Music, aesthetics of

3. Musical performance

A number of questions about the performance of music have received attention. Foremost is ‘What is it to perform?’ or ‘What criteria must be satisfied if a performance can be said to have taken place?’ One issue is whether performing requires a pre-existing work, or whether improvising is not also a kind of performing. Another issue is what sort of intentions a performer must have in order for their actions to count as a performance of such-and-such a work, what sorts of means must be employed, and what success conditions vis-à-vis a target audience might also need to be satisfied. The question of what it is to perform a work at all shades readily into the question of what it is to perform a work correctly and of what it is to perform it well. Issues such as these about the nature of musical performance and issues concerning the ontology of music are closely interrelated.

Much discussed is the matter of historical authenticity in performance – both what is required in order to achieve it, and why, or even whether, achieving it is desirable. Writers have variously emphasized the specific sound of original performance, the means of sound production employed, the manner of playing then current, or the physical venue and social circumstances of such performance. Alternatively, authority may be claimed to rest with the composer’s intentions, though this also raises problems: there are officially declared intentions, represented by scores, and privately held intentions; low-order intentions, merely implementational in nature, and high-order intentions, definitive of aesthetic goals; and intentions regarding what is essential for proper performance, in contrast to intentions in regard to achieving optimal performance.

The nature of the interpretation involved in performing has been queried, and compared and contrasted with critical interpretation. The status of musical performance as an art of its own has been explored, as have analogies between performing and other actions, for example, those of quoting, displaying, translating or enacting. The phenomenon of virtuosity has attracted attention, as attaching not only to performances but to works themselves. Finally, issues regarding the recording of music and its effect on the performance and the reception of music are beginning to be widely addressed (see Art, performing).