# Performer Freedom in Contemporary Music.



## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Is there a good study somewhere of "performer freedoms", I mean the idea that the composer has when he hands to the performer the decisions about rhythm, dynamics, phrasing, tempo? You have examples of this in French baroque music, unmeasured music, and then as far as I know the idea dies a death until after the war. 

I want to know what the composer thought he was doing -- I mean, did Cage have some idea about how the Piano Etudes should go? Did Stockhausen have an idea about how Kstk 10 should go? When you play this sort of music, is it harder than playing Beethoven or Mozart -- I mean in terms of how you have to use your imagination? 

Was there an ideological or political aspect, in modern times or indeed in baroque times? Why do they do it? Is it really composing?

Has any performer written about how they made their decisions in very under-determined score? It would be fun to have a blog of musicians who are rehearsing Cornelius Cardew's Treatise or something.


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## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

Mandryka said:


> Is there a good study somewhere of "performer freedoms", I mean the idea that the composer has when he hands to the performer the decisions about rhythm, dynamics, phrasing, tempo? You have examples of this in French baroque music, unmeasured music, *and then as far as I know the idea dies a death until after the war*.
> 
> I want to know what the composer thought he was doing -- I mean, did Cage have some idea about how the Piano Etudes should go? Did Stockhausen have an idea about how Kstk 10 should go? When you play this sort of music, is it harder than playing Beethoven or Mozart -- I mean in terms of how you have to use your imagination?
> 
> ...


Actually, performer freedom has always played some part in music, even during the "classical" and "romantic" periods when directions such as "Adagio" and "Moderato" certainly are open to interpretation. The conductor often made the "performer decisions", but soloists did so with things like cadenzas (often playing one of their own) and ornaments or embellishments, which arguably never stopped being a part of music performance.

I would suggest that Cage often had little idea how a work of his _should_ or _would _sound. He seemed to be anti-permanence with regard to music. He did not like recordings, for instance. And I always feel a bit guilty playing a Cage piece on my stereo system, knowing that the piece is "locked into a form and sound" that Cage certainly didn't condone. Sometimes I interrupt Cage pieces with other sounds or music (or utilize the random play button), just to keep the spirit of the man's music alive.

I would also suggest that the Baroque practice of improvising stems from the composer being a performer, and the respect the composer has for performers and performing. A strict "composer" might shun additions or subtractions to his work, but a performer/composer knows the changeability of the whole process of performing -- mood differences, hall difference, audience demands.... Cage and other moderns seem to restore this respect to performers, without whom the "written music" is not "hearable".


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

SONNET CLV said:


> Actually, performer freedom has always played some part in music, even during the "classical" and "romantic" periods when directions such as "Adagio" and "Moderato" certainly are open to interpretation. The conductor often made the "performer decisions", but soloists did so with things like cadenzas (often playing one of their own) and ornaments or embellishments, which arguably never stopped being a part of music performance.


Yes I'm sure that's true but the sort of radically underdetermined score you find in Louis Couperin's preludes, or in Cage's Atlas Eclipticalis, seems quite a different kettle of fish. As if the composer has just specified the note pitches and order in each voice, the instrument and given some broad guidlines about how the voices relate. All the rest let to the performer's imagination (someone please confirm or deny.) Even more so in a graphic score by (eg) Cornelius Cardew. These things is a quantum leap away from the sort of performer led decisions you get in Schoenberg, or in a Bach organ piece where the performer can chose registrations. I think you could seriously question whether Cage and Couperin and Cardew were really composing.



SONNET CLV said:


> I would suggest that Cage often had little idea how a work of his _should_ or _would _sound. He seemed to be anti-permanence with regard to music. He did not like recordings, for instance. And I always feel a bit guilty playing a Cage piece on my stereo system, knowing that the piece is "locked into a form and sound" that Cage certainly didn't condone. Sometimes I interrupt Cage pieces with other sounds or music (or utilize the random play button), just to keep the spirit of the man's music alive.


Well I wonder if anyone could just clarify this about Cage. I wonder if and how he worked with Grete Sultan when he conceived the Etudes Australis. There's Stockhausen and Cardew and others to consider too.



SONNET CLV said:


> I would also suggest that the Baroque practice of improvising stems from the composer being a performer, and the respect the composer has for performers and performing. A strict "composer" might shun additions or subtractions to his work, but a performer/composer knows the changeability of the whole process of performing -- mood differences, hall difference, audience demands.... Cage and other moderns seem to restore this respect to performers, without whom the "written music" is not "hearable".


