Nationality and Authenticity

I'd like to conduct a poll here regarding nationality and authenticity. If you can possibly give a YES or NO answer with explanations, it would help (although I realize it may not be possible).

Do you believe that an interpreter from a composer's own country is likely to have a greater element of authenticity in the performance of a work? I'm thinking in particular of music with a high degree of nationalistic characteristics. A good example would be Albeniz' Iberia. Will a Spaniard (or at least Hispanic) pianist be likely to give the most satisfying performance of this work?

Do Russian musicians 'get' Tchaikovsky in a way that non-Russians don't? Does the fact that Cziffra is widely considered the premiere Liszt pianist have little or much to do with the fact that he was Hungarian-born?

I think you get the jist of my question - thanks.

On the whole, my answer would be:

NO

Because music has its own rules and laws, and they are not bound by the borders of countries or the nationalities of the interpreters. There are certainly performances around where a fellow countryman has made a particularly idiomatic performance, but I wouldn't go so far devise a general rule of thumb from that. Many examples could be advanced to assert either point of view, so basically I would say that the nationality of the performer is not an essential requirement for an 'authentic' performance.

What do you mean by 'authentic'?

Hip, baby, hip.

This is a thorny subject

Not Slovak ?!?

Of course.

Or wearing cow-boy boots on the podium

I had thought the thorny subject was 'marriage to deceased wife's brother'....

I don't think that anybody

If 'more authentic' is supposed to mean 'better in my ears' then I would guess NO, generally speaking. Otherwise, YES.

If questions of 'authenticity' or 'betterness' are now being set aside then I will confidently opine, 'more often than not.'

I'd guess 'LITTLE.'

If you wanted a one-word answer to the whole post then I offer, 'NO.'

- Phil Caron

The most important thing is the skill of the performer for without that it will matter little which country they were born in and whether or not they are playing the music of a compatriot. If they don't have the 'means' to realise the performance then 'national authenticity' will count for little or nothing.

Thereafter the issue becomes somewhat more complicated, in my opinion. The original poster asks whether being Russian would mean that a Russian orchestra would 'get' Tchaikovsky more than a non-Russian. Again that is a subjective question but they might make it SOUND different (not necessarily better, but different). If, for example, you take the contentious issue of Russian brass playing with the wide vibrato and somewhat 'rough edged' sound you might be able to claim that if that vibrato was in use when they premiered Tchaikovsky there is a certain 'historical authenticity' denied to others but, of course, that does not mean that is the only way to play it or that it is better than others.....just that it is how Russian orchestras play.

What it means, I think, is that they would be maintaining a 'national tradition', not necessarily a world tradition. It might be for the 'rest of the world' to decide whether or not that national tradition adds or detracts to the composition itself. I imagine the response would be divided.

However, I think it is also very important that where 'nationality' exists and can be defined it should be encouraged. The very reason I decided to play my career in what is now the Czech Republic was that distinctive nationality: I fell in love with it, felt that it was musically something special and wanted to be part of it, to try and understand it and to immerse myself in it. For me it was a VERY national thing. I had only played Dvorak a very few times (mostly as a student) but to an impressionable teenager this sounded like DIFFERENT Dvorak, a part of the country in which it was being played and, undefinable though such emotion is, it made my mind up for me.

I had never known a country so immersed in music and I still do not know one so immersed in music or with such strong links from the (still) important folk idiom to classical music. I have never played with a world class orchestra but have spent most of my life playing in an orchestra specifically set up to play and promote 'national' music and which still spends 75 per cent of it's time doing that. That is the 'charter' of the Prague orchestra: to promote the home composers.

I know it can be easily said that Suk and Novak etc are not in themselves 'world class' composers but it is important, I believe, that such compositions should be readily available for performance within their own country. Now, of course, recordings make it readily available outside those borders but the perception of people outside the home country must, of necessity, be different.

I am certain I 'feel' Czech inflections in a way I would never have been able to do in England or America because I have tried hard to understand the root of such music (and it's not too difficult with Dvorak, Janacek et al). A few months ago I played for about 400 schoolchildren doing a national dance display. It was a hotch potch of 'orchestrated folk music' and the parts were terrible: virtually nothing indicated and (I would guess) copied to the best of their ability by an unpaid volunteer. But we got through because all of us KNOW where the accents and where the rubatos are: we do not have to have them written out in such music.

I personally always think it is 'interesting' to hear a national orchestra play home national music: not necessarily BETTER but sometimes interesting. On the tours I have done (mostly Europe but also America) I find it interesting that the promoter predominantly asked for our 'home' repertoire. Whether we brought anything to do it I cannot for certain say (although our Dvorak in America was fairly popular) but we tried to show how we play it at home.....it is for others to decide, I think, whether that appeals to them and thus to a wider audience. I am an 'adopted' Czech but, for example, Ma Vlast is a very emotional work for me because quite a chunk of it is part of Czech history and to play Vltava with that very river flowing just outside (and recently just INSIDE) the concert hall is very special. Those moments can come home only to me personally.

Whether classical music lovers can stand on Charles Bridge (where the Vltava is almost a mile wide) and then hear a recorded or live performance of Vltava 'differently' I cannot say but there's a magic of nationality for me.

I have heard great American orchestras play Copland and great English orchestras play Vaughan Williams and Elgar and, for me, they can 'capture' the nationality of such music. It is said, I believe, that the Last Night of the Proms is 'peculiarly English' but perhaps that is just another way of describing nationality?

It's not to say, of course, that it is authentic. It is merely how it is played in one particular country or region and the first duty must be to satisfy the people within that one country. If others like it outside that country or region or if it makes them interested in the musical history of that country it is an added bonus, but not a requirement I feel.

Kind regards, Alan M. Watkins

One of my pet complaints: I would like to hear FL's Hungarian Second Rhapsody with the beginning sounding echt Hungarian, which not even my (many) favorite versions don't. I mean, a version with the short note in each of the 'short-long' groups performed with a strong accent [on the short note], and with a feel of the short note being *on the beat*, not a grace-note before the beat. That imho would be aptly reflective of the Hungarian way of accentuating, rather abruptly, the first syllable of a word.

regards,