Research Context

The last decade in musicology has seen an unprecedented flourishing of research on musical performance; we now have considerable theoretical knowledge about the practice strategies of performers, the psychological and social factors that influence the way performers work, and the acoustical properties of expressive performance (e.g. Dunsby 1995; Rink 1995, 2002; Parncutt and McPherson 2002; Davidson 2004; Williamon 2004). Furthermore, there is an established discourse dealing with the relationship between performance and analysis, and with issues of historical performance. While this project will build upon some of this research, it will essentially move into unexplored territory.

Research that aims to understand how performers work has predominantly scrutinized the preparation processes involved in practice sessions and rehearsals. Issues relating to performing live in public - undoubtedly the most important and defining context for live music making - have been neglected. During a live performance, the cognitive/affective world of the performers and consequently the interpretation of the music they perform undergo certain qualitative transformations. These transformations are related to such elusive phenomena as increasing expressive freedom, increasing affective involvement, and certain alterations in time-consciousness. The resulting performance is aesthetically different from, and often surpasses what has been achieved in rehearsals. Musicology does not have institutionally established and accepted conceptual tools to scrutinize such phenomena, and performers are still required to ëtalkí about their practice from within the discourses of canonized Western music theory. Certain re-conceptualizations that are in accord with the professional performerís perspective are necessary to reach new insights and understanding about how performers work and perform live, and the imbalance within performance studies giving exclusive credence to the musicologistís discourse should not go unchallenged. Because of the absence of research about the perspective of professional performers on performing live in public, the expert professional knowledge involved in these contexts, which is not directly available to non-practicing third-party researchers, has not been articulated in musicological literature. Performers do continue to learn on stage, mainly through qualitative transformations, and it is the new knowledge thus acquired that becomes the basis for future superior performances. Pianist Sviatoslav Richter, for instance, is known to have said that it was only at his fourth public performance of Mozartís Piano Sonata in A minor that he achieved what he considered a satisfactory interpretation (in Neuhaus, 1993: 206). For an outside researcher, the four performances by Richter would constitute ëdifferentí performances, the expressive properties (dynamics, nuances, timing) of which can be quantified and compared, whereas for the performer himself some of the differences would be qualified as constituting ‘new knowledge’.

The Alchemy project seeks to articulate this expert knowledge and will approach live performance as an intermediary arrival point. While the dominant model in musicology takes the analysis of the score as the basis of musical epistemology, this project will present performing, distinguished by the involvement of a peculiar live experience acutely bound up with the dimension of time and its irreversibility, as a way of knowing a piece of music. It will involve the members of a piano trio reflecting on both the rehearsals and on the performances to identify the distinctive cognitive and affective processes shaping the latter and the new knowledge it brings.

Another limitation of recent research is that live public performance is conceived largely in terms of negative affective experiences grouped under the term ëperformance anxietyí. For many professional musicians, however, going on stage is a positive affective experience allowing the public performance to become a site where certain qualitative transformations can take place, in turn leading to the acquisition of new knowledge that simply cannot be acquired in the practice room. This project seeks to counter-balance the recent research by examining the role of positive affective experiences.

The project will also counter-balance the focus on solo performance practice in majority of contemporary performance studies by addressing issues that arise in the context of chamber ensemble (piano, violin, cello) practice.

The project will be of interest to musicologists, music psychologists, performers, and music educators.

Davidson, J. (ed). (2004) The Music Practitioner. Research for the Music Performer, Teacher and Listener. Aldershot: Ashgate .

Dunsby, J. (1995) Performing Music. Shared Concerns.  Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Neuhaus, H. (1993) The Art of Piano Playing London: Kahn & Averill. Trans. K.A.Leibovitch

Parncutt, R. and McPherson G.E. (2002) The Science and Psychology of Music Performance. Creative Strategies for Teaching and Learning. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Rink, J. (ed). (1995) The Practice of Performance: Studies in Musical Interpretation.  Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Rink, J. (ed). (2002) Musical Performance: A Guide to Understanding. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Williamon, A. (ed). (2004) Musical Excellence: Strategies and Techniques to Enhance Performance. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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