Does Analysis Matter?
The utility of score‐based analysis for musical performance has been deeply challenged recently, notably by Nicholas Cook, who has derided its emphasis on musical structure as misguided, declaring “the relationship between theory and practice is more distant than those in the theoretical camp...may have bargained for,” citing numerous competing conceptual and physical factors strongly influencing performance preparation. At the same time, for practitioners, the 19th‐century repertory has proved particularly receptive to analytic approaches to performance. This talk will aim to counter Cook’s claim by examining the value of analytic thinking in relation to two aspects of performance of the first movement of Schubert’s piano sonata in A major, D664: preparing a live performance, and evaluating recorded performances.
As will be demonstrated, while this movement is not particularly problematic from an analytic standpoint, there are many distinctive elements throughout – formal, harmonic, motivic – that familiar modes of analysis can identify, providing the performer (in this case the author) with considerable food for thought for strategizing a recent performance in the context of other contributing factors, impacting decisions regarding phrase and dynamic shaping, emphasis and accentuation, shifts in color and expression, and intratextual references.
The same analytic observations that stimulate the individual performer’s imagination can also effectively frame inquiry into accomplished pianists’ responses to the score as documented in recorded performances. Analysis of a wide range of recordings on period and modern instruments using the Sonic Visualiser digital application developed at Queen Mary’s College, London will be shown to yield valuable and unexpected insights into key moments in the piece, including: shaping of the principal theme; treatment of formal ambiguity and harmony in the secondary theme; response to performance indications at odds with content; and solutions to technically challenging moments of motivic significance – all whether or not consciously intended.
The utility of score‐based analysis for musical performance has been deeply challenged recently, notably by Nicholas Cook, who has derided its emphasis on musical structure as misguided, declaring “the relationship between theory and practice is more distant than those in the theoretical camp...may have bargained for,” citing numerous competing conceptual and physical factors strongly influencing performance preparation. At the same time, for practitioners, the 19th‐century repertory has proved particularly receptive to analytic approaches to performance. This talk will aim to counter Cook’s claim by examining the value of analytic thinking in relation to two aspects of performance of the first movement of Schubert’s piano sonata in A major, D664: preparing a live performance, and evaluating recorded performances.
As will be demonstrated, while this movement is not particularly problematic from an analytic standpoint, there are many distinctive elements throughout – formal, harmonic, motivic – that familiar modes of analysis can identify, providing the performer (in this case the author) with considerable food for thought for strategizing a recent performance in the context of other contributing factors, impacting decisions regarding phrase and dynamic shaping, emphasis and accentuation, shifts in color and expression, and intratextual references.
The same analytic observations that stimulate the individual performer’s imagination can also effectively frame inquiry into accomplished pianists’ responses to the score as documented in recorded performances. Analysis of a wide range of recordings on period and modern instruments using the Sonic Visualiser digital application developed at Queen Mary’s College, London will be shown to yield valuable and unexpected insights into key moments in the piece, including: shaping of the principal theme; treatment of formal ambiguity and harmony in the secondary theme; response to performance indications at odds with content; and solutions to technically challenging moments of motivic significance – all whether or not consciously intended.
