The term "Authentic" in Music Editing

[John Ruggero]

“Authentic
3b conforming to an original so as to reproduce essential features
3c. made or done the same way as an original"
---Merrian-Webster Dictionary

“I know it when I see it.”
---Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart

Is it legitimate to use the term “authentic” in connection with music editing and performance? That is the question.

But perhaps one should first consider what would be “inauthentic” in music editing and performance.

An editor decides that the slurs in a Classical piece should be reworked along the lines of a Romantic piece, as often happened during the 19th century. Is that inauthentic?

A performer plays a piece marked Allegro assai at an Andante pace. Is that inauthentic?

If those are cases of musical inauthenticity, authenticity might be defined as an attempt to avoid inauthenticity, that is, to avoid distortion and get as close as possible to the essence of a piece of music. Thus while perfect authenticity is impossible, it is the attempt to avoid distortion that distinguishes the authentic from the inauthentic and allows one to judge how authentic an edition or a performance really is.

What do notat.io readers think?

[benwiggy]

Editing and Performance are two separate things.

I'm not sure I would ever talk about "authentic editing" -- e.g. describing the process itself as somehow being authentic. I might say that I have made adjustments/additions/revisions "in keeping with the style/period"; but even to say "I have made authentic changes" is a bold claim verging on tautology. Arguably, the very act of editing is inauthentic.

Perhaps there are parallels with repairing a broken antique? You might use methods and materials that would be contemporary with the period, but is it an 'authentic' Chippendale?

Performance. With the use of phrases such as "Historically Informed Performance", most performers have accepted that every performance brings something new, and that it isn't -- and shouldn't be -- an exact replication of the first performance on a Tuesday in 1746 just outside Hannover, every time.

I think it's certainly easier to describe something as inauthentic than to brand it as 'ISO 3589 certified Baroque'.

A performer plays a piece marked Allegro assai at an Andante pace. Is that inauthentic?

It's a choice certainly. If the performer can argue a case for why that tempo might have been appropriate back in the day, then perhaps it could even be authentic.

Though the more I think about it, the more I'm not sure that 'authentic' is a helpful term!

to avoid distortion and get as close as possible to the essence of a piece of music.

Performance is about interpretation. What you think the essence of a piece is, may not be what I do. Many contemporary composers are guilty of micro-managing the performance with incessant, detailed instructions; whereas I'd suggest that the further you go back in time, the greater the expectation that the performers were going to add stuff that wasn't on the page.

[John Ruggero]

Thank you, benwiggy. So you do agree that there is such a thing as inauthentic music editing and performing?

[Fred G. Unn]

John, if you haven't read it yet, I think you would enjoy James Grier's 1996 book "The Critical Editing of Music," which deals with many of these issues. (Not so much the performance practice aspect, but certainly the editing.) Used copies are generally pretty cheap, but it's on Archive.org now too:

https://archive.org/details/grier-1996- ... c/mode/2up

[db322014]

Good afternoon, fellas!

That's a interesting point I was thinking some weeks ago. Speaking of authencity, Urtext editions should carry that authenticity according to the manuscript, right? But what does an Urtext edition is really about? Is it a literal "transfer" of what the composer wrote by hand to a digital notation of it? All the marks, slurs, accents, words, articulations, accidents, fingerings, pedals, tuplets and eventual mistakes (in case the work could not be reviewed by the composer him/herself) should all be placed exactly where it was put in the manuscript? The editor then has no room for choosing where these marks should be placed in order to look more presentable and more understandable for the performer?

Thanks!

[John Ruggero]

Hi Fred. I have it and have read it. I now realize that the title of my post was misleading and I just changed. It is intended to be strictly about the term “authentic”, which I am considering using as a description of my editions instead of the term “urtext”. There have been objections to “authentic” and I am trying to determine how valid they might be.

[John Ruggero]

Good afternoon to you, db322014. Urtext and critical editions start with the earliest source(s) of a piece of music and present it as accurately as possible according to what the editor thinks was the composer's real intention as shown in the notation. Sometimes the intention is not completely clear and that is noted by means of brackets and other symbols to distinguish editorial additions and corrections as well as footnotes etc. that contain discussions of the problematic places. So mistakes are corrected, but the user is informed of the issues and alterations so that they can be involved in the decision-making when it comes to performing the music. These types of editions I would consider more "authentic" than those which are not based on the earliest sources and in which changes are made without informing the user.

[db322014]

Hi, John

Good point... so, an editor is always crucial for a work in a publisher. The editor is often a musicologist.
Well, I have some trouble understanding the difference among "editor", "reviewer" and "engraver". I'm not a native English speaker, so these terms still cause me some confusion. I've just learned that engraver is the one who works with softwares, putting down all that is written to the score in the app, right? If so, if a engraver picks a manuscript work to edit on the software and, during the process, he/she finds out some passages with mistakes and decides to correct them as well as changing some position (stem directions, expressions, etc.) just to be more clear and understandable for the user, that edited score would not be considered authentic? Or that edited score wouldn't be considered Urtext (in terms of being accurate to the manuscript)?

[John Ruggero]

That's a great question, db322014, and right to the point.

If that editor/engraver you mention finds mistakes in a manuscript by a living composer, they would contact the composer, clear up the matter, and that would be that. If that editor/engraver finds mistakes or makes changes in a manuscript of a non-living composer, I think that it would be good idea to inform the user of these changes, because there is the possibility that the changes may be incorrect or open to debate. That is is what I do.

In actual fact, however, even well-known urtext and critical editions make slight notational changes of the type you mention and don't inform the user. In my opinion, this is less "authentic". But it doesn't mean that these editions are "inauthentic", because they are attempting to "conform to an original so as to reproduce essential features" and are attempting to "avoid distortion", but have taken some liberties in doing so. They don't think that changing some stem directions or note distributions between the staves in a piano piece, or a little beaming here and there is failing to "reproduce its essential features" and of "distorting" the notation. Some other editor might disagree and maintain that all these features are essential.

So I think that there might be degrees of authenticity in musical editions. But I think that those that are attempting to reproduce what they consider the essential features of a work have the right to call their edition "authentic". But they usually don't. They call it "urtext" or "critical".

If an editor/engraver is simply reworking the music as they see fit, they probably won't worry about calling it anything.

I just realized that I didn't answer your first question. An engraver converts the hand-written music into printed music. These days that's by means of a computer program. A music editor looks through the music and makes decisions about the text, just like the editor of a book. The editor and engraver can be the same person; in large publishing companies they usually aren't. A reviewer judges something, a work of art, an event etc. and communicates that in the media.

[db322014]

Hey, John. Thanks again for the reply.

I have been working on Finale again since December last year after a period of almost 20 years. Today I have experimented and found many solutions I wish I had 20 years ago, thanks to YouTube videos, Google and now this forum. I'm and amateur, still learning, still too dependent on the mouse (in part coz I don't know much of keyboard shortcuts on Finale and part coz I think I work faster with the mouse) but it's impressive the more I practice and get works done on Finale, the more polished my works get and then I still come back to the works I did before to add more things I've learned (like the last case with enclosure)... of course I still want to learn more and maybe take any online professional editing course, just find some for beginners on YouTube.
Since then, I've been working on editing some works of non-living composers (chamber music most) whose works are in public domain and I intend to perform them in the future. So, many times I run into passages on these works that is clear the composer had mistaken and should have made a review, like differences of notes on the grid and on the solo part and note duration. As a performer myself, I am a big advocate for authenticity and Urtext editions and, as an amateur engraver, I try as much as possible to write down exactly what the manuscript shows with an "Urtext authenticity", but many times, I simply cannot because the source itself has flaws. So, in these times I get stuck in a big dilema if I should write exactly what the composer did, or if I should stand for my work, the many hours I've spent working on those details, trust my guts and say: my work is authentic and the composer would have been proud of it! No better solutions would have been made by anybody else! LOL

By the way, are you a professional engraver/editor, John?