Recent discussions of culinary authenticity have focused on the problematic sociopolitical implications of Euro‐Americans seeking authenticity in food perceived as ethnic. This article seeks to rehabilitate the concept of culinary authenticity. First, the author relates the issue of culinary authenticity to other philosophical debates concerning authenticity, arguing that the concept of authenticity is value‐neutral. Second, a general theory of culinary authenticity making use of the theoretical apparatus of Kendall Walton's “Categories of Art” is developed and defended against objections. Third, a (...) variety of reasons that authenticity is valued are discussed, with an emphasis on aesthetic reasons. Ultimately, the author acknowledges that some ways of valuing culinary authenticity are objectionable but argues that this should not lead us to abandon our interest in authenticity altogether. (shrink)

Musical works change. Bruckner revised his Eighth Symphony. Ella Fitzgerald and many other artists have made it acceptable to sing the jazz standard “All the Things You Are” without its original verse. If we accept that musical works genuinely change in these ways, a puzzle arises: why can’t I change Bruckner’s Eighth Symphony? More generally, why are some individuals in a privileged position when it comes to changing musical works and other artifacts, such as novels, films, and games? I give (...) a view of musical works that helps to answer these questions. Musical works, on this view, are created abstract objects with no parts. The paradigmatic changes that musical works undergo are socially determined normative changes in how they should be performed. Due to contingent social practices, Bruckner, but not I, can change how his symphony should be performed. Were social practices radically different, I would be able to change his symphony. This view extends to abstract artifacts beyond music, including novels, films, words, games, and corporations. (shrink)

I argue that even if video games are interactive artworks, typical video games are not works for performance and players of video games do not perform these games in the sense in which a musician performs a musical composition (or actors a play, dancers a ballet, and so on). Even expert playings of video games for an audience fail to qualify as performances of those works. Some exemplary playings may qualify as independent “performance-works,” but this tells us nothing about the (...) ontology of video games or playings of them. The argument proceeds by clarifying the concepts of interactivity and work-performance, drawing particularly on recent work by Dominic Lopes, Berys Gaut, and David Davies. (shrink)

“Oversinging” is singing that is excessive in one or more dimensions: too loud, too ornamented, too melismatic, too expressive, or employing too much vibrato. I begin with a characterization of oversinging and establish a context for discussion (Section I). Next I consider performances by Christina Aguilera and Michael Bolton as examples (Section II). In light of these examples, I consider how oversinging might be both aesthetically and morally problematic (Section III). Along the way I raise concerns about authenticity and sincerity (...) (Section IV). Finally (Section V), I consider a “paradox” of oversinging involving the role of skill in artistic performance. My discussion touches on the aesthetics of performance, aesthetic judgment, virtuosity, and taste. (shrink)

According to the mainstream view in the philosophy of music, the only way to authentically perform works of past centuries is according to the ideal of Historically Authentic Performance (HAP). This paper aims to show that, despite recent defences of the mainstream view, it lacks motivation, and hence should be abandoned or revised. As we shall see, first, there is no plausible account of HAP as a final and intrinsic value consistent with the work-focused teleology of work-performance. Second, a plausible (...) account of the value of HAP in work-performance regards HAP as a way of performing works of past centuries convincingly. However, this approach does not support the mainstream view because this only leaves HAP as an interpretive option. Finally, an alternative defence of the value of HAP in the form of an indispensability argument is considered: HAP is indispensable to accurately comply with a work’s score, and thus to perform it faithfully. This strategy supports the demands of the mainstream view, but we will see that, if we take this option seriously, HAP must be understood in a substantively different manner than the mainstream view does, such that it ultimately amounts to the second option analysed above. (shrink)

