Performance Practice Versus Performance Analysis: Why Should Performers Study Performance

Abstract

RILM abstract: "The descriptive study of performance analysis and performance history differs from the usually prescriptive field of performance practice. The investigation of musical performance can be divided into three layers: general period and geographic styles, the traditions which become attached to specific works, and individual innovations. Features of the first two are transparent to performers and listeners from the same period, but they determine most of the features of a performance. Performance style is like a linguistic accent; we can no more let the music speak for itself than we can speak words without some accent. Since performance traditions and the ideology of interpretation are tied to a number of cultural variables, the study of music in performance forms an important bridge between the formal analysis of works and cultural studies."

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