Sigiswald Kuijken : “Always return to the score”

You are part of what is referred to as the great ‘baroque specialists (in French ‘les baroqueux’) – those who, in the second half of the 20th century, focussed on the ‘historically informed’ interpretation of music. How would you personally define ‘historically informed performance’?

Sigiswald Kuijken: First, I must say that the term ‘baroqueux’ irritates me a bit. It’s not very elegant and creates a label. As for defining ‘historically informed performance’, it’s both simple and a bit complex. It’s based on a philosophy that’s simple yet profound: to perform music using the instruments for which the composer intended it, and employing the technique specific to those instruments. In principle, this is obvious… Even at the age of 10, 11, or 13, it already seemed natural to me!

But at the time, this idea was not easily accepted…

S.K.: We had neither early music courses nor teachers to guide us, but we had the desire to explore. We were passionate about early music and about the idea of recreating it as it was originally performed. Whether it was difficult or not didn’t matter.

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