Paradoxically a good part of the public that years ago was very skeptical, now it seems to have changed mind completely and to have become addicted to this approach; the label authentic is the only one they consider professional. According to some listeners, philological rigor finally gives more dignity to musical interpretation which is now elevated to the rank of an exact science. This leads to a general remark: contemporary culture is really obsessed by authenticity, it can’t live without the investigation of single details, but it often lacks a global vision, so far the achievements are fictitious. It could be also interesting to investigate to what extent cultivated public responds to inputs of pure intellectual nature, or whether it is still mainly attracted by the communication of feelings and emotions.
Unexpectedly and perhaps fortunately the new philological school is changed a lot in recent years: the controversial period has faded away and it has evolved into academic research, so betraying its previous revolutionary aim. While the fundamentalist utopias are failing, an acute sensibility towards the historical evolution of the musical language is alive, and this has led to several interesting personal ideas, but which have little in common.
For this reason interpretative schools are confusing themselves, so now it is rather difficult to understand who is a traditionalist and who is a philologist. Why not should we start to consider all this dispute really unfashionable? What about experiencing instead a new and different physical approach, whether we play ancient or modern instruments? This probably represents the quintessence of the virtuosity in music. When we listen to the old recordings of the great musicians of the past, though at first we smile pleased for our superiority, at a closer view we are truly emotionally involved in an inimitable vitality which doesn’t belong to our being anymore and that perhaps constitutes the true sign of authenticity in a musical interpretation.
