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COPYRIGHT 2003 All rights reserved. Reproduced by permission of The Condé Nast Publications Inc.
Musicians who specialize in performing works of the deep past, from the Baroque, the Renaissance, or before, eventually have to face up to the impossibility of their task. The philosopher Lydia Goehr, in her book "The Imaginary Museum of Musical Works," shows that the concept of a "work"--an infallible score to be scrupulously realized in performance--did not exist until the Romantic period. Before then, scores were less like papal writs than like cooking recipes, leaving crucial details up to the taste of the performers. Singers would adorn their lines according to their abilities and whims. Instrumentalists would fill out their parts with ornaments and other sonic curlicues. Composers often doubled as virtuosos, throwing out ideas in off-the-cuff improvisations. In this repertory, the modern ideal of the note-perfect performance, so prized in conservatories, automatically produces an inauthentic result. Play only the right notes, and you play them wrong.
If you really wanted to re-create the musical culture of Bach's time, you would have to stop playing Bach altogether and concentrate on contemporary composers. Before 1800, there was no great reverence toward the musical past, and even a living giant such as Bach had approximately the glamour of a TV weatherman. The historian Tanya Kevorkian suggests that Bach's cantatas...
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