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

Wilhelm Furtwängler describes performance in terms of the “literal” and “creative” performance. He sees inherent problems on either side of these two extremes. There are those who would restrict subjective freedom in the name of preservation of the score and interpret the text solely according to their own musical taste under the assumption that there is no such thing as an objectively “correct” performance. Furtwängler writes, “As a goal this concept of the ‘literal’ performance is woefully inadequate; at the most it represents the ideal of the pedant, the pedagogue, quite apart from the fact that it is simply not practicable, even in the simplest of cases”.²⁵ He views composition as an organic creative process and likens it to improvisation: “Improvisation is the basic form of all true music. Soaring out into space, a unique entity, the work takes shape as a kind of spiritual event. As an independent, organic process, this spiritual event cannot have its nature and course laid down in advance, cannot be the product of a logical programme or be conjured up by some other exercise of the human intelligence”.²⁶ Even so, he believes that interpretation of the work begins with an understanding of its component parts as well as the process that inspires each decision made by the composer.

For Furtwängler, the challenge for the interpreter is to reassemble these parts in such a way as to reconstruct the composer’s vision for him/herself. If the interpreter deals with only the work’s components rather than the whole, then his/her interpretation degenerates into matters of taste and personal preference. He writes,