| For its devotees, reviving early music really did mean making history come alive. This dissertation charts various meanings and implications of "revival" over the first three quarters of the twentieth century. After an introductory chapter that argues with inherited definitions of "vitalism" and the established historical narratives about its relationship to the performance of music of the distant past, Chapter 2 explores how performers of the early twentieth century (specifically Arnold Dolmetsch, Wanda Landowska, and Francis Pelton-Jones) applied biological definitions of life to music and musical performance in service of the conceit of making history "come alive." I show how performers intentionally made historic music (or musique ancienne, as Landowska called it) mimic the signs of life that biological discourses deemed essential. Chapter 3 and Chapter 4 illustrate how a significant part of these performers' projects was making history live in close proximity to the everyday world by illustrating how historic music, instruments, and performing practices were integrated into the holistic lifestyle movements of the Arts and Crafts Movement and Art Nouveau. Turning to mid-twentieth-century performers---New York Pro Music and Nikolaus Harnoncourt---Chapter 5 and Chapter 6 illustrate how concepts of "vitality" blended with emergent interests in "liveness," the aesthetic of "presence" or "being-there" that was promoted and supported by the emergence and proliferation of sound recording technologies. By focusing on ideas of life and living, this project ultimately highlights continuity in the twentieth-century early music movement, breaking with previous discussions that drew strict distinctions between subjective vitalism and objective authenticity. |
