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Cianci Melo-Carrillo

Music Humanities

Professor Rachel Chung

Is Emotion in the Details?

Chopin’s Introduction and Polonaise Brilliant is a work that has familiar instruments—

the cello and piano—and yet the texture of those instruments together in a duet is unfamiliar to

me and challenged my ability to compare precise sonic features between a live performance and

a recording. Familiarity with a texture, either because I have learned and performed the piece, or

because I have heard it multiple times across a long period of time, allows me to perceive minute

sonic differences in that texture because I can cross reference any new performance of that piece

with a detailed idea that I have in mind of how that piece should sound. For example, in a horn

concerto that I have practiced for months, I will be able to perceive and remember minute

differences in how another horn player phrases and uses his tone—these being examples of

precise sonic features that require familiarity with the instrument and piece to compare.

Having a minimal familiarity with the texture in Chopin’s Introduction and Polonaise

Brilliant removed using specific sonic features as a crutch for comparison, and instead made me

more aware of the general features that are different between the live performance and recording

of a chamber piece. These differences are in two overlapping spheres: auditory and visual. The

auditory sphere has two components. The first is related to how the performance space

acoustically changes the balance of the two instruments, and how that changed my emotional

perception of the piece. The second is related to being in closer physical proximity with the

musicians, which allowed me to be more aware of how their rubato was produced. Rubato in a
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chamber piece requires the musicians to physical and audibly cue each other, which is related to

the visual sphere of differences. Given that a recording has no visual component, the visual

aspect of a live performance provides greater detail to sounds in that it provides context. For

example, both the recording and live performance have the sound of breathing cues, yet in the

recording, I did not have a context for the sounds—which made them easy to dismiss—whereas

in the live performance I saw the context in which the breathing cues were used, which gave

them added meaning. In general, live performance added more visual and auditory detail to the

performance of Chopin’s Introduction and Polonaise Brilliant than the recording, so that those

added details are my main subjects of comparison, however, the larger comparison that presses

my mind is whether these added details significantly change my emotional response to the piece.

I first comment on the difference that the performance space causes between a recording

and live performance because it was the most obvious to me, and directly impacted my

emotional response. The recording of Introduction and Polonaise Brilliant was clearly done in a

studio, where it was mastered to have a specific balance of cello and piano. Faculty House

Garden Room 2, where the live performance took place, did not have the same balance, and

provided significantly more piano than cello. This affected my emotional response to the piece

because at times the cello’s lyrical lines were obscured, which were supposed to be the main

carriers of emotion. This was an effect that the instrumentalist could not control; the rest of my

comparisons relate to the things they could.

The second thing the performance space provided to the live performance of Introduction

and Polonaise Brilliant was a closer proximity to the instrumentalists, which provided context

for the musical decisions they took, such as their rubato in the “Lento” section. Breath cues are

essential for any changes of time, particularly when these changes are not clearly marked such as
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in rubato sections. Both the recording and live performance had audible breath cues, but they

were easier for me to dismiss in the recording because I was not aware of their purpose. In the

live performance, it became clear that these breath cues are essential for time transitions in the

piece because I could see the context in which the instrumentalists prepare, look at each other,

and breath together before any transition. I could perceive these details because I was in a

particularly sized space where I could see these details in action. In a larger space, with a seat

farther away from the instrumentalists, those visual details would have been lost, as in a

recording which has no visual aspect.

Breath cues are independent sounds that are given context by their visual aspect, but

the visual sphere also includes visual aspects with a relationship to the music itself, such as in the

faces of expression of the musicians. These facial expressions, particularly the cellist’s, were

specific to certain moments and provided detail as to what the musician felt in those moments.

These details in turn informed me how I could feel in those moments. For example, in the poco

piu mosso section of the “Lento,” the cellist had an expression of intense sadness, and in turn I

felt that emotion more intensely as that provided a point of connection between the performer

and me.

The recorded performance of Introduction and Polonaise Brilliant clearly did not have

any of the facial expression. However, being a work by Chopin, with set interpretive details

already annotated in the sheet music, the reproduction of these interpretive details in the

recording and live performance of Introduction and Polonaise Brilliant —such as where a

rallentando occurs—were very similar. The difference in interpretation between the recording

and performance was in how these interpretative details were reproduced—or at least my

perception of how. In the live performance, my perception was heavily based on what I saw. The
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beginning of the “Alla Polacca” section has “con spirito” marked on the cello part, however, the

translation of that term “with spirit" has several interpretations. There is a joyful spirit, a prideful

spirit, a heroic spirit, etc. The cellist’s facial expression informed that this was a joyful spirit, and

in turn, in the recording I felt a heroic spirit. However, in the recording, that heroic spirit is my

interpretation of the sounds, whereas in the live performance, the joyful spirit is the interpretation

of the performer which I have also accepted as my own.

Hence, the additional visual details of the live performance are not the cause of emotional

response to the music in Introduction and Polonaise Brilliant. Whether listening to the piece in

recording or in live performance, I still got an emotional response. In the live performance,

seeing the performers’ reactions forced me to have the emotional response that they felt. When I

listened to the recording, the emotional response that I felt was my own. Another person

listening to the same recording might have had a different response. Therefore, listening to the

piece in recording allowed me to have a more personal response to Introduction and Polonaise

Brilliant.

The comparisons I have made between a recorded version and a live performance of

Chopin’s Introduction and Polonaise Brilliant are based on the effects of the added visual

aspects that come from having the performers present in close proximity. One such effect, is the

contextualization of extra-musical breath cues, which gives an insight into the dynamic between

two instrumentalists in a chamber group necessary for the creation of the music. However, it did

not add to the emotional effects of the music itself. If a performance of a piece is to be valued by

being able to evoke an emotional response in the listener, then both live performance and

recording are equal. However, for myself, personal emotional response to a recording trumps the

forced evoked response that comes from being an audience member responding to the emotions
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of the performers in a live performance. There is value to music independent of the performers,

and although their interpretation is always present in auditory presentation of the piece, the

visual details complete their interpretation and removes any interpretation of the audience. If the

performer looks sad, you cannot then have the freedom to think it as anything else. It is this

freedom to feel anything, which is what I value most because in this way I am able to lose myself

in the music. The music is a projection of myself not of another.

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Information

Work: Chopin: Introduction and Polonaise Brilliant in C major, Op. 3

Live Artists: Elena Ariza, Misha Galant

Performance Space: Faculty House Garden Room 2

Performance Date: Wednesday, October 18th, 2017

Recording Artists: Sol Gabetta, Bertrand Chamayou