Question

Passage A
The historical performance movement of the late twentieth century fundamentally transformed our understanding of baroque music. Advocates of "authentic" performance practice argue that composers like J.S. Bach and Handel conceived their works with the specific timbral and dynamic limitations of period instruments in mind. For instance, the delicate balance between a harpsichord and a baroque wooden flute is entirely obliterated when the latter is replaced by a modern silver flute, which projects with a forceful, cutting brilliance. The resulting sonic imbalance forces the keyboardist into a peripheral accompanying role, distorting the intended egalitarian dialogue between the voices. By returning to original instruments, we uncover the transparent textures and intricate contrapuntal lines that were routinely smothered by the thick, vibrato-heavy, symphonic approaches favored throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Of course, the pursuit of absolute historical authenticity is ultimately a chimera. We cannot hear this music with eighteenth-century ears; we process acoustic phenomena through a modern cognitive filter that no amount of scholarship can erase. Furthermore, surviving treatises on performance practice often leave crucial elements to the performer's discretion. Nevertheless, the discipline of playing period instruments forces performers to discard romanticized accretions, yielding interpretations that are indisputably closer to the composers' structural intentions. It is through the inherent constraints of period instruments that the true character of baroque counterpoint is liberated.

Passage B
Purists who insist that baroque music must be performed exclusively on period instruments often conflate historical re-creation with musical truth. They fail to recognize that instrumentation is merely a vehicle for conveying abstract musical thought. While the early music movement successfully and necessarily corrected the excesses of the post-Romantic era—demonstrating that performing Bach with a massive symphony orchestra and relentless vibrato obscures the music's underlying architecture—it has sometimes replaced one dogma with another. The true genius of baroque composition lies not in the specific acoustic properties of gut strings or valveless horns, but in its robust harmonic progressions and contrapuntal rigor. This structural integrity is remarkably resilient; a Bach fugue retains its profound intellectual and emotional impact whether played on a historically accurate harpsichord or a modern concert grand piano. Indeed, modern instruments offer superior intonation, reliability, and dynamic control, allowing performers to express the music’s emotional core with greater nuance. The concert grand piano, for instance, provides a vast palette of colors and dynamic shadings that can illuminate the complex independent voices of a fugue in ways the harpsichord cannot physically achieve. To banish modern instruments from the baroque repertoire is to treat the music as a fragile museum artifact rather than a living, breathing tradition. Music is an evolving language, and interpreting historical works through modern technology is a testament to their universal relevance. The early music pioneers were right to strip away the muddy romantic textures that had plagued baroque performance, but their current heirs err in elevating the physical instrument above the musical substance itself.

Which one of the following expresses a view held by both the author of Passage A and the author of Passage B?