Editing Historically informed performance (section)

==Issues==
[[File:John Eliot Gardiner at rehearsal in Wroclaw.jpg|thumb|Many scholars and performers such as [[John Eliot Gardiner]] have questioned the terminology of "authentic performance"]]
Opinions on how artistic and academic motivations should translate into musical performance vary.<ref>Colin Lawson and Robin Stowell (eds.), ''The Cambridge History of Musical Performance'' (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 2012):{{Page needed|date=January 2014}}<!--If a parenthetical "all", now removed, was meant to say this entire book verifies the claim that informed opinion vary, this is an opinion about the book by someone else--i.e, Original Research, unless a specific source is named for the opinion.-->.</ref>

Though championing the need to attempt to understand a composer's intentions in their historical context, [[Ralph Kirkpatrick]] highlights the risk of using historical exoterism to hide technical incompetence: "too often historical authenticity can be used as a means of escape from any potentially disquieting observance of esthetic values, and from the assumption of any genuine artistic responsibility. The abdication of esthetic values and artistic responsibilities can confer a certain illusion of simplicity on what the passage of history has presented to us, bleached as white as bones on the [[Sands of time (idiom)|sands of time]]".<ref>{{cite book|first=Ralph|last=Kirkpatrick|title=Interpreting Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier|location=New Haven|publisher=Yale University Press|year=1984|isbn=0300030584}}</ref>{{Page needed|date=January 2010}}

Early music scholar Beverly Jerold has questioned the string technique of historically informed musicians, citing accounts of Baroque-era concert-goers describing nearly the opposite practice.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Did early string players use continuous vibrato?|url=https://www.thestrad.com/did-early-string-players-use-continuous-vibrato/1863.article|last=2015-02-20T00:00:00+00:00|website=The Strad|language=en|access-date=2020-05-27|archive-date=2021-05-24|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210524215201/https://www.thestrad.com/did-early-string-players-use-continuous-vibrato/1863.article|url-status=live}}</ref> Similar criticism has been leveled at the practices of historically informed vocalists.

Some proponents of the Early music revival have distanced themselves from the terminology of "authentic performance". Conductor John Eliot Gardiner has expressed the view that the term can be "misleading", and has stated, "My enthusiasm for period instruments is not antiquarian or in pursuit of a spurious and unattainable authenticity, but just simply as a refreshing alternative to the standard, monochrome qualities of the symphony orchestra."<ref name="billboard-gardiner2">{{cite magazine|last1=Waleson|first1=Heidi|date=7 September 1996|title=Super-conductor: John Eliot Gardiner|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vgcEAAAAMBAJ&q=English%20Baroque%20Soloists%20period%20instruments&pg=PA46|magazine=Billboard|language=en|publisher=Nielsen Business Media, Inc.|access-date=6 March 2018}}</ref><ref name="youtube-gardniner2">{{cite web|title=John Eliot Gardiner: Why the Word "Authentic" Bothers Him|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ym9oxgr3EnU|date=24 March 2015|website=YouTube|publisher=Carnegie Hall|access-date=6 March 2018}}{{cbignore}}{{Dead Youtube links|date=February 2022}}</ref>

Daniel Leech-Wilkinson concedes that much of the HIP practice is based on invention: "Historical research may provide us with instruments, and sometimes even quite detailed information on how to use them; but the gap between such evidence and a sounding performance is still so great that it can be bridged only by a large amount of musicianship and invention. Exactly how much is required can easily be forgotten, precisely because the exercise of musical invention is so automatic to the performer."<ref>Daniel Leech-Wilkinson, "'What we are doing with early music is genuinely authentic to such a small degree that the word loses most of its intended meaning'" ''Early Music,'' vol. 12, no. 1 (February 1984), p. 13.</ref>  Leech-Wilkinson concludes that performance styles in early music "have as much to do with current taste as with accurate reproduction."<ref>Daniel Leech-Wilkinson, "'What we are doing with early music is genuinely authentic to such a small degree that the word loses most of its intended meaning'" ''Early Music,'' vol.&nbsp;12, no.&nbsp;1 (February 1984), p. 14.</ref> More recently, Andrew Snedden has suggested that HIP reconstructions are on firmer ground when approached in context with a cultural exegesis of the era, examining not merely how they played but why they played as they did, and what cultural meaning is embedded in the music.

In the conclusion of his study of early twentieth-century orchestral recordings, Robert Philip states that the concept of "what sounds tasteful now probably sounded tasteful in earlier periods" is a fundamental but flawed assumption behind much of the historical performance movement. Having spent the entire book examining rhythm, vibrato, and portamento, Philip states that the fallacy of the assumption of tastefulness causes adherents of historical performance to randomly select what they find acceptable and to ignore evidence of performance practice which goes against modern taste.<ref>Robert Philip, ''Early Recordings and Musical Style: Changing tastes in instrumental Performance, 1900-1950'' (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1992), p. 239.</ref>