Music Performance Encounters Collaborations and Confrontations John Koslovsky Michiel Schuijer Full Chapter PDF

Music Performance Encounters;
Collaborations and Confrontations

John Koslovsky & Michiel Schuijer
Visit to download the full and correct content document:
https://ebookmass.com/product/music-performance-encounters-collaborations-and-co
nfrontations-john-koslovsky-michiel-schuijer/
More products digital (pdf, epub, mobi) instant
download maybe you interests ...
The Oxford Handbook of Music Performance. Development

And Learning, Proficiencies, Performance Practices, And
Psychology Gary E. Mcpherson (Ed.)
https://ebookmass.com/product/the-oxford-handbook-of-music-
performance-development-and-learning-proficiencies-performance-
practices-and-psychology-gary-e-mcpherson-ed/
The Misery Of International Law: Confrontations With

Injustice In The Global Economy John Linarelli
https://ebookmass.com/product/the-misery-of-international-law-
confrontations-with-injustice-in-the-global-economy-john-
linarelli/
Inside Arabic Music: Arabic Maqam Performance and

Theory in the 20th Century Johnny Farraj
https://ebookmass.com/product/inside-arabic-music-arabic-maqam-
performance-and-theory-in-the-20th-century-johnny-farraj/
Feminist Methodologies: Experiments, Collaborations And

Reflections 1st Edition Wendy Harcourt
https://ebookmass.com/product/feminist-methodologies-experiments-
collaborations-and-reflections-1st-edition-wendy-harcourt/
Elsevier Weekblad - Week 26 - 2022 Gebruiker
https://ebookmass.com/product/elsevier-weekblad-
week-26-2022-gebruiker/
Music, the Moving Image and Ireland, 1897–2017 John

O’Flynn
https://ebookmass.com/product/music-the-moving-image-and-
ireland-1897-2017-john-oflynn/
Epsilon 1. Primo corso di analisi matematica Michiel

Bertsch
https://ebookmass.com/product/epsilon-1-primo-corso-di-analisi-
matematica-michiel-bertsch/
1 st International Congress and Exhibition on

Sustainability in Music, Art, Textile and Fashion
(ICESMATF 2023) January, 26-27 Madrid, Spain Exhibition
Book 1st Edition Tatiana Lissa
https://ebookmass.com/product/1-st-international-congress-and-
exhibition-on-sustainability-in-music-art-textile-and-fashion-
icesmatf-2023-january-26-27-madrid-spain-exhibition-book-1st-
edition-tatiana-lissa/
Traditions and Encounters 6th Edition, (Ebook PDF)
https://ebookmass.com/product/traditions-and-encounters-6th-
edition-ebook-pdf/
Music Performance Encounters
Why do most musical performers and musical researchers continue to inhabit

divergent epistemic spaces? To what extent is the act of musical performance
coextensive with the act of doing musical research, and vice versa? At what point
in the research process can a performative act transform into a scholarly one, and
a scholarly act into a performative one? These, and other related questions, form
the central focus of this book, with each chapter offering a fresh perspective on a
particular topic in music performance studies: improvisational traditions, historical
performance practices, analysis and performance, sports psychology, cross-cultural
musical interactions, and institutional challenges.
This book is aimed at music researchers, teachers, students, and practising
musicians interested in the intersection of academic and performance research;
as such, it seeks to bridge the divide between the research of university-trained
musicologists, scholars from other fields who focus on music, and the growing
community of musical artist-researchers. Material in this book is supported by
performance outcomes offered by the contributors on a separate YouTube channel
and on the Routledge online portal.
John Koslovsky is a professor of music history, theory, and analysis at KU Leuven

(since fall 2023). From 2010 to 2023, he was on the music theory and research
faculties at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam and was an affiliate researcher in the
humanities at Utrecht University. His research deals with the history of music theory,
Schenkerian analysis, music aesthetics, intertextuality, and performance studies.
Michiel Schuijer is a musicologist and music theorist, and currently head of

the research division at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam. In his research, he
explores historical, sociological, and cultural perspectives on music theory. His
book Analyzing Atonal Music: Pitch-Class Set Theory and Its Contexts (2008) was
awarded the American Society for Music Theory Emerging Scholar Award in 2010.
Recent research interests include evolving notions of professionalism in music and
the role of heritage in musical culture. From 2020 through 2023, Schuijer was
project leader of the Academy for Musicology and Musicianship (Amsterdam,
Utrecht), a study programme combining the strengths of conservatory and university
education.
Routledge Research in Music
The Routledge Research in Music series is home to cutting-edge, upper-level

scholarly studies and edited collections. Considering music performance, theory,
and culture alongside topics such as gender, race, ecology, film, religion, politics,
and science, titles are characterized by dynamic interventions into established sub-
jects and innovative studies on emerging topics.
Recent titles:
Music, Place, and Identity in Italian Urban Soundscapes circa 1550-1860

Edited by Franco Piperno, Simone Caputo, and Emanuele Senici
Perspectives on Contemporary Music Theory

Essays in Honor of Kevin Korsyn
Edited by Bryan Parkhurst and Jeffrey Swinkin
Shaping Sound and Society

The Cultural Study of Musical Instruments
Edited by Stephen Cottrell
Contemporary Musical Virtuosities

Edited by Louise Devenish and Cat Hope
Music and Identity in Twenty-First-Century Monasticism

Amanda J. Haste

Edited by John Koslovsky and Michiel Schuijer
For more information about this series, please visit: https://www.routledge.com/

Routledge-Research-in-Music/book-series/RRM
Edited by John Koslovsky

and Michiel Schuijer
First published 2024
by Routledge
4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2024 selection and editorial matter, John Koslovsky and Michiel Schuijer; individual
chapters, the contributors
The right of John Koslovsky and Michiel Schuijer to be identified as the authors of the
editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in
accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any
form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented,
including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system,
without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks,
and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Koslovsky, John, editor. | Schuijer, Michiel, editor.
Title: Music performance encounters: collaborations and confrontations /
edited by John Koslovsky and Michiel Schuijer.
Description: Abingdon, Oxon; New York: Routledge, 2023. |
Series: Routledge research in music series |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2023025504 (print) | LCCN 2023025505 (ebook) |
ISBN 9781032282169 (hardback) | ISBN 9781032282176 (paperback) |
ISBN 9781003295785 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Music—Performance. | Historically informed