Taking it off the page: Interpretation and performance-driven analysis
Title: Taking it off the page: Interpretation and performance-driven analysis
Authors: Lindsey Reymore and Jacqueline Leclair (McGill University)
Conference: Dialogues: Analysis and Performance, 2021
Source URL: Symposium video archive
Abstract
Successful musical interpretation in performance involves the ability to go beyond the written notation, to “take the music off the page,” so to speak. Music theoretical analysis often stops at written notation, where performers only begin their interpretive processes. Parameters that are of central concern to performers but are not captured by the page, including rubato, style, phrasing, vibrato, and timbre, rarely factor strongly into theoretical analysis. Moreover, performers often consciously change notated parameters such as dynamics and tempo. During this conversation between performer and theorist, we address two questions: 1) how theoretical analysis can benefit from incorporating interpretive decisions and results, and 2) how performers can benefit from implementing such expanded theoretical perspectives. We call this analytical approach, combining on-the-page and off-the-page considerations, “performance-driven analysis.” Leclair will perform excerpts from Music for Pat (2002) for solo oboe by composer Allen Shawn (b. 1948) both “on-the-page” and “off-the-page” as a basis for discussion. Reymore will then propose analyses of the excerpts performed both ways to demonstrate how off-the-page parameters can significantly influence perception of musical structure. We conclude that this intersection of interpretation and analysis has applications and benefits in both performance and music theory pedagogies. Implementing this type of performance-analysis intersection in the classroom and in the studio offers great potential for engaging students, inspiring them to explore theoretical applications to their musical interpretations and to deepen their understanding of music theory through study of off-the-page musical parameters.