Editing Historically informed performance (section)

==Reception==
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In his book, ''The Aesthetics of Music'', the British philosopher [[Roger Scruton]] wrote that "the effect [of HIP] has frequently been to cocoon the past in a wad of phoney scholarship, to elevate musicology over music, and to confine Bach and his contemporaries to an acoustic time-warp. The tired feeling which so many 'authentic' performances induce can be compared to the atmosphere of a modern museum.... [The works of early composers] are arranged behind the glass of authenticity, staring bleakly from the other side of an impassable screen".<ref>''The Aesthetics of Music'' (1997), p. 448</ref>

A number of scholars see the HIP movement essentially as a 20th-century invention. Writing about the periodical ''Early Music'' (one of the leading periodicals about historically informed performance), Peter Hill noted "All the articles in ''Early Music'' noted in varying ways the (perhaps fatal) flaw in the 'authenticity' position. This is that the attempt to understand the past in terms of the past is—paradoxically—an absolutely contemporary phenomenon."<ref>Peter Hill, "'Authenticity in Contemporary Music," ''Tempo'' New Series no. 159 (December 1986), p. 2.</ref>

One of the more skeptical voices of the historically informed performance movement has been [[Richard Taruskin]]. His thesis is that the practice of unearthing supposedly historically informed practices is actually a 20th-century practice influenced by modernism and, ultimately, we can never know what music sounded like or how it was played in previous centuries. "What we had been accustomed to regard as historically authentic performances, I began to see, represented neither any determinable historical prototype nor any coherent revival of practices coeval with the repertories they addressed. Rather, they embodied a whole wish list of modern(ist) values, validated in the academy and the marketplace alike by an eclectic, opportunistic reading of historical evidence."<ref>Richard Taruskin, "Last Thoughts First," ''Text and Act'' (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), p. 5.</ref> "'Historical' performers who aim 'to get to the truth'...by using period instruments and reviving lost playing techniques actually pick and choose from history's wares. And they do so in a manner that says more about the values of the late twentieth century than about those of any earlier era."

In her book ''The Imaginary Museum of Musical Works: An Essay in the Philosophy of Music'', [[Lydia Goehr]] discusses the aims and fallacies of both proponents and critics of the HIP movement.<ref name="Lydia Goehr pp. 279">Lydia Goehr, ''The Imaginary Museum of Musical Works: An Essay in the Philosophy of Music'' (New York: Oxford University Press), pp.&nbsp;279–84.</ref> She claims that the HIP movement itself came about during the latter half of the 19th century as a reaction to the way modern techniques were being imposed upon music of earlier times. Thus performers were concerned with achieving an "authentic" manner of performing music—an ideal that carries implications for all those involved with music. She distills the late 20th century arguments into two points of view, achieving either fidelity to the conditions of performance, or fidelity to the musical work.<ref name="Lydia Goehr pp. 279" />

She succinctly summarizes the critics' arguments (for example, anachronistic, selectively imputing current performance ideas on early music), but then concludes that what the HIP movement has to offer is a different manner of looking at and listening to music: "It keeps our eyes open to the possibility of producing music in new ways under the regulation of new ideals. It keeps our eyes open to the inherently critical and revisable nature of our regulative concepts. Most importantly, it helps us overcome that deep‐rooted desire to hold the most dangerous of beliefs, that we have at any time got our practices absolutely right."<ref>Lydia Goehr, ''The Imaginary Museum of Musical Works: An Essay in the Philosophy of Music'' (New York: Oxford University Press), p.&nbsp;284. Goehr acknowledges the following writings informed her arguments: Theodor Adorno, "Bach Defended Against his Devotees," ''Prisms'' (London: N. Spearman, 1967), p. 135–146; Lawrence Dreyfus, "Early Music Defended Against Its Devotees: A Theory of Historical Performance in the Twentieth Century", ''Musical Quarterly'' 69 (1983), 297–322; Harry Haskell, ''The Early Music Revival'' (New York: Thames and Hudson, 1988) {{ISBN|978-0-500-01449-3}}; Nicholas Kenyon (ed.), ''Authenticity and Early Music: A Symposium'' (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988, {{ISBN|978-0-19-816152-3}}); Joseph Kerman, ''Contemplating Music: Challenges to Musicology'' (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1985 {{ISBN|978-0-674-16677-6}}), chapter 6; Michael Morrow, "Musical Performance", ''Early Music'' 6 (1978), 233–46; Charles Rosen, "Should Music Be Played "Wrong"?", ''High Fidelity'' 21 (1971), 54–58; and Richard Taruskin, et al., "The Limits of Authenticity: A Discussion", ''Early Music'' 12 (1984), 3–25, 523–25.</ref>