# Performers as Co-composers



## Guest (Mar 18, 2013)

Here's an excellent article from the Huffington Post which taps into ideas I've had for a long time, about the role of the performer in the 'composition'/interpretation process:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/...ser_n_1536730.html?utm_hp_ref=classical-music


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

An interesting article! In some cases, the performer may take an even more direct role in the process of composition. Late in Prokofiev's life, he wanted to resurrect his failed cello concerto. But he was old, ill, and weak. Rostropovich helped him, and I understand that his help went well beyond advising on cello technique. Whatever the details, it all turned out well as the Sinfonia Concertante (now known as the Symphony-Concerto).


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## Guest (Mar 18, 2013)

Thanks for your comment!! I'm thinking along the lines of older music too, going back before the 20th century. How it is PLAYED and understood by the performer him or herself might affect how we view the entire work or all the works of any composer. I've always thought this was the case. And the fact that piano music before 1850, just as one example, is played on a modern concert grand gives it a romantic, more lush interpretation just by virtue of the louder, ringing tones of the Steinway or Bosendorfer. No good just looking at the notes on the page, is what I'm also suggesting!! Looking just at the score or social milieu of a work is, in this sense, rather self-limiting. Modern instruments will always mean a change in the way we 'receive' music, no matter what its composer had to say about it. Once in the public domain it belongs to audiences, no longer the composer!!:tiphat:


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

There are a number of examples throughout history. Of course in opera and vocal music, composers often wrote music for specific singers in mind. One of the best known ones would be Schubert and the singer Vogl, for whom he wrote many songs. 

In terms of instrumental music, some are Stravinsky doing his violin concerto for and with Samuel Dushkin, who was integral in helping him compose the piece, Stravinsky did not feel very confident writing for solo violin. 

Another one was indeed Rostropovich, who as mentioned above, often collaborated with composers from whom he commissioned music. An interesting contrast regarding the collaborative process is related in the notes of the EMI cd of him playing the cello concertos of Dutilleux and Lutoslawski. While the former welcomed and sought advice from Rostropovich, the latter wanted to do his own thing basically, do it his own way without much advice. Its a bit ironic how Lutoslawski wanted more control, yet his music has that element of chance which he took from John Cage. But the proof is in the pudding and I like both these composers concertos, indeed I see them as masterpieces of the genre in the post-1945 era.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

But generally the article has issues related to that undefinable dividing line between interpreter and the music itself. I did a thread on that, its also an issue thats interesting to me and I think many others on this forum:
http://www.talkclassical.com/18674-performance-interpretation.html


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## Guest (Mar 18, 2013)

Thanks so much, Sid, for your thoughts here and I'll check out that thread you mention. For me, it's a very interesting idea because it challenges the notion of composers and their musical intentions as sacrosanct when, in fact, they should be organic texts which move with the times and lend themselves to a variety of interpretations. By associating music with this or that mindset we sap it of its vitality.


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

There is some interesting material out there regarding Beethoven and his violin concerto. Unfortunately, I'm pretty sure that my feeble mind has jumbled some semi-related things together - what is in there no longer makes much sense - so if you don't know the story you'll have to look for it, _CA_. Fogies get foggy, y'know.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Re Beethoven, the only famous story I know is: "Clement is said to have interrupted the concerto between the first and second movements with a solo composition of his own, played on one string of the violin held upside down." But this in fact may not be true.

Another factoid: After its 1806 premiere, the concerto was seldom if ever performed until it was revived in 1844 by that revival specialist, Mendelssohn. The 12-year old Joseph Joachim played the fiddle part!


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