At 02:42 AM 4/8/2008, Kevin Lawton wrote: >[...]However, if the musical notation >has been written well then I feel that a purely >'mechanical' rendering of all the information which >has been written is still a valid performance. >This, I think, is quite different from improvisation >(or 'extemporisation') where the performer actually >departs from exactly what has been written in an >attempt to interpret some of the original musical >ideas. >I guess in some ways it could be likened to the >performance of a play or reciting of some poetry. [...] I >think it is pretty unusual for orators or actors to >improvise their own replacements for some of the >written words (ad libbing) unless particularly called >for in the script.
Kevin, Kevin, et al, This really begs the question of intent. Is the music analagous to a poem or piece of composed prose that is to be considered "finished" from the author's perspective and intended to be delivered "as is"? Or is it more akin to a topic of discussion? While I would hesitate to improvise upon a Dowland fantasia (I would consider his work "composed," "intended," and "finished" or "complete"), I would be rather wary of "sticking to the script" in repeating a telephone conversation to someone else. I think that at least for the Renaissance cittern repertoire (which is the one I am mainly concerned with at this point), very few of the compositions might be considered "finished" (there are probably fewer than a dozen fantasias in the entire literature); rather, many more of them I would view as "an" interpretation on a given topic/theme. When improvisation is an expectation for the performance of a given music (as it is with most jazz), it is difficult to talk about a "definitive" version of a piece. One must consider both original intent (was this music intended to be performed "as is" or was it the framework for further musical interpretation) as well as our own (do I want to play jazz with my own ideas and inspiration, or am I trying to master one of Coltrane's solos?). -A: To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
