Davies vs. Young

I feel like to a certain extent both Davies and Young make sense in what they are saying. An authentic performance doesn't have to exactly replicate a piece from the past if it is ideal. Young however doesn't agree with terms in which "authentic" is used. A piece instead should be successful, Davies fails to bring in the audience which makes his claims of authenticity bankrupt. Just because acoustics are right and conditions are matched does not mean that a piece is authentic because it must first appeal to the contemporary listeners. If Davies were to take out authenticity his definition would be much more plausible.

Is it Authentic?

How can something be considered authentic if it cannot obtain the specific characteristics it had in the past?

 One definition of authentic is not false or copied; genuine; real, with this definition anything that isn't originally created wouldn't fit in the category of authentic. That however, shouldn't mean that a performance cannot be recognized or has no value. The value in the performance lies in its success and how the listener at the time is effected by what they hear. Authenticity rests on a flimsy foundation based on assumptions that people haven't changed but throughout history not only people change taste does too, making the authenticity of something pretty hard to achieve realistically.