In this critical study of Julian Dodd’s Being True to Works of Music, I argue that the three-tier normative profile of the work-performance tradition in classical music that Dodd defends should be rejected in favour of a two-tier version. I also argue that the theory of work-performance defended in the book fits much more naturally with a contextualist ontology of musical works than with the Platonist ontology Dodd defends in Works of Music, despite his arguments to the contrary in the (...) afterword of the new book. Finally, I argue that the reasons he gives for preferring a ‘tradition-based’ over a ‘historicized’ theory of the understanding of classical scores are not convincing. (shrink)

This paper explores how a new theory on the ontology of musical works, Musical Stage Theory, can address the problem of change in musical works. A natural consequence of the ontological framework of this theory is that musical works change intrinsically through a change in the sonic-structural properties of performances. From this a surprising consequence follows: everyone can change a musical work. Still, it seems that some changes matter more than others. The article offers a revisionary reply to this concern (...) by arguing that normative change is not a change in the ontological nature of the work but rather in its authenticity conditions. (shrink)

While all agree that score compliance in performance is valuable, the source of this value is unclear. Questions about what authenticity requires crowd out questions about our reasons to be compliant in the first place, perhaps because they seem trivial or uninteresting. I argue that such reasons cannot be understood as ordinary aesthetic, instrumental, epistemic, or moral reasons. Instead, we treat considerations of score compliance as having a kind of final value, one which requires further explanation. Taking as a model (...) the Humean account of fidelity as an artificial virtue, I sketch a practice-theoretic account of the nature and source of such reasons, one on which we can say that they are, after all, aesthetic, but only indirectly so. (shrink)

We take performers of classical music as producers of creative performances. We sometimes criticize a performer’s performance by saying ‘That is not what the composer wants’. The literature takes this kind of criticism, which I call ‘intentionalist criticism’, to be in tension with performers’ creativity—taking the criticism to be an attempt to restrict performers’ creativity by historical authenticity. This paper aims to construct a possible understanding of intentionalist criticisms according to which those criticisms are grounded in our respect of performers (...) as artists. Under this understanding, the point of intentionalist criticisms is that performers, who are pursuing the aesthetic beauty of a work, can produce an aesthetically better result by being open-minded to the perspectives of the composer who is also a serious pursuer of the work’s beauty. (shrink)

The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Volume 78, Issue 1, Page 85-90, Winter 2020.

In this paper I defend a contextualist interpretation of authenticity in musical performance: we judge a performance as authentic not in respect of a stable set of requirements but according to contextually determined factors. This solution is the natural outcome of an independently supported ontological account of musical works: Musical Stage Theory. The aim of the paper is to give new momentum to the debate concerning the notion of authenticity and to challenge a monistic interpretation of authenticity: there is not (...) one authenticity but many. (shrink)

In his On the Musically Beautiful, Hanslick vigorously argued that musical beauty depends neither on the representation nor on the evocation of feelings. However, despite his formalism, Hanslick regards the performance of a musical work as a moment of emotional release. Given the tension between the formalist nature of Hanslick’s general theory and this expressionist drift in his conception of the performer, in this article I pursue two objectives: 1) to argue that there is, in fact, an important internal inconsistency (...) in Hanslick’s theory regarding the nature of performance, and 2) to deepen and render intelligible this perspective of performance. Although internally inconsistent, this perspective, in its search for a synergistic conciliation of the composer’s creativity with the performer’s expressivity, is worthy of analysis. (shrink)

The relationship between 1. recipes, 2. ingredients and 3. dishes may be understood in analogy to the relationship between elements in the performing arts: for example, in music, 1. musical works, 2. ‘musical ingredients’ and 3. performances. The recipe’s inventor is a ‘composer’ and the cook is a ‘performer’. As I will argue, both in musical performances and in the preparation of dishes, the application of norms requires ‘creative’ adaptation to the concrete specific situation and the final product emerges from (...) practical interactions that involve transformations of their own normative bases. Hence, both in culinary practices and performing arts like music, the improvisational case is paramount for understanding how their normativity, as paradigmatic of the normativity of human practices in general, works. (shrink)