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.

Authenticity

We have already seen how music performance, seen from the perspective of a work-concept, can be assessed by the degree to which it is true to a work, or true to a score, etc. This is commonly referred to as authenticity, the idea of 'being true' to something. Here we consider the following types: being true to the score, to oneself, to the meaning of the work, to the tradition, and to the moment.

Authenticity as 'true to the score'

One strict notion of authenticity views authenticity as score-compliance, as being ‘true to the score’, where the emphasis is put on how faithful a performance is in relation to the score. According to Davies, this sort of authenticity is more than a performance value or an ”interpretative option”, but rather an ”ontological requirement”, (Davies, 2001, p. 207), seen that it is ”authentic instance of a musical work is one that faithfully reproduces the work’s constitutive properties” (p. 227). Thus, it’s only through an authentic (score-compliant) performance of a work that we can talk about a performance of the work in question. This view is echoed by Goodman:

Complete compliance with the score is the only requirement for a genuine instance of a work ... Thus while a score may leave unspecified many features of a performance, and allow for considerable variation in others within certain prescribed limits, full compliance with the specifications given is categorically required. (Goodman, 1976, pp. 186-187)”

A similar stance is also expressed by composer Igor Stravinsky (1947), who makes a distinction between execution and interpretation in performance, a difference that is more of an ”ethical than aesthetical order (p. 123)”. Where execution involves ”putting into effect of an explicit will that contains nothing beyond what it specifically commands” (p. 122), interpretation involves a form of translation. Using an Italian pun based on the words for interpreter and traitor – and – Stravinsky states that “To speak of an interpreter means to speak of a translator. And it is not without reason that a well-known Italian proverb, which takes the form of a play on words, equates translation with betrayal” (p. 127).

Authenticity as 'true to oneself'

Authenticity can also be seen as being ‘true to oneself’, which is typical of improvisational practices, where the emphasis is often put on personal expression and the ‘voice’ of the performer. For philosopher Garry L Hagberg (2021), "authenticity as self-expression" is of paramount importance in identifying the specific aesthetics of improvisational artistic practices. While all art forms allow for freedom of choice and freedom of movement, jazz improvisation does so to the highest degree – not only by protecting the freedom of choice, but by demanding it in the first place.

A classical player or conductor, of course, puts an individual stamp on their performance of a composition, and this is unquestionable creativity. A jazz player is required to do that – and much, much more. (Hagberg, 2021, p. 224)

Similarly, Sven Bjerstedt (2014) highlights self-authenticity as a performance value for jazz improvisation, based on interviews with Swedish improvisers. He points out three main perspectives that he connects to the notion of self-authenticity: expressing an emotional state, being authentic to oneself, and “being there”. In particular, the informants emphasize the importance of the instrumental “voice” and the improviser shows herself as a human being, rather than striving for perfection. (p.22).

The metaphor of voice is recurrent when referring to the individual expression of improvisers in jazz. As Berliner (1994) describes it, evolving an artistic voice is highly valued among jazz improvisers, where originality is the fundamental criterion for evaluation. He describes different stages for how such an evolution might take place: Initially, the emergent voice of an artist often include “varied mixtures of their own stylistic features and those of an idol or idols” (p. 273), something that is typically more noticeable during an initial stage of imitation. As he describes it, musicians can then go on to enter a stage of assimilation, seen as “identifiably expressing a musician's individuality” (p. 274), which typically involves developing a unique voice within the boundaries of a particular performance school. He then who proceeds along the continuum of artistic achievement, whose development “moves through the stages of successful assimilation and fashioning of identities” (p. 275) to reach a stage of innovation, taking examples like McCoy Tyner, Miles Davis and John Coltrane. At such a level, improvisers transgress the boundaries of the idiom or style in which they established their initial identity.

The identity that is expressed, thus, undergo changes over time, through the evolution of musical styles and via interactions with artistic communities. This is echoed in Hagberg (2021), who – drawing on Sartre – points out that the self is not in any way static; rather, it is an evolving identity that is shaped through the ongoing choices we make, through our range of experiences, and in how we reflect over and interconnect those experiences.

Improvised music is not only a mirror; it is also, unto itself, a world of experience that goes to make the player. Just, indeed, as the player makes the experience. Monk, like so many other great improvisers, made his body of work – but that body of work also made him. (Hagberg, 2021, p. 222)

Authenticity as 'true to the meaning of the work'

There is also a notion of authenticity found in what Julian Dodd (2020) refers to as interpretive authenticity. Here, authenticity is seen as being true to the work through conveying a deeper understanding of its meaning, which means that performers need to go beyond the intra-musical realm and look at meaning in a larger sense. This can be achieved through seeking to understand the processes that went into making the music, as well as considering what significance it has in the world outside of music, such as its connection to cultural context it was created in. However, while such interpretative authenticity can involve improvisation, the goal for the performer is not to be true to her artistic self – i.e. using the work as a vehicle for conveying her own artistic personality – but rather to make sense of the music in performance. To illustrate his point, Dodd takes Andreas Staier’s partly improvised version of Mozart’s Rondo Alla Turca, who reinforces aspects of Mozart’s conception of the piece through accentuating its puckish, cartoonish character and through exaggerating its allusions to Turkish style (p.149). In doing so, Staier compromises some textual fidelity for the sake of achieving greater interpretive authenticity (p.150). Parallels can be drawn to the Mahler adaptions done by Uri Caine, who repeatedly incorporates references to Jewish culture, as a way of connecting to lived experiences of Mahler, as well as Caine himself (Cole, 2015).

Authenticity as 'true to the tradition'

There is also a perspective that is often encountered in relation to jazz, which relates to whether a particular performer demonstrates authenticity to the art form itself, its particular expression, and – explicitly or implicitly – its roots in Afro-American culture. Following Bjerstedt’s (2014) example, this authenticity can be labeled tradition-authenticity. This can be seen in inquiries like ”What constitutes real jazz? and ”Who are the real jazz musicians?” (p. 9). To give an example, Hellström (2014) investigates how singers on the Swedish jazz scene in the 1960’s and onwards were often critized on the basis of their adherence to the jazz tradition and its idiom – whether they were true jazz singers or not. Arvidsson (2014), investigating a similar phenomenon – whether a Swedish singer rising to fame in the 1960s could count as a jazz singer or not – suggests that it might be more fruitful to look at the aesthetic that characterizes their general output, rather than focusing on individual performances: “([I]nstead of asking the question ‘is she a jazz musician?’ – or to judge every single recording she made with the question ‘is this jazz?’ – I propose we state a different question: is her work informed by a jazz aesthetic?” (Arvidsson, 2014, p. 98).

This authenticity can involve the ability to speak “the language” (Hagberg, 2021, p. 215) which often – to some degree – refers to idiomatic and stylistic features that were established during the bebop era. The extent to which tradition–authenticity is emphasized varies between musical contexts. As noted in Bjerstedt’s study of Swedish jazz improvisers, he observes that the musicians were more likely to emphasize self-authenticity than other types of authenticity, including that of being true to a tradition. One way of viewing this relation is through the lens of constraints vs. freedom:

The dynamic relationship between tradition and individuality will be a recurring theme in any investigation of musical improvisation. Indeed, it might be argued that the dynamics of rules versus freedom permeates all kinds of play. In a sense, this dichotomy seems closely related to the distinction between technique and playfulness. (Bjerstedt, 2014, p. 35)

Authenticity as 'true to the moment'

Rather than adopting dichotomies such as work vs. performer, tradition vs. self-expression, Bertinetto (2019) underlines ’being true to the moment’ as a crucial form of expressive and situational-responsive authenticity in music performance overall. Not only as the ”raison d’être of musical improvisation”, but even as a ”necessary condition” for an artistically successful music performance (p. 24).

Bertinetto takes issue with the fact that performances featuring improvisation are sometimes labelled ’inauthentic’ (Dodd, 2014), arguing that improvisation is not inauthentic: rather, it entails a type of authenticity that is paradigmatic for musical authenticity overall.

The most relevant sense of authenticity in music is improvisational authenticity: being (artistically, aesthetically, and expressively) true to the moment; being able to respond in a creatively successful way to the demands that ensue from the artistic interaction with a situation, with other players, with the audience, as well as with a genre, a tradition, a musical work, thereby displaying the shaping of the artistic personality of the performers and creatively shaping artistic meaning. (Bertinetto, 2019, p. 25)

In other words, improvisation might be inauthentic from a work perspective – seen as “unfaithful to the work” – but still authentic from the perspective of improvisation as such. Turning to the example of jazz musicians improvising over tunes, he points out that the performance practice in itself requires them to take certain liberties with the material; “performers do not wait for the composer’s permission or prescription before becoming improvisers. They freely decide to improvise, taking advantage of the composer’s work for their performing aims” (Bertinetto 2012, 115).

Here, Bertinetto’s view aligns with notions that emphasize being true to a performance practice. But he goes beyond that, by stressing that it’s through “interaction with each other as well as with the tradition of their practice” that artistic personalities are shaped and expressed, something that also involve responding to ”the challenges and the affordances of the contingent situation” (Bertinetto, 2019, p.25). This recognition of the interconnectedness of musical performance situation, thus, can be seen as aligned with Cobussen (2017). As Bertinetto explains, being true to the moment is

being able to respond in a creatively successful way to the demands that ensue from the artistic interaction with a situation, with other players, with the audience, as well as with a genre, a tradition, a musical work, thereby displaying the shaping of the artistic personality of the performers and creatively shaping artistic meaning. (Bertinetto, 2019, p. 25)

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