Philosophy of the Performing Arts

authenticity in musical performance 77
Kivy suggests that even the greatest composers may not always know best
how their pieces should be performed for maximal aesthetic payoff. This
is particularly the case if we assume that performers learn over time the
possibilities offered by a given piece and discover aesthetically rewarding
ways of playing it that the composer could not have grasped.
Authenticity defined in terms of the sound of the work
One way of avoiding at least some of these difficulties is to define histori-
cal authenticity not in terms of the composer’s more general intentions for
performance, but in terms of the particular kind of sound sequence intended
by the composer and prescribed through the score. This avoids worries about
high level intentions that might be satisfied by other sound sequences. It also
grants that low level intentions pertain only to the means whereby a par-
ticular sound sequence is to be realized. Stephen Davies (1987, 1988) has
defended such a view.^10 An authentic performance of a performable musical
work, he maintains, is one that aims to produce an acoustic event – a sound
sequence – that stands in a particular relation to the provenance of the work
performed. More specifically, the aim is to produce “the musical sound of a
performance that might have been heard by the composer’s contemporaries”
(S. Davies 1987, 41). In order to determine what that sound is, we must be
guided by what we take to be the composer’s determinative intentions for
the work as recorded in the score. But we must also take into account inter-
pretive and performing conventions which would be known to the com-
poser and the intended performers. In determining which notes should be
played to correspond to the notes explicitly specified in the score for a work
of early music, for example, we must take account of the fact that the pitches
corresponding to those specified notes were lower. As a result, we face prob-
lems in producing the required sound if we play the piece at the modern
pitch level – which will strain the voice and the wind sections – or tune
down modern instruments – which will change the sound in various ways.
We must therefore use period instruments or replicas of period instruments
if we want to produce a sound sequence that is historically authentic.
Davies stresses that the aim is not to reproduce the musical sounds actually
heard by the composer’s contemporaries. Actual period performances might
have been flawed owing to failings in the particular instruments or perform-
ers available. Rather, the aim is to produce an ideal performance relative to
the piece created by the composer and the context in which that piece was
intended to be performed. Since the composer’s determinative intentions
underdetermine the sound of an ideal performance, there will be a range
of authentic performances of a work. Davies also argues that what matters
is what the composer actually specified, not what the composer might have