The video above, 19:50 min., is structured as follows; a general introduction to the project, two examples of working with student ensembles, and conclusions drawn from these experiences. A text version is found to the right. –>
The text below acts a supplement to the video, providing additional context, pedagogical material, and further considerations. Finally, there is a section that addresses aesthetic and ethical aspects of fidelity to the original work, based on questions arising from working with the ensembles.
This video article presents two pedagogical applications of the artistic research project Expanding Horizons – improvisational explorations of 20th century classical music, a PhD project carried out between August 2021 and November 2024 at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) in Trondheim. The project focuses on practical explorations of the application of improvisation to 20th-century Western classical music repertoire, in combination with qualitative methods such as autoethnography, participant-observation and semi-structured interviews.1
The examples in the video demonstrates how approaches that are developed in the project can be applied in pedagogical situations, based on ensemble workshops with musicians of different musical orientations enrolled in music performance programmes in Sweden, one with university-level students in a bachelor programme and another with students at a folk high school.
Two pieces were selected and adapted for these situations: Lili Boulanger’s Cortège (1914) and Maurice Ravel’s String quartet in F, movement II (1903). Throughout the workshops, these pieces were then re-worked in collaborative manners, with an emphasis on mutual exploration and musical expressivity through improvisation.
Sheet music adaptions that were sent out to the musicians:
Since both of these pieces are in the public domain, scores of the original works are available via the International Music Score Library Project (IMSLP):
The underlying philosophy for these sessions was that musical improvisation can function as an approach to music-making that is process-based, creative, and spontaneous, and, as noted by MacDonald, Wilson & Miell (2011), that it can serve as a good way of uniting musicians of different genre backgrounds. The pedagogical approaches emphasized factors such as student agency, creating a safe space for improvisation, and working with frameworks that are adaptable to different levels of experience with improvising.
Although these pedagogical applications were generally perceived to be successful, it should be noted that the time frame was too limited for an in-depth investigation of the students’ experiences beyond what is presented here; further research is needed for a more thorough evaluation of these approaches. However, much of what was mentioned mirrors experiences from the project as a whole, such as the challenges involved in going beyond the score, grasping the musical language of a particular piece, and achieving a sense of coherence between composed and improvised sections. Such challenges might require more teacher guidance, as well as spending more time with the material.
Reflecting on musical practices and performance values
One aspect that wasn’t elaborated in the workshops is the question of fidelity to the original: How far can one deviate from the original work? Involving students of different orientations in such discussions can provide an opportunity to reflect on the differences between musical traditions, recognizing that performance practices have different ways of viewing and approaching repertoire, as well as different ways of viewing the role of the composer.
As Lydia Goehr (1994) has famously pointed out, much of the performance practice of Western classical music since the nineteenth century has revolved around the concept of "the work," a notion of a piece of music as an "object" that exists independently of its performance, where the performance of the work strives to realize the composer's intention as presented in the score. In contrast, jazz can be seen as a musical tradition centered on the act of borrowing, adapting, and re-purposing the music of others, from its early reworkings of hymns, blues songs, ragtime pieces, and marching band numbers – through songs from Tin Pan Alley and numbers from Broadway musicals – to modern adaptations of popular music. Rather than seeing musical works as objects in an imaginary museum – to paraphrase the title of Goehr's influential book on the subject – musical performance here is essentially about processes and the unfolding of the present, where the use of pre-existing music can serve to provide a framework for the performers to create something in the moment.
From an ethical perspective, questions of respect towards a piece of music might initially be seen as questions of respect to its creator, the composer. While such a respect certainly plays a part in the larger scheme of things, it should be remembered that both performers, composers, and pieces of music – as well as ways of listening – are part of larger contexts; contexts in which repertoires and traditions are passed down through generations. Drawing on Derrida, Warren (2014) emphasizes that such inheritance carries with it a responsibility that extends to both performers and composers, as they are always working from existing material and traditions. Respecting music, thus, can't be restricted to respecting one particular piece, or its composer, since a piece of music always contains elements of something that emanates from its larger context.
Perhaps most importantly, ethical responsibility involves being responsible to the present moment, through how we engage with others. This compels us to look beyond the composer-performer perspective and recognize the intertwined nature of musical performance and the multiple actants involved: oneself as a performer, other performers, the composer, the audience, and, in the case of recordings, a future audience. Moreover, if we consider the role of non-human actants such as scores, instruments, technology, and acoustics, as put forth by Cobussen (2017), we can gain a fuller understanding of the complex network of music performance and the scope of ethical responsibilities.
