# True Authenticity in Bach



## Boccherini (Mar 29, 2010)

Is there anything like that? Do we have any piece from Bach whose Bach's rendering/interpretation is known to us 100%, so we _might_ mark it as the most "pure and absolute" (and maybe the best), assuming Bach's rendering is the best (which, I know, is controversial).
If not, might it be a right statement to say (speaking objectively) "A is far more authentic than B"?
For example: Can we say Leonhardt is far more authentic than Gould ('81) playing Goldberg Variations? even though it doesn't necessarily change anything.

Well, I have my answers for these questions, I would like to hear yours.

Thanks!


----------



## emiellucifuge (May 26, 2009)

Im afraid not really, Baroque pieces do not carry deep meaningful subtexts.

There is of course always the interpretation and perfection of the phrasing, dynamic and tempo but that does not help to make it more like Bachs own vision.
Performance practise has changed over the years, and it is important to perform the piece as someone in Bachs time would have done. Bach wrote a book detailing a large proportion of the ornaments and how to play them, it would be wise to follow his words here. Also it was standard to emphasise the first beat of a bar considerably.

Obviously it would be wrong to add musical artifacts such as crescendi etc.. (dynamics were terraced).


IN SHORT: Bach nor the Baroque period in general detailed the interpretation of works, but they did have different performance practise which should be adhered to.


----------



## superhorn (Mar 23, 2010)

Authenticity in Bach, or any of the great composers such as Beethoven,Brahms,Mozart, 
Schubert etc is a chimera. There is no such thing. We will never know with any certainty what long dead composers would have approved of when it comes to interpreting their music.
When you hear the HIP performances,live or recorded by such conductors and other musicians as Harnoncourt,Gardiner,Norrington,Andrew Manze,Gustav Leonhardt etc , you are hearing musicians who are dutifully going through the motions of everything that is currently believed to be correct performance pactice, and using instruments of the period,or replicas thereof, which may or may not sound exactly as they did in the past when they were new.
But just using period instruments and dutifully going through the motions of what is currently
believed to be"correct" performance practice do not in themselves guarantee anything artistically or esthetically. 
The interpretation of music is not a paint-by-numbers affair. Performers must use their own intuition and judgement. There is no one "right" way to perform any given work by any composer,living or dead. And it's so easy to get caught up in arguing and nit-picking over minor details of any given performance of a baroque or classical work rather than seeing seeing the big picture and whether the performer has brought the music vividly to life and th eoverall spirit of the performace. 
Not to get religious, but the Bible states "The letter killeth and the spirit giveth life". That's right.
It's the overall spirit of the performance that really matters. Who cares if the performer didn't execute every trill in a stylistically"correct" manner etc if that musician has given a performance which you found both exciting and moving?


----------



## HarpsichordConcerto (Jan 1, 2010)

Nothing in music from any period is really "pure and absolute", to use your words. I'm a fan of HIP, enough to know that Baroque composers were all very pragmatic composers, who 99% of the time wrote music for a particular performance in mind because their job/employer required them to (and not out of a random romantic artistic "urge" in the sense that Romantic composers might be perceived to do so). Their music was very often recycled, in part or in whole, borrowing themes from other fellow composers, for another purpose in mind, new parts composed when instrumentalists and singers were no longer at hand/replaced etc.

Music making in those days were far from our obsession now with concert perfection reproductions. Many great Baroque composers were masters at improvisation, the creation of "living" music. But with HIP, we can come much closer in spirit at the very least, to what Bach himself might have recognised.


----------