I once read somewhere that the whole tradition of unmeasured music for French baroque lute has its origin in tuning - the performer needs to play something while getting it in tune. When it moved to keyboard music, I don't know whether the players were also composers - I suspect that most players were amateurs playing at home, I don't know how widespread composition was amongst amateurs.


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

Mandryka said:


> Is there a good study somewhere of "performer freedoms", I mean the idea that the composer has when he hands to the performer the decisions about rhythm, dynamics, phrasing, tempo? You have examples of this in French baroque music, unmeasured music, and then as far as I know the idea dies a death until after the war.
> 
> I want to know what the composer thought he was doing -- I mean, did Cage have some idea about how the Piano Etudes should go? Did Stockhausen have an idea about how Kstk 10 should go? When you play this sort of music, is it harder than playing Beethoven or Mozart -- I mean in terms of how you have to use your imagination?
> 
> ...


A lot of Cages' pieces are aleatoric - meaning in parts left to chance.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

ArtMusic said:


> A lot of Cages' pieces are aleatoric - meaning in parts left to chance.


This is not what aleatoric means.

Aleatoric means that certain decisions are left to the performer. This has included, at various times, which order certain set sections should be played in, the use of any notes from a certain provided selection, having various instruments play their phrases individually, without synchronization, and so forth.

The term isn't associated with Cage, either, who tended to leave strict notation that turns out to be individually interpreted by the performer, but rather with Boulez, Lutoslawski, and other European composers (only a few of Boulez's pieces use significant aleatoric elements anyway).


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

Mahlerian said:


> Aleatoric means that certain decisions are left to the performer.


That was what I was suggesting in my answer in the first place, actually.



> The term isn't associated with Cage, ...).


I know that. I did not suggest it was (or was not for that matter.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

ArtMusic said:


> That was what I was suggesting in my answer in the first place, actually.


How is leaving decisions to the performer the same as leaving them to chance? It's not as if anything can happen.

Anyway, what I said is very close to mutually exclusive from what you said. Cage _is_ associated with "chance composition", where the composer sets up certain parameters and then uses chance operations to finalize the result. But this is completely different from aleatoric music.


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

I didn't quite say anything can happen. Similar to stochastic music (Xenakis), doesn't mean the music is statistically random (i.e. stochastic from a statistical term). Each has its own musical meaning within.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Mahlerian said:


> This is not what aleatoric means. Aleatoric means that certain decisions are left to the performer.


I believe the term "aleatoric music" can mean either. Per Wiki, it is "music in which some element of the composition is left to chance, and/or some primary element of a composed work's realization is left to the determination of its performer(s)." In fact, the term comes from the Latin word _alea_, meaning dice.

The earliest dabbler in such music I know of was Mozart, who designed a system for writing minuets using dice and cards with various musical phrases on them. Mozart's game is available on the Internet in a playable version. Many other systems exist, ranging from computerized to the well-known approach of using the yarrow sticks associated with I Ching divination.


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

KenOC said:


> I believe the term "aleatoric music" can mean either. Per Wiki, it is "music in which some element of the composition is left to chance, and/or some primary element of a composed work's realization is left to the determination of its performer(s)." In fact, the term comes from the Latin word _alea_, meaning dice.
> 
> The earliest dabbler in such music I know of was Mozart, who designed a system for writing minuets using dice and cards with various musical phrases on them. Mozart's game is available on the Internet in a playable version. Many other systems exist, ranging from computerized to the well-known approach of using the yarrow sticks associated with I Ching divination.


Correct as well, there is some element of "chance"; key is "some", not all. Unfortunately Mahlerian initially took my post to mean "all" left to chance, which it is not. Some are, just like the so called stochastic music by Xenakiz.


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## dgee (Sep 26, 2013)

I always thought of aleatoric and the oft-confused related terms being used to talk about composition processes - so not performer freedoms as the OP has requested.

I've been interested in performing graphic notation since I listened to a whole heap of performances of Earle Brown's December 1952 on youtube. There was some cool stuff - very varied. I had a quick google search then and couldn't find anything awesomely interesting about the subject, but this was quite interesting and maybe a stepping off point?
http://www.theguardian.com/music/2013/oct/07/graphic-music-scores-playing-pictures-tom-phillips


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

ArtMusic said:


> Unfortunately Mahlerian initially took my post to mean "all" left to chance, which it is not.


This is not what I said at all, nor is it something I would ever say.


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