Recognizing the interconnectedness of the unfolding moment also has bearing on how we approach a performance value like authenticity. While authenticity in music performance is often seen in a limited sense as 'being true to the work' or 'being true to oneself', there's also a view that recognizes the relational and kairological2 nature of music performance, one where authenticity is seen as being "true to the moment" (Bertinetto, 2019). Not only is such a view consistent with improvisational practices, but it can even be seen as a necessary condition for musical performance as a whole (p. 24).
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)
Thus, aesthetic demands, just like ethical demands, require a high degree of attentiveness and responsiveness to the here and now. Given the interconnected nature of musical practices, we are also faced with a challenge, in that responsibilities must be fulfilled on many levels simultaneously:
Since we are always responsible to more than one person at a time, we will always fail in ethically responding to others. However, the recognition that musical experience needs to be founded upon ethical response to the other – involving love, trust and justice – will at least mean that the right questions are being considered. (Warren, 2014, p.188)
Returning to our initial question, how far we can deviate from the original work, we realize that such questions cannot be easily answered removed from the musical situation in which they arise; aesthetic and ethical considerations of this kind cannot be limited to following predetermined protocols, as they require constant negotiations based on the given moment and its particular contingencies. We can, however, recognize the pedagogical value of involving students in such negotiations, as a complement to working with ensemble explorations of the repertoire. Such discussions can also lead to new insights into how attitudes towards works, composers and performers vary across different musical traditions and, importantly, that they are not static but can change over time. By inviting students into these discussions, they are also given the chance to participate in the ongoing shaping of musical practices.
1. The project seeks to contribute with additional perspectives to research by Cole (2015) and Roggen & Nyhus (2024) related to transformational processes when taking music from late-romantic composers as departure points for improvisation, musical precedents found in Atomic (2018), Bobo Stenson Trio (2018) and Johanna Summer (2023), as well as research by de Graaf (2017) and Böttcher (2017) on how musical languages from 20th-century classical composers can be approached by jazz musicians.
2. From kairos: 'of the right moment'
Reference list
Bertinetto, A. (2019). Musical Authenticity as ‘Being True to the Moment’. The Polish Journal of Aesthetics. 54/3, pp. 9–28
https://doi.org/10.19205/54.19.1
Böttcher, T. (2017). From Clare Fischer to Olivier Messiaen- Broadening my creative potential as composer/arranger. Research Catalogue: https://www.researchcatalogue.net/view/335656/335657
Cobussen, M. (2017). The Field of Musical Improvisation.
https://doi.org/10.24415/9789400603011
Cole, R. (2015). Uri Caine's Mahler Project As Intertraditional Musical Translation. Dissertation. University of North Texas.
https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc804974/:
Goehr, L. (1994). The imaginary museum of musical works: an essay in the philosophy of music. Oxford University Press.
MacDonald, R., Wilson, G. & Miell, D. (2011). Improvisation as a creative process within contemporary music. In Hargreaves, D., Miell, D. & MacDonald, R. (Ed.), Musical Imaginations: Multidisciplinary perspectives on creativity, performance and perception (pp. 242-256) Oxford Academic.
https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199568086.003.0016
Roggen, L. M. & Nyhus, I. (2024). (un)Romantic / Improvising interpretation. Research Catalogue: https://www.researchcatalogue.net/profile/show-exposition?exposition=1732861 [Retrieved on 1 May, 2024]
Warren, J.R. (2014). Music and Ethical Responsibility. Cambridge University Press.
Recordings
Atomic. (2018) Pet variations [Album]. Odin.
Bobo Stenson Trio. (2018). Contra La Indecisión [Album]. ECM Records.
Boulanger, L. (2020). Cortège [Song recorded by Sophia Subbayya Vastek]. On Lili. (Original work published 1914)
Johanna Summer (2023). Resonanzen [Album]. ACT Music.
Ravel, M. (2021). String Quartet In F Major, M.35: 2. Assez vif. Très rythmé [Song recorded by Dover quartet]. On Encores. Brooklyn Classical. (Original work published 1914)
If Ravel's String Quartet Mvt. 2 was an NES game. [Video]. YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_8rLWki9Jk