The 20th-Century Performer as Interpreter oj the Baroque Tradition Anthony Newman I The problems involved in the performance of Baroque music have received an unusual amount of attention during the last twenty years. In this country, especially, they have involved scholars, performers, and some scholar- performers in a kind of battlefield situation, where participants attack one another with ornaments, dots, sources, and other suitable weapons. Among the many subjects of discussion and dispute are time signatures, "over- dotting," the problems of inequality (notes inegales) , combined duple and triple figures, tempo, articulation, and even rubato. Little has been done, however, to utilize modern systems of analysis, e.g., the Schenkerian method, as a means of furthering musical "realization." The purpose of this essay is to utilize various of my conclusions concerning Baroque performance practice and to combine them with a linear (Schen- kerian) analysis, in order to arrive at a performance version for the first twenty-one measures of Bach's C Minor Praeludium, S.537, with the areas or notes of rubato indicated in the text. Before proceeding to the written-out version, it would, perhaps, be helpful to present my conclusions about Baroque performance practice and to illustrate these bars with a graph. Limitations of space make it impossible to "realize" the whole work or to present a complete, thoroughly documented discussion; section II is, there- fore, confined to my conclusions and a few of the important sources involved. In the many articles on Baroque music (including over lOO in English alone) which have been published during the past twenty years, the same passages are quoted repeatedly. Yet each of the various authors interprets them according to his individual biases and perhaps his own psychic make- up. This psychological factor is an important consideration in understanding an author's conclusions. Even the composer or writer under study has a psychic make-up which must be included in an analysis of his work. Two questions are generally involved in dealing with music for which the performing tradition is no longer "living" : Is a historically valid performance possible? Is it desirable? In an absolute sense, the only truly valid historical performance occurred when the composer performed his work in a way which he considered pleasing or satisfactory. The so-called historical "stuff" is what the composer heard in his own mind. Next in degree of validity would be the recollection of that performance by one of the composer's own students. The variable factors here might be the student's musical gifts, his stage of development, and, again, his psychic make-up. The third level of reliability would be a performance by a student coached by the composer. In the 20th century we are at the end of the line, with neither composer, student, nor era 145 at hand. The whole list of variables might include the quality of performance, the skill of the executant, his age, his health, any neurotic problems involved, nervousness, the temperature of the hall, and the relative accuracy of the memory of any listener recounting what he heard. Certainly in an absolute sense a truly "historic" modern performance is neither playable nor hearable. The second question is whether a historically valid performance is desirable. In the last century the philosopher Hegel said that history over- rides the individual, that the reason for everything lies in history. The reaction to this thesis by Bultmann and later by Heidegger is not unlike the reaction of many musical performers and historians today when they claim that the real communication of the music, whether historically valid or not, can be achieved only by an authentic but individual statement. History's blessing is therefore peripheral at most. In my opinion, it is impossible to know whether that blessing can even be recognized. One must make choices in playing even a single note, and one therefore strives to perform in a historically plausible way. The better the restrictions are known, the easier the choice. I believe that the treatises of the Baroque era imposed too few limits to permit historically valid performances, that these treatises were addressed primarily to beginning students of performance, composition, or figured-bass realization, and, furthermore, that these docu- ments became less helpful as the music became more complex. Anyone attempting to perform a work of the Baroque period must bridge this huge gap, and it is the differences in approach to this problem that account for so many varied conclusions among scholars and performers. The following is my own solution. II The time signatures employed by such composers as J. S. Bach, Handel, and Corelli reflect a usage already employed during the Renaissance and discussed thoroughly by Morley in his Plaine and Easie Introduction . .. (1597). The signature indicated tempo by means of the "tactus" and the number of beats per bar (further suggesting articulation and bowing). The clue for this is that the composers mentioned above employed the combined signatures of this system which would have no meaning in music not rooted in this older tradition. Some examples are: the Prelude in D Major, WTC II: