2.1: "mortuary" & "museum" performances
So where do we go from here? Let us seek guidance from Neuhaus again to examine the differences between his second and third styles, which offers his perspective on fidelity and potentially his view of good and bad Historically informed performance practices:
The second—is the "mortuary" style. The performer is so hampered by the "code of laws' . . . and is so pedantically convinced that one should play thus and not otherwise and tries so hard to show that the music is period" (if, God forbid, it happens to be Haydn or Mozart), that in the end the poor composer dies in front of the sorrowing audience and nothing is left of him except a smell of death.
The third type, . . . is the "museum” performance, based on the most accurate and reverent knowledge of how music was performed and how it sounded at the time it was composed; for instance, the performance of the “Brandenburg” Concertos by a small orchestra and a harpsichord as in Bach's time, observing strictly all the rules governing performances at that time (Stross ensemble, Wanda Landowska with her harpsichord; for the impression to be complete the audience should be in period dress and the hall should be lit by wax tapers instead of electricity).16
He also added that the third style is “a valuable, extremely valuable, addition to [the fourth style.]”17
Although Neuhaus seems to prefer more engagement from the performer with the “museum” type, the parallel to Stravinsky’s ideology is still noticeable, especially given the demand of “observing strictly all the rules governing performances at that time.” Surely there must be some sort of Golden mean here between this strictness and merely following the “code of laws.” There are some rules that are meant to be followed if we aim to recreate other people’s expressions, just as one cannot change all the ingredients and still call a dish by its original name.
2.1.1: Historically informed performances offer one interesting way to explore the means of composers and performers of the past, namely similar instruments, techniques, manners, among others. But there is an issue when we put all the studies into practice and build up the confidence to express our feelings truthfully using these tools, that we also become ignorant of other means available to us that may also be suitable for conveying the Geist to our present performance contexts. Richard Taruskin raised a concern regarding the uses of the term authentic performance and how it can lead to similar authoritarian connotation:
Satisfaction is somewhat diminished as the eye wanders up to the entry preceding Spitzer’s, where we find, . . . ‘authentic’, the following: ‘In historically appropriate to the music being performed’. . . this word that simply cannot be rid of its moral overtones. . ., being used to privilege one philosophy of performance over all others.18
2.1.2: Wanda Landowska, Whom Neuhaus praised to be ‘observing strictly all the rules governing performances at that time’ had no interest in the ‘objective’ recreation of a piece. Following is the (in)famous quote of her, which is often misunderstood19 and seemingly diminishes the credits in her search of the ‘authentic meaning.’ But I believe that her goal is quite similar to Liszt’s, and is not any less noble than the ultimate search for the appropriate Geist and deserve quotation in full here:
At no time in the course of my work have I told myself, "This is the way it must have sounded at the time." Why? Because I am sure that what I am doing in regard to sonority, registration, etc., is very far from the historical truth. To the purists who say to me, "This was done in such a manner; you should conform, etc., I answer, "Leave me alone! Criticize as much as you please, but do not shout. I need peace and silence around me and those grains of irony and scepticism, which are as necessary to research as salt is to food."
At no time in the course of my work have I ever tried to reproduce exactly what the old masters did. Instead, I study, I scrutinize, I love, and I recreate.
The means are of no importance. With the Jesuits I say, "The result sanctifies the means." When I am working out a registration, for instance, I search for one that seems logical and beautiful to me, one that does justice to Bach's prosody by being punctuated in the right places (Italics mine). I am aware that the disposition of the registers in the harpsichords of Bach's time differed somewhat from those of my Pleyel. But little do I care if, to attain the proper effect, I use means that were not exactly those available to Bach.20
2.1.3: The liberties in Landowska's means are not at all based on ignorance, after all, she also stated that there is an appropriate limit to one’s freedom when interpreting music of the past earlier in her book:
This ancient ad libitum was equivalent to saying today to a gentleman, “Make yourself at home,” knowing that he would not push the indiscretion too far and would not rampage through your household, throwing out the window objects that offended his taste or bringing in others not in conformity with yours.21
The guest metaphor is a lovely one, and I think it gives us more idea about how we can still feel the authenticity in performances that are totally different in the approaches; these performers are the equivalent of respectful guests, whom despite having different manners of how to behave in the host’s house, still make himself at home in his best behaviors. The distinctions between Neuhaus’s rules-following performances and its better version simply lie in the attitude of the guests, in one’s curiosity and studies of the host’s aesthetic values but never taking things at their face value and imitating the expressions. This might be why Neuhaus simply told us to use the ‘museum’ performance as an addition to his fourth type; it is version of Landowska’s “study, scrutinize, love, and recreate” as both of them knew that the search for an absolutely accurate recreation of a piece is merely impossible, and if anything, unartistic. George Perle expressed in a conversation with Taruskin that the relationship between composer and performer is ‘a complicated business’ and performers who do not work directly with composers are not likely to understand. The greatest single source of bad performance, he averred, is literalism, adding, ‘it’s what you expect nowadays.’22
We are not . . . seeking to become natives . . . or to mimic them . . . . We are seeking, in a widened sense of the term in which it encompasses very much more than talk, to converse with them, a matter a great deal more difficult, and not only with strangers, than is commonly recognized. . . . Looked at in this way, the aim of anthropology is the enlargement of the universe of human discourse.23