"I want to remain faithful to the composer's intent."
*rolls eyes* "That's dumb."
But in actuality, I do agree that trying so hard to play early music as it was heard then is too difficult a task to complete. There is no way to know if what we do in these "reproductions" are correct. Slonimsky calls urtext a "magic word conjuring up an idea of absolute authenticity..." which is a wonderful definition. Magic because we are unable to achieve absolute authenticity. Playing early music exactly as written is wrong, as it was full of improvisation. That is something that has changed tremendously in classical music. Beethoven and Mozart and their contemporaries were adept improvisers. Today, such skills aren't necessary to be a classical musician. This fact alone attests more to the fact that our early music reproductions are more of interpretations from 20th century minds. As Richard Taruskin repeatedly says, that's ok!
Speaking of Mr. Taruskin, I found his article to read very quickly. I really ripped into those involved in "historical performances." What he say, I agree with. We should just call these historical performances 20th century interpretations, which is what they are. He cites several examples of historical performers doing things so wrong. It seems like early music performers want to stay true to the composers' intent, but not the parts with which they disagree. I know this is a heavily biased article, but the examples he gives make the early music performances seem a bit silly as the level of accuracy they are going for is wholly unattainable.
I should say, as a clarification, that I am generally not a fan of early music. I listen to baroque music on occasion, but I find most music of the classical era uninteresting (with exceptions, of course). I am far more interested in 20th century music and new music. So, those are where my biases lie. With all of that said, I quite liked the Kozinn article. The author stated that music was just as much a performer's art as it was a composer's. Interpretation is where so much of music's beauty lies, in my opinion.
Your last sentence really struck a chord with me Bryan. We become so worried about what the tempo marking and dynamic mark in our music, that we forget that we need to feel the music. We can't play like robots otherwise the audience we are playing for won't feel anything at all.
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