O izvajanju glasbe

The American philosopher and musicologist Peter Kivy discusses musical performance at the level of a critique of historically authentic performance, which was created based on comprehensive musicological research into past performance practice. Such performance approaches originate from the belief that the performance practice of the composer himself, or of the performers that lived in the same period as the composer, is the preferred performance style. However, it has turned out that these inclinations towards authenticity contrast greatly with performers’ goals, which means that they also contradict the understanding of western classical music as the art of performance. Performers try to add their own touch to the performance of a musical work; they incorporate their own perspective and esthetics in their understanding of the work and try to use an original approach, whereas the authentic performance movement in principle demands that they imitate someone else’s performance. Kivy discusses the authenticity of performance at the level of the composer’s intentions, sound, performance experience, and personal authenticity. The highlighted elements contain inner discrepancies that greatly problematize these criteria of authenticity because it is almost impossible to realize all of them in a single performance. Kivy understands historically authentic performance as merely one of a number of possible interpretational approaches. Thus, the central viewpoint of Kivy’s discussion is the plurality of “authentic” performance. At the level of performance, Kivy’s critique of the representative method of understanding absolute music is confirmed, because such an understanding can lead to the neglect of esthetic criteria in the interpretation of music. This article defends the viewpoint that the performance of a musical work is not something that is destructive to the understanding and preservation of a musical work, but something that is authentically musical.