Abstract
The concept of the musical work plays a central role in the interpretative practices of musical performance. In particular the interplay of artform, work concept and the practices of repeatable concert production lead to an increased reification of the musical work and a focus on technical production. While many recent philosophers are trying to understand what sort of object the musical work is, notably Goehr and Benson have proposed differing alternatives. Goehr (The Imaginary Museum of Musical Works an Essay in the Philosophy of Music. Oxford: Clarendon, 1992) shows that the idea of the musical work is historically regulative of performance practice. Benson (The Improvisation of Musial Dialogue: A Phenomenology of Music. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003) sees work as an onto-existential possibility in which performance takes place and which is transformed by performance in turn. In this discussion I propose to use key concepts of Gadamer’s hermeneutics to develop a further detailed conception of interpretative performance and its relationship to work. Gadamer’s idea that play is ontologically fundamental to art and music, manifests itself in a working structure (Werkgebilde), unfolds within a history of effect (Wirkungsgeschichte) and seeks a blending of horizons (Horizontverschmelzung) are able to open the view towards a concept of the work that resists objectification. The initial and fundamental focus on play (rather than work) also exposes transformed attitudes and modalities of attention in the interpreter and performer.
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Notes
- 1.
I use the term “art” here in a narrow sense of autonomous art developed in the context of the renaissance and enlightenment. This is often referred to as “western art”, however, there are naturally similarly approaches in other times and cultures and at the same time there are plenty of creative, sophisticated (musical) practices and enterprises in Western culture that do not fit the idea of art.
- 2.
For an extensive historical discussion of the various conception of the musician see also Schoolfield (1966).
- 3.
- 4.
A synoptic discussion can be found in Davies 2003, pp. 31–46. Despite allowing for socio-historical construction in the creation of the musical work, Davies never leaves a dualistic, Cartesian metaphysics behind.
- 5.
For a summary of these views see also Scruton (1999), pp. 97–117.
- 6.
- 7.
See Heidegger (1980, 29). For the purposes of this discussion, the additional dualism of earth and world which Heidegger introduces also in this essay need not concern us.
- 8.
- 9.
“.. for Gadamer the legitimacy of the work concept remains valid” (Suchla 2010, 221).
- 10.
This distinguishes my conception from Benson as far as I can tell. While I am substantially influenced and indebted to Benson’s notion of performance as dialogue, I would argue that it needs to be conceived from the perspective of Gadamer’s notion of play and not from the concept of the work – the latter seems to lead to a model of dialogue as presence of voice (performer) and expectation (listener). Rather than express subjectivity in mediating dialogue a performance finds voice – it simply is. This seems to me the direct consequence of Gadamer’s idea that play constitutes self.
- 11.
“We define the concept of situation by saying that it represents a standpoint that limits the possibility of vision. Hence essential to the concept of situation is the concept of horizon” (Gadamer 2013, 313).
- 12.
In the development of musical performance as dialogue, Benson questions Gadamer’s fusion of horizon as dissolving differences and leading to a “loss of a distinct voice”. (Benson 2003, 169). It seems to me, however, that the mediated understanding of dialogue that Benson develops does not capture the detail of Gadamer’s hermeneutic. The point of Gadamer’s idea of a fusion of horizons is the understanding that in response to the subject matter (Sache) we transform, expand and direct our horizon in interpretation rather than pursue a dialogical agenda within a mediated pluralism. Musical performance is about the other, even where no-one is listening. Musical dialogue always reaches ahead of one’s own voice into the horizon of understanding. The “own voice” is in fact already formed by – and formed through the fusion of horizons.
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Richter, G. (2024). Serious Play: Towards a Philosophical Understanding of Interpretative Musical Performance. In: McAuliffe, S. (eds) Gadamer, Music, and Philosophical Hermeneutics. Contributions to Hermeneutics, vol 12. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-41570-8_2
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