# Abstract Performances



## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

Zoltan's Bartok Piano Work cycle.


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

I say performances, because sometimes a performance makes the work sound abstract.

Sir Simon Rattle/LSO - Igor Stravinsky's the Rite of Spring.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Well, we're hear whenever you want to explain what you're talking about.  Sounds like you enjoyed yourself anyway.


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

Reinbert de Leeuw's Erk Satie's Uspud.


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

EdwardBast said:


> Well, we're hear whenever you want to explain what you're talking about.  Sounds like you enjoyed yourself anyway.


Unconventional? Highly individualized? Like no other, and can't be replicated? Not boring (least telling descriptor, but I feel the need to state it).


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Captainnumber36 said:


> Unconventional? Highly individualized? Like no other, and can't be replicated? Not boring (least telling descriptor, but I feel the need to state it).


Now I understand. It was the word abstract that threw me off — made me wonder if you meant disconnected from the work, as in abstract versus real and immediate.


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

A lot of it has to do with the work in question being interesting, but the inspiration comes in the performance. That being said, take someone like Gould, he made mundane works (like Mozart who I see that way, at least) interesting.


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

EdwardBast said:


> Now I understand. It was the word abstract that threw me off — made me wonder if you meant disconnected from the work, as in abstract versus real and immediate.


It can mean that, I think Gould was a lot like that.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Where the music has a graphic title, then there does seem to be a real choice about whether to play it in a way which evokes the title or not. Things by Albeniz for example, and the Chopin Barcarolle, Debussy. I maybe can search for performances to demonstrate this later if anyone wants to pursue the idea.

There’s a connected thing in baroque music, in choral preludes. There, it’s not a question of title, but rather a link with the associated chorale, with all its religious connotations. If we take Clavier Ubung III, there are performances of the preludes which evoke the chorales, and others which are more abstract.

Biber’s rosary sonatas is another good one to think about in this way - associated with various parts of the rosary ritual.

Similar things in Renaissance music, composers which seem to set texts without any obvious regard to text meaning - Gombert and Willaert for example. And there are performers which explore embellishing the music in a way which reflects the sentiments of the text.

When I was exploring Machaut’s motets in detail - three part motets with sometimes very different types of text set - there were abstract and less abstracted performances. I’ve seen people criticise Hilliard precisely because the are less abstract.


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