The Performer as Analyst

Volume 13, Number 1, March 2007Copyright i?½ 2007 Society for Music TheoryReceived February 2007[1] We acknowledge that there are inspired performers who "speak" to us musically, and performances that are worthy of our celebration and respect. Less often do we think critically about what it is their performances communicate to us or how and why they are influential. Yet these are the very questions we regularly put to works of similarly inspired composers. The strong creative presence in certain compelling interpretations suggests that performers have something to say about the music they play, and that they often shed light on moments that our more conventional analytic pursuits fail to consider. Indeed, as Joel Lester has argued, performers can help us reconsider the diverse musical elements that govern our analytic approaches in the first place.(1)[2] Scholars today readily recognize the important relationship between performance and analysis, and many theorists turn to performances to compliment analytical claims or illuminate interpretive possibilities.(2) Lester, however, was one of the first to endorse interpretations that challenge theoretical models and in so doing elevated the creative input of performances. By pitting performances by Vladimir Horowitz and Artur Rubinstein against analyses by Heinrich Schenker and Carl Schachter, Lester argues that "[p]erformers could enter analytical dialogue as performers-as artistic/intellectual equals, not as intellectual inferiors who needed to learn from theorists."(3)[3] How can we develop Lester's argument and understand the analytical claims put forth by performers? We often come upon performances that surprise us, interpretations that challenge our expectations and, if we are lucky, renditions that inspire us to hear and understand the music in a new light.(4) These performances help us reevaluate the value or usefulness of analytical claims and debates that already exist. But what of those moments that fit less readily into a model for investigation? Is it possible that our hesitation to investigate critically the singular interpretations of influential performances tells us that we do not even know what questions to ask? Perhaps, instead, we should listen to what the performances, especially those that challenge convention, have to offer. What new questions are we expected to pose that can account for the differences between musical renditions? And what might the answers to these queries reveal that we never before observed? The continuously varying interpretations from performance to performance reflect a perpetual rethinking of the music, a line of questioning that seeks not only to make the old into something new, relevant, and meaningful but also to reveal how the music operates. Performers are analysts and historians of a different kind and as we will see in the analyses that follow, neither the questions they submit nor their answers are as unrelated to our academic investigation as they might appear. Without immediately judging interpretations on the basis of what we expect, we should ponder the musical argument or analytic projection evident in the performance.(5)[4] In order to buttress and develop Lesteri?½s argument, to which few scholars have responded, let me offer a further example as a starting point for my subsequent claim that performances can both inform our analytic projects as well as guide the very direction these projects take. Consider the last movement of Chopini?½s Piano Sonata No. 2 in B-flat minor Op. 35(6) (external link for full score). This movement, for which there exists over a hundred recordings, has perplexed and challenged analysts since its creation. One of the questions often asked of this bizarrely short finale is how we can understand its form. A cursory examination of a few theories illustrates the assorted ways in which the movement has been parsed. …