Towards the digital future

Abstract

The 40th anniversary of Early Music is an opportunity to look back and celebrate the achievements of the journal and the performance movement it represents. Yet it is also a moment to look ahead to the next 40 years, and to contemplate what future generations of performers and scholars may achieve. This forward glance is particularly pertinent to me as a university lecturer. Will some of today’s undergraduates carry the torch of early music performance onward in their careers? How can university courses foster the spirit of scholarly and musical adventure that has characterized the best historically informed performances of the past 40 years? Since the 1990s styles of historically informed performance have become increasingly standardized. Many recent recordings of Bach cantatas—whether directed by John Eliot Gardiner, Philippe Herreweghe, Ton Koopman or Masaaki Suzuki—show similarities in their rhythmic vibrancy, transparent textures and choice of tempos. Such standardization reflects the role of recordings and global touring in shaping accepted norms of performance. Yet for today’s students, this homogeneity risks giving the false impression that experimentation is now unwelcome in historically informed performance. Worse still, students may assume they should simply imitate recordings if they want to succeed as performers of early repertories. Such an attitude is the enemy of a questioning approach that interrogates historical evidence for inspiration to use in performance. (Indeed, one aim of a university music course should be to create self-aware and intellectually curious musicians, rather than automatons that unquestioningly follow orthodoxies.)