On Authenticity
Liner notes for Through a Glass Darkly
We cannot know how the music of the past sounded. We are able to make some educated guesses thanks to the tireless work of musicologists, instrument builders, and archivists, but the essential mystery surrounding the performance and reception of music before the time of recordings will always remain mercifully intact.
What we do know, however, is that the music of the past was just as capable of exciting and moving people as our music is today. Musicians in the 18th century were seen as apothecaries of affect: druggists who could, not always with pure intentions, change your passions with naught but trilling fingers and whispered breaths. At the premiere of Monteverdi’s Arianna, the public wept during her lament. It was even said of Arcangelo Corelli, contrary to his status as the patron saint of Apollonian music, that when he played his fiddle he would appear to be in agony, his countenance contorted and his eyes rolling back into his head, red as fire. If this description is to be believed, it would seem that Corelli is not as different from Jimi Hendrix as one might expect.
The conviction that the people of the past experienced their passions as directly and powerfully as we experience our own emotions—and that their musical language was naturally fit to express such feelings—should be the basis for any serious attempt at historically informed performance. It seems clear to me that if we do not first and foremost try to move our audience, we cannot transmit the intended effect of this music.
This is not to ignore the value of studying the available historical documents and original instruments, but such specialist knowledge only constitutes the soil from which a performance may grow, not the performance itself. Obsessing over historical accuracy or trying to play it the “right way” is missing the point. Baroque music, like all music, is ephemeral: it does not exist in any manuscript or digital file, but in the souls of performers and audiences.
With that in mind, we do not make any claim to objectivity or finality in this recording. It is simply a souvenir from a couple of midsummer nights’ music-making. We have tried to be responsible stewards of this ephemeral art: to play compellingly, to take risks with each other, to move beyond the point of concerning ourselves with anything but an enthusiastic public response to this music we love. That is the only possible authenticity.