Expanding horizons – Improvisational explorations of 20th-century classical music by Peter Knudsen

"Expanding horizons" is an Artistic research project carried out between 2021 (August) and 2024 (November) at NTNU, Trondheim. The objectives were to contribute to knowledge on how different kinds of departure points can be useful for musicians when approaching 20th-century Western classical music through improvisation, an understanding of how one can navigate and negotiate the musical language of this repertoire, and insights into how the tension between different performance values can be navigated in this process. The research questions were: When applying improvisation to works of 20th-century classical music, 1. What role does the choice and preparation of musical representations play? 2. How can we navigate and negotiate musical structures such as melody, harmony and form? 3. How can we navigate the tension between fidelity to the work and creative expression? Based on selected pieces from this repertoire and practical explorations together with participating musicians, various approaches to creating improvisational frameworks were then explored. These included a wide range of scores, including lead sheets and indeterminate notation, as well as ear-based methods. From the perspective of integrating improvisation into the performances, approaches such as repeating elements, working with layers, creating transitions, and introducing open sections were examined. A key point was to use melodic material as a way of building strong connections with the source material, rather than relying on harmonic representations of the music. In terms of balancing respect for the original work with creative freedom, a “healthy dose of disrespect” pervaded much of the explorations, allowing deviations from the originals when they were musically justified. Throughout the work processes, an idea of focal points emerged, as aspects to focus on when reworking a classical work into an improvisational version. These focal points included the score, historical and performative contexts, expressive qualities, and the improviser’s personal voice.

View on musical improvisation

This project views improvisation as a fundamental component of musical practice. At its core, it involves that which is unforeseen or unheard, hence the root of its name; ‘improvisus’ meaning ‘not seen before’. Considering its basis in the unpredictable, one can talk about improvisation as an ”aesthetics of surprise” (Maldonato, 2020, p. 3).

Seen as "the art of listening", improvisation is at the core of our interaction and communication with others. From this perspective, it is often likened to a conversation, which, as Nachmanovitz describes it, involves ”listening and responding, interacting, taking in environmental factors unconsciously but with precision, modifying what we do as a result of what we see and hear, touch and make, a multidimensional feedback.” (Nachmanovitch, 2019, p. 18). Improvisation also involves a listening that is directed inwards, that which is often referred to as inner hearing; our ability to hear "the unheard".

In a quote often attributed to Arnold Schönberg, composition can be seen as a ’slowed-down improvisation’. A crucial difference is the possibility of editing; while the improviser needs 5 minutes to create 5 minute of music, there is no limit for how much time a composer can invest in a piece of the same duration, or how many changes and decisions can be made along the way. Conversely, improvisation is often described as realtime composition – or, as Wayne Shorter, calls it, ”composition sped up” – where there’s no undo button to rely on.

The improvisation we are focusing on here mainly involves multiple performers – as opposed to, for instance, improvised solo piano performances – which has huge ramifications for the music that is created. Even though improvisations in a jazz context are typically referred to as solos, they can never be reduced to expressions of the creative impulses of one single performer, since there is always a dialogue that takes place with out performers in the given situation.

Besides its fundamental importance in jazz, improvisation plays an important role in popular music and folk music traditions across the world, music that is transmitted orally and aurally. When it comes to Western classical music, on the one hand we can see how important improvisation has been in a historical context, such as in the performance practice of Baroque musicians, and in the improvised preludes, interludes, and cadenzas of performers that were still part of musical practice in the 19th century. But on the other hand, even when playing from a highly specified score there's an element of improvisation involved at some level, since performance arts always have a degree of indeterminacy that requires “invention” by the performer (Clarke, 1992, p. 787). One reason is that there are always things that cannot be sufficiently specified by musical notation; things that may relate to timing, timbre, nuance, expression, articulation, intonation, or technique. There are also other things that can’t be entirely foreseen; the condition of the instrument, the acoustics of the room, and the musical choices of other performers.

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Peter Knudsen - Expanding horizons – Improvisational explorations of 20th-century classical music - 2025