Musical Performance A Comprehensive Approach: Theory, Analytical Too
This book is a first sketch of what the overall field of performance could look like as a modern scientific field but not its stylistically differentiated practice, pedagogy, and history. Musical performance is the most complex field of music. It comprise
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Series Editors Guerino Mazzola Moreno Andreatta
For further volumes: http://www.springer.com/series/8349
Guerino Mazzola
Musical Performance A Comprehensive Approach: Theory, Analytical Tools, and Case Studies
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Prof. Dr. Guerino Mazzola Ferguson Hall 164 School of Music University of Minnesota Minneapolis, MN 55455 USA [email protected]
ISSN 1868-0305 e-ISSN 1868-0313 ISBN 978-3-642-11837-1 e-ISBN 978-3-642-11838-8 DOI 10.1007/978-3-642-11838-8 Springer Heidelberg Dordrecht London New York c Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2011 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilm or in any other way, and storage in data banks. Duplication of this publication or parts thereof is permitted only under the provisions of the German Copyright Law of September 9, 1965, in its current version, and permission for use must always be obtained from Springer. Violations are liable to prosecution under the German Copyright Law. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. Cover design: WMXDesign GmbH Printed on acid-free paper Springer is part of Springer Science+Business Media (www.springer.com)
For Christina Whose Unique Performance of Life Blossomed in My Music
Preface
Musical performance is probably the most complex field of music. It comprises the study of a composition, understanding its expression in terms of rationales stemming from analysis, emotion, and gesture, and then its transformation into physical, i.e. acoustical and embodied reality. Performance communicates its contents and does so in the rhetorical shaping of abstract score data. It comprises a creative interpretation that turns formulaic facts into dramatic movements of human cognition. Performance is complex, but not necessarily more difficult than its ingredients, such as compositional sophistication or music theory. Its critical quality is the balanced combination of those rationales, shaping strategies, and instrumental virtuosity. Combining these components in a creative way turns out to be a mix of knowledge and mastery, which is everything but straightforward and more resembles the cooking of a delicate recipe than a rational procedure. Therefore, a comprehensive treatise of musical performance is a difficult business that cannot be achieved as a simple sum of its constituents, but must focus on the interplay of all named aspects of music. Moreover, including analytical tools and case studies turns this project into a demanding enterprise that deals with detailed construction modes and experimental setups of concrete performances—all the more since this book is the first one aiming at such comprehensive coverage of the topic. Th
