florida state university college of music performance practice

avoids generalizations and acknowledges a myriad of ideologies and possible
performances within early music.
Several writers like Roland Jackson suggest that the pendulum of expression may be
swinging back favoring more liberal use of expressive devices. Enough years have
passed since the condemnation of authenticity which has allowed for writers to suggest
perhaps that the Zeitgeist 138 of historicism present for the majority of the twentieth
century has been replaced with a new Zeitgeist of presentism. Like Taruskin, who used
recordings 139 to buttress his thesis of an onslaught of objectivism throughout the
twentieth century that lead to musical interpretations that were lighter and quicker; 140 this
dissertation aims to use the St. John Passion as a comprehensive case study to test,
among other things, if within a period of a quarter-of-a-century (1982-2007) expressive
devices are more noticeable, possibly providing evidence of an emerging presentist
attitude among performers in contemporary society.
138 Zeitgeist - The spirit of the time
139 Although not a comprehensive study, Taruskin compared nine recorded versions of Bach‟s Brandenburg
Concerto no. 5 between the years of 1935 and 1985.
140 Jackson, “Invoking a Past or Imposing a Present?,” 4.
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