The Notation Is Not the Music. Barthold Kuijken

(in grandmother’s time everything was better), but not with a condescending attitude, either. These recordings by universally acclaimed performers (who presumably possessed good taste) often sound foreign to us. Though they obviously read the same notation as we do, it is not easy to understand the musical choices and identify, for example, with Adelina Patti’s rubato and glissandi in Mozart’s Voi che sapete, Rachmaninov’s beautifully free tempo in a Bach sarabande, or Mengelberg’s dramatic Matthäus Passion. I can hardly imagine that still-earlier performing styles would sound more familiar to us!