ABSTRACT
Our relationship to the past has become equivocal, no less in music than in all other spheres. As a result the questions surrounding the subject of how to perform the works of the past have acquired an importance which nobody had reckoned with, and the performer, the communicator of these works, finds himself bearing a crippling responsibility. The problem of interpretation has turned into a question of survival. This is a matter which requires our attention quite independently of contemporary political considerations – which, however, since they affect our everyday musical life, are also an important factor in the equation.
