# Interpretation Or Authenticity? What do you look for?



## FPwtc (Dec 3, 2014)

I was comparing Gustav Leonhardt playing The Well-Tempered Clavier to a version by Helmut Walcha. Leonhardt really cracks through it compared with Walcha. I also noticed Casals playing Suite No. 1 in G major for cello and he emphasises a completely different rhythm to a version by Pierre Fournier I have heard.

As a fairly late comer to classical music and certainly no expert I was interested to know if you look for interpretation or authenticity in an interpretation? I presume it depends on the composer and the age of the scores to how much direction a player has depending on composer? 

Are there any versions of a piece that we know differ significantly from a composers intentions but in your opinion improve it?

Are there any versions that completely ruin a work by taking the wrong tempo?

I don't know of Satie's intentions for tempo of his work but personally I find the faster versions tend to make it sound rather trite, while a slower pace unlocks the beauty of the work. Conversely I enjoy the speedy approach of Fabio Biondi to Vivaldi as it revitalises some well known works.


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## ptr (Jan 22, 2013)

I don't think these concepts are mutually exclusive, I always look for both! The more experience You have of different interpretations of a work, the easier it is to single out the ones that are or greater merit no matter what interpretative basis they have!

/ptr


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

FPwtc said:


> I was comparing Gustav Leonhardt playing The Well-Tempered Clavier to a version by Helmut Walcha. Leonhardt really cracks through it compared with Walcha. I also noticed Casals playing Suite No. 1 in G major for cello and he emphasises a completely different rhythm to a version by Pierre Fournier I have heard.
> 
> As a fairly late comer to classical music and certainly no expert I was interested to know if you look for interpretation or authenticity in an interpretation? I presume it depends on the composer and the age of the scores to how much direction a player has depending on composer?
> 
> ...


I don't understand what you're saying. Which one contains more interpretation, Walcha or Leonhardt?

Which Walcha recording were you hearing?


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

I agree with ptr. I too always look for both!

Case in point: I have found both in the fantastic performancces of the Bach Celllo Suites, performed with astonishing virtuosity by Jean-Guihen Queyras on a 1696 baroque cello.


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

I am not knowledgeable enough to compare performances, but if you offered me a straight choice between authenticity and expression, I'd choose expression. 
Authenticity is almost impossible to verify, but expression turns the music into a beautiful work of art.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Occasionally, I will "settle" for interpretation over authenticity.

Nathan Milstein's performances of the Bach unaccompanied violin sonatas and partitas are so fine, even though played in romantic style, I really don't care. I've yet to find any performance on baroque violin that comes close to his in communication.

Also, the first performance of Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier Book One by András Schiff on piano is so fine, I overlook the fact that I prefer this work on harpsichord.


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## ptr (Jan 22, 2013)

Ingélou said:


> "Authenticity is almost impossible to verify"


I'm not sure I agree, just You can with a reasonable accuracy tell how fx. Shakespeare was performed in his time from reading various written sources, You can do the same for most historical musical styles, there are written descriptions and instrument treatises that will give those who have studied these good or even better possibilities to perform or have qualified guesstimation on how something would have sounded! I would say that it is much harder to verify "expression" as it is something very individual and subjective!
But as I said in my first post, I would not want to have either without the other, fx. the Milstein's Bach Sonatas and Partitas HP mentions above, seen in the context of what was established knowledge of the time period, it has both!

/ptr


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## Albert7 (Nov 16, 2014)

Awesome... for more answers feel free to check out this thread too; http://www.talkclassical.com/35365-why-go-hip-scholarly.html


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

ptr said:


> I'm not sure I agree, just You can with a reasonable accuracy tell how fx. Shakespeare was performed in his time from reading various written sources, You can do the same for most historical musical styles, there are written descriptions and instrument treatises that will give those who have studied these good or even better possibilities to perform or have qualified guesstimation on how something would have sounded! I would say that it is much harder to verify "expression" as it is something very individual and subjective!
> But as I said in my first post, I would not want to have either without the other, fx. the Milstein's Bach Sonatas and Partitas HP mentions above, seen in the context of what was established knowledge of the time period, it has both!
> 
> /ptr


Yes, written sources will give some clues as to the performance of both Shakespeare and historic music.

But written sources are hit and miss. Many don't survive; some are ambiguously phrased so scholars spend lifetimes arguing over interpretation; and so many points just don't get written about at all. So it's like the theory of 'murder will out', the traditional idea that the crime will always be discovered. But if the body is never found, and the disappearance of the person has another plausible explanation, we'll never know that there was a murder.

So I see nothing inaccurate in my statement 'Authenticity is almost impossible to verify'. You can have a pretty good idea - but it's 'almost impossible' to know exactly how something was performed unless you're God or a Time Traveller. 

Expression is a neutral word that simply describes the dynamics or the way a piece is performed. Naturally whether a piece is deemed to 'have expression' is a subjective opinion.

All I'm saying is that, like everyone else, I prefer a performance that's both authentic and expressive. But if I had to choose, I'd choose an inauthentic performance that moved me.


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

The approach that grabs you the most is the correct approach for that time and place. 

Lately I find the interpretations I enjoy the most turn out to be authentic HIP, but I didn't know that until later. Those interpretations just seemed to fit the mood of the moment. But there is also something to be said for clearly non-authentic Bach, for instance, played by huge orchestra -- or (gasp!) synthesizer, or even ukelele. I have enjoyed all the above without remorse.

So I don't think there is a cut and dried right or wrong. If it sounds good then it is good.


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## brotagonist (Jul 11, 2013)

I hope for authenticity, but I expect interpretation to make the music come alive, otherwise one recording would just try to be a carbon copy of another.


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## sharik (Jan 23, 2013)

FPwtc said:


> Interpretation Or Authenticity?


depends on how.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Interpretation Or Authenticity? What do you look for?

Conservatives, meaning people of a religious bent, or rigid, literal thinkers will always prefer* The Authentic: *"gospel score/scripture" and adherence to a "single truth" in homage to "God the Father/The Creator/The Composer." This also reflects a patriarchal power structure in which male "heroes" are created and turned into demi-Gods.

By contrast, the world of the ear is rooted in folk traditions, maverick individual players, for whom the act of composition/creation is still connected to performance and improvisation, and all that goes with playing an instrument under one's own volition.

*Interpretation: *The orchestral player is merely a hired hand, an employee of the conductor and composer. He or she plays only what is in front of them, in accordance with the conductor and composer's wishes.
"Classical" music which is scored and written down was intended to be a definitive record of that idea, and not designed to be altered or improvised on, or elaborated and varied, as performed "ear" music is.

To see this we must compare the 'ear' traditions of folk and popular music. Those were inherently changeable, because recording didn't exist, and the only memory in most cases was biological.

So in its immediate form, before sound recording was developed, folk music is essentially aural in its conception,* a form of speech, *requiring humans;*

...*as opposed to the written score, which is an artifact of the eye, and is visual, and exists as an artifact of an idea.

Now that* sound recording *exists, folk, jazz, and popular music is beginning to have a history which is more definitive,fixed, similar to scored music, existing as an artifact, requiring no real human presence to function as music after it is performed and recorded.

Jazz is improvisatory, so to play it note for note, either from score or recording, would be ridiculous and sterile. "Lead sheets" are just rough outlines, used only for reference of the structure of the song.

Classical music is not improvisatory, by its very nature, so the fact that it does not change or deviate greatly should be a given that is accepted as one of its positive attributes; to compare it to folk or jazz, and wonder why it does not change ignores its very nature.

We are now in an overlapping era of the written/visual and the sound recording/aural technologies.

The difference in "interpretation" (aural/performance) and "authenticity" (visual/the written score/scripture/gospel) needs to be recognized and clarified.

The more "credence," validity, and independent existence that is given to a performance (not just mere interpretation), the more important the experiential mode of the ear becomes.

The more the "score", gospel, and unchanging Platonic truth of the music is idolized and worshipped, the more this hierarchy of composer/conductor/player is reinforced.


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## Marschallin Blair (Jan 23, 2014)

> millionrainbows: Conservatives, meaning people of a religious bent, or rigid, literal thinkers will always prefer The Authentic: "gospel score/scripture" and adherence to a "single truth" in homage to "God the Father/The Creator/The Composer." This also reflects a patriarchal power structure in which male "heroes" are created and turned into demi-Gods.


"Rigid, literal thinkers of a religious bent"--right-- like Marxists and post-modernists-- preachers who are more devoted to doctrinaire word fetishism than to reason or reality.


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## FPwtc (Dec 3, 2014)

I was listening to Walcha's 1961 version of WTC and the Leonhardt version off the Leonhardt Plays Bach compilation. I don't knwo enough to say which is more authentic but I prefer the Walcha version as it feels more considered. It was listening to both that made me ask the question as I wanted to know which is more likley to have been the way Bach played it and what other thought


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## FPwtc (Dec 3, 2014)

albertfallickwang said:


> Awesome... for more answers feel free to check out this thread too; http://www.talkclassical.com/35365-why-go-hip-scholarly.html


Thanks for this, very interesting!


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Marschallin Blair said:


> "Rigid, literal thinkers of a religious bent"--right-- like Marxists and post-modernists-- preachers who are more devoted to doctrinaire word fetishism than to reason or reality.


I guess that sounded biased, but the roots of this are in religion.

To be more neutral, Platonic thinkers, who see the musical idea as an independent, unrealized "potentiality", are more attracted to a written score. In a way, this Platonic aspect of recording musical ideas has served Classical music well; scores are music in its "pure, undistilled" form, existing as abstractions.

On the other hand, recorded performances of "ear" music tend to "slop over" into areas of pure sensuality and texture, as much pop and techno music does. That's not inherently bad, but it means that in most cases popular and techno music has fewer "musical ideas per square inch" than scored music.


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