A Brief Meditation on Parker's "Remaking the Song."

Roger Parker's interesting axioms regarding what can only be considered to be Musicology's broad scholastic revision of analytical thought regarding the operatic vein can in every way be considered ground-shaking. In very eloquent terms, he manages to introduce a very uncomfortable hypothesis on the wings of post-modernism. PM analysis has been active in several other branches of the scholastic humanities, yet in music has remained largely ignored. Parker takes his readers in the steps of Kerman, and of course, Abbate, continuing their avant-garde evaluations of standard operatic repertoire, and suggests, with veritable historical basis, that the methodology inherent in musicology approaches operatic authenticity from the wrong way. For example, a historical and forthright method to utilize when approaching music for analysis is to ascertain several levels of pursuit, ranging from the very conservative (theoretical) to the very liberal (musical metaphor/ semiotics). Within this range, musicologists are free to arrive at very different conclusions about very old music. These types of approaches have an inherent flaw, however. The range of approaches available, whether traditionally conservative or liberal, all hinge on the context that the composers work in question is "authentic;" meaning that the work is in performance exactly what the work is as it appears on paper. One might immediately notice the flaw in this approach, which is not-too-surprisingly founded upon historical fact, the simplicity of which manifests itself throughout all historical eras of music. Authenticity is questioned in the realm of Handel by the hermeneutic revisions made to his music in the mid-Seventeenth and Eighteenth centuries; in Mozart and Beethoven with the classical era's penchant for embellishment and aria substitution in performance; in Donizetti by self-quotation, thus implying a separate or possibly equal thematic message or narrative meaning; in Verdi by revisions... and the list continues. These are issues which must be grappled with, and according to Parker, must be wholly evaluated within the context of history on a case by case basis. That axiom is by no means new, the idea is Kermans'; however, Parker adds to it by way of pointing out that music scholarship cannot be elitist in what parts of history it chooses to evaluate and what parts of history is chooses to ignore.
Throughout his book, Parker provides his readers with extraordinary examples of how authenticity can be molded through scholarship, including his own. He touches on the obscure and the popular, and at all times is engaged in a delightful and brilliant intercourse. Of course, authenticity plays a very large role in this book, but appears under the guises of several markedly different approaches to musical work. He pointedly debates other scholars, and is direct in his (sometimes quite frank) commentary towards their work. Above all, the monograph is a testament to the current state of Musicology, and the tantalizing prospects of forthcoming operatic analysis .