Modernism

The notion of modernism is crucial to Richard Taruskin’s argument about “authenticity.” According Taruskin, performances of older compositions have been dubbed “authentic” and “historically verisimilar” in order to attract a larger audience and to become commercially successful, despite the fact that they are actually highly modernist. Taruskin argues that modernism was born as a countermovement to Romanticism and to the exuberant vitality of its art which revolved around the human being as creator. Modernism, in contrast, removed the “human” from its center and created a new form which is dominated by abstractness and geometrical exactitude. In the wake of this movement, existing compositions were adapted and reinterpreted according to these new standards of precision. This reinterpretation was justified by the call for “historical verisimilitude” and the need to render compositions in their “pure form.” Taruskin shows that under these constraints, modern composers such as Stravinsky became models for performing and interpreting Bach. Taruskin does not criticize this particular type of modern interpretation; he criticizes the bad faith with which such interpretations are claimed to be more “accurate” or “authentic” than others. For Taruskin, true authenticity means openly defending new and modern interpretations of old works.