Conducting the Wind Orchestra: Meaning, Gesture, and Expressive Potential
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Conducting the Wind Orchestra: Meaning, Gesture, and Expressive P ...

Chapter 1:  Conducting in Theory and Practice
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However, if the score is an incomplete text that underdetermines its own performance,6 then every performance is an appropriation in one or more respects. The interpreter is forced to make decisions that may or may not be consistent with the composer’s intentions.

Nicholas Cook argues that the text has an irreducibly social dimension, which compels us to reconsider the way in which we view the score. He writes,

Whereas to think of a Mozart quartet as a “text” is to construe it as a half-sonic, half-ideal object reproduced in performance, to think of it as a “script” is to see it as choreographing a series of real-time, social interactions between players: a series of mutual acts of listening and communal gestures that enact a particular vision of human society, the communication of which to the audience is one of the special characteristics of chamber music (the reproductive aspect is arguably strong in symphonic music).7

This notion of “script” rather than “text” captures the underdeterminant quality of the score, but reduces it even further to the level of an outline or schema of what the music could become in performance. Such a view would be disturbing to composers, leaving the work open to a variety of interpretations. However, as J. O. Urmson has argued, the performer cannot be expected to perform the work in any way other than what he/she considers to be aesthetically best; nevertheless, he/she has a duty not to misrepresent the composer.8

Göran Hermerén categorises interpretations into two types: P-interpretations and T-interpretations. The former may lead to a performance or series of actions derived from the text, while the latter may lead to a text about the text. The T-interpretation has to do with meaning and, in this context, is considered in terms of its application to music criticism.