EXTERNAL EVIDENCE AND UNEVEN NOTES

Abstract

Recent publications about historical performance practice show a growing reliance on the kind of evidence that can be extracted from the old music itself. Such evidence is usually referred to as being either internal or in nature with the borderline between the two types not always clearly drawn. The internal designation applies best to such clues as can be derived from the musical logic of a situation, whereby the context will either suggest, demand, or else exclude certain solutions of an interpretative problem. Evidence is if it is deduced from the notation in a number of different ways. The trend to a wider use of these sources is to be welcomed, since it holds the prospect of opening up a vast reservoir of untapped and potentially important information. However, before the hunt for such highly priced evidence could turn into the semblance of a gold rush, it might be well to recall the familiar words that all that glitters is not gold. All that looks like evidence is not real evidence, and careful analysis is needed to separate the genuine from the imitation. Such analysis may have been missing in a few recent publications that made new claims for the use of notes inigales outside of France, and more specifically in Bach's music. Since an article of mine attempted to show that the notes inegales ought not to be applied to Bach,1 a clarification might be in order. A closer look into these new theories seemed to reveal that incautious use of external evidence played a leading role in their formulation and