Reactions to the Record, 1

I'm going to be blogging this week about the three exhausting, exhilarating days I spent at Stanford's symposium Reactions to the Record. The overarching topic of the symposium was what can be learned from the performance styles we hear on old recordings, with "old" loosely defined as pre-WWII. But this led to discussions of the meaning of notation, style, taste, the composer's authority versus the score's authority versus the performer's authority, and how musicology's views of authenticity and authority have changed in the last 30 years or so. The presentations were almost uniformly excellent, and two great concerts showed how some fine musicians are applying what they've learned. I've got many pages of notes and will have quite a bit to say.