Beyond Authenticity: The many voices of Period Performance at the Lammermuir Festival, some thoughts from joint artistic director James Waters

Concerto Copenhagen (Photo: Mathias loevgreen)

One of the pleasures of programming the Lammermuir Festival is the opportunity to place different musical personalities alongside one another and invite audiences to listen for both connections and contrasts. And that is particularly true of the Festival’s period performance strand.

Historically informed performance has long ceased to be a niche activity. The movement’s pioneers transformed our understanding of everything from Baroque opera to Classical symphonies, changing the way musicians, scholars and audiences hear familiar repertoire. Yet perhaps the most interesting development over the last two decades has been the increasing diversity within the movement itself.

Today there is no single historically informed style. Instead, there are many approaches, shaped by differing views on scholarship, rhetoric, sound, theatre and communication. Lammermuir Festival 2026 brings together a group of artists and ensembles who share a fascination with historical repertoire whilst often taking very different paths through it. Among them are Concerto Copenhagen, Dunedin Consort, The English Concert, The Marian Consort and Ensemble Jupiter.

Taken together, these performances offer not a survey of preserved early music but a snapshot of a living and evolving art form.

A useful place to begin is with Concerto Copenhagen, whose residency centres on Haydn, including the composer’s celebrated ‘Morning’, ‘Noon’ and ‘Night’ symphonies. Widely regarded as one of Europe’s leading period orchestras, Concerto Copenhagen exemplifies a style of performance that embraces colour, energy and theatricality. Their performances remind us that historical awareness need not lead towards restraint or caution. Instead, it can release a sense of freedom. Haydn’s music is full of wit, surprise and invention, and Concerto Copenhagen have built an international reputation for bringing those qualities vividly to life. Their playing often feels spontaneous, almost conversational, as though the music is unfolding in the moment. That spirit of risk-taking and discovery lies at the heart of their artistry.

Alongside this stands a different but equally compelling tradition represented by ensembles such as Dunedin Consort and The English Concert. Both have helped shape the modern period-performance landscape, and both demonstrate the enduring value of rigorous engagement with historical sources. Yet what makes these groups so significant is not scholarship for its own sake. Rather, they have shown how scholarship can become a route towards heightened dramatic expression.

In their hands, questions of articulation, phrasing, orchestral balance and historical context become tools for storytelling. Audiences may not consciously notice every informed decision behind a performance, but they feel the results in the clarity, momentum and sense of narrative purpose that emerge. This is one reason why historically informed performance now appeals to audiences far beyond specialist circles. The aim is not authenticity as an abstract concept, but as communication.

The vocal programmes in this year’s Festival offer another perspective. The Marian Consort’s celebration of Palestrina and Bach places two towering figures of sacred music alongside one another, inviting audiences to hear the enduring power of contrapuntal writing across different centuries and traditions.

For vocal ensembles, historically informed practice often involves questions that extend beyond instruments and performing editions. It touches on language, text, rhetoric, acoustics and the relationship between music and space. Sacred choral music was rarely conceived for the concert hall. It was created for churches, chapels and communities of worship, and hearing it within East Lothian’s remarkable historic buildings can offer a powerful reminder of those origins. The challenge for modern performers is not simply to recreate the past but to understand how these works communicate in the present.

A similar spirit informs the appearance of Ensemble Jupiter, led by the outstanding lutenist Thomas Dunford, whose programme marks the 400th anniversary of John Dowland’s death. Here the emphasis falls on expressive immediacy. Dunford and his colleagues belong to a generation of performers who move effortlessly between scholarly understanding and artistic individuality. Their performances bring an unmistakably contemporary energy to historical repertoire without losing sight of its roots.

Perhaps that balance is what makes period performance so compelling today. The most successful artists are not attempting to recreate an imagined past. Rather, they are engaging in a creative dialogue with it. Historical knowledge provides the foundation, but imagination, curiosity and personality shape the final result.

That idea sits at the heart of Lammermuir Festival’s wider artistic vision. The Festival has always sought to bring exceptional artists into meaningful conversation with exceptional places: creating encounters that illuminate familiar repertoire and reveal unexpected connections. The period-performance strand exemplifies that ambition. By presenting a range of voices, approaches and philosophies, the Festival encourages audiences to hear not only the richness of the music itself, but the richness of the interpretative possibilities that surround it.

Far from producing a single answer about how music of the past should be performed, these artists show that the most exciting performances often begin with a willingness to ask new questions. And for audiences, that continuing conversation remains one of the great pleasures of musical discovery.

Article by James Waters (CEO / Joint Artistic Director of Lammermuir Festival) 

The Lammermuir Festival runs from 8 to 20 September –  41 concerts – 13 venues – 10 locations – over 450 artists. Full details from the festival website.