In Pursuit of Authenticity

I looked at the journal Early Music - all 36 years of it in fact, and found a few (only a few, really) that dealt with Arabic connections or even Medieval monophonic music. There was only one article, actually, regarding David Munrow - a tribute the year of his death. Apparently he was very well respected by his colleagues, and a lot of people were really upset at his passing. The journal did not seem to discuss any controversial aspects of his work. There was one article in the late 70's by Imogen Holste which suggested medieval connections. The next article to deal with the subject was by John Haines in 2001, discussing the legacy of Thomas Binkley and his work with the Studio Freuer Musik in the 1960's and 70's. He mainly critiqued the Orientalism of the 1960s new approach to early music. I can't quite get a handle on whether he liked what he heard or not, though it seems clear he finds Binkley's contributions to be quite important. He indicates that a major drawback to Binkley's work is the failure to ornament or in any way tamper with the melodies, while professing to tap into features of Arab music performance practice. I listened to Binkley's album of minstrel songs, and found this to be pretty much the case.


The study of Early Music is indeed a tough thing to get a handle on. Stretching at least a thousand years, the area of study is enormous, and at least in the journal, there are only rare instances of scholars coming head to head on controversial issues, particularly with respect to the highly speculative area of medieval music. Anything thing I noticed is that there seemed to be a significant drift over 36 years in the way scholars addressed interests and problems. In the early years, contributors tended be fairly forthcoming with fresh, albeit somewhat naive ideas. By the time the 1990s came around, though, there seemed to be a shift toward more carefully worded titles (some of them are really hard to get the gist of until I read them a few times) on highly specific topics. Articles also often tended to be very critical in tone, taking into account timely trends in political considerations.

So...I come down to my own personal interest in the subject of very early European music and the significance of an Arabic connection. In short, I feel intuitively that the un-notated music which existed shortly before and during the rise of notated, vocal (and largely sacred) polyphonic music must have contributed to performance practice of instrumental music in subsequent periods. Whether or not there was an Arabic influence on European music is somewhat beside the point - the main thing is that Europeans did play instruments, probably improvised, probably ornamented their music, and probably passed on some of rhythmic and modal sensibilities [here is where this is all connected to my dissertation] to musicians of the new, documented era. The Arabic connection through Moorish Spain is interesting because of the real evidence of some exchange through the migration of instruments (i.e., just look at the pictures), and the available written knowledge of this music in Arabic texts and the continuity of theoretical discussion of the music by Arab scholars (Binkley claimed that continuity of performance practice was evidence, though while I believe there may be some value to it, such continuity is obviously not verifiable).




The question of authenticity seems to drive a nagging wedge between critical scholars (applying a fairly scientific approach to rediscovering the past) and performers of early music, who in order to actually complete the act of recreating a music, must take an educated leap of faith and "just do it," completing our fragmented knowledge with conjecture and imagination. Just what does it mean for something to be "authentic" and what value is that? Haines criticized early recordings of Early Music in using Egyptian instruments as "signifies" of Eastern otherness, and cited lack of ornamentation as failure to really accomplish the task of adopting Andalusian performance practice. Performers and critics alike put great stock in somehow approaching the "elusive original."





I believe that somehow, musicians intuitively know (or should know, if they don't try to convince themselves otherwise) what kind of authenticity is truly valuable - and this would explain why performers of Early Music are so concerned with and willing to take risks with recreating a music with so little hard evidence to go on. An Authentic performance, in my opinion (moreover, based on what I value as a musician) is simply a good one, a human one, and one informed by the organic process by which the original was made to the best of our knowledge. This is also where I have my argument with criticism of Orientalism (actually, such criticism is quite important and admirable - though I find that in "calling Orientalism" on some conspicuous project often doesn't take into account other subtle issues). There may indeed be a good reason for concern among critics, seeing how there has persisted for a couple hundred years the cliche that the West is "smarter" than the East, though lacking its Vitality, and through overly rational processes notated and killed it's own vitality, needing to be reinvigorated by the East. But the problems of recreating performance practice from notated score (and the solutions for it) exist for performers of every style of Western music in every era, and a comparative study of "other" music seems a logical side project that would most likely exist regardless of clicheed racist motivations.





In all of this discussion of authenticity in performance of ancient music, and the questionable appropriation of Other musics either to prove a historical connection or to infuse a more vital sensibility (a stylistic shot in the arm?) or even to simply signify a marketable exotic flavor, I can't help think of my two musical heroes, Montserrat Figueres and Jordi Savall. Figueres apparently invented her own singing style of ancient music that is, all scholarly value aside, absolutely beautiful and compelling. Is it authentic? She's probably done her homework and some serious thinking...but who knows? I am certain, as a sensitive listener, that it works. The music she sings, even though it may be largely recreated from fragments of the 13th century, through means of tone, pitch, ornamentation, rhythm and phrasing, comes alive in the best way. When I hear her sing, I'm unaware of the music being an old "thing" that somebody found and dusted off, or that the performer is in any way taking advantage of the audiences intellectual curiosity. It's just really good.





In thinking about the work of Figueres and Savall, I feel that maybe they've hit upon something - the secret of how to recreate something that's dead and lost. It may be more trial and error and more intuition than research, or positive scientific study. If, all documentation being exhausted, it works and feels good...then it's probably authentic. If it sounds like it doesn't fit or seems "put on" we may be missing something. As a composer, I'm usually thrilled when a musician plays my music and finds a way to really live in the piece and make it work with his own sensibility...and much less thrilled when I tell him every little nuance I want, when to play the grace notes, and the result seems more duct taped together than embodying something alive and musical, however "accurate."





And for the Arabic connection? I think if it works, it just may be what the music needed. On a technical level (and thus potentially immune from Orientalist criticism), modal sensibility is largely realized by rhythm - certain notes acquire structural significance from rhythm, and areas of the mode are given expressive potential. If a comparative study of contemporary use of modes in Arabic music and the hypothetical rhythmic activity in medieval European improvised modal music yields something that starts to make sense, that would indicate value in the study.