⁵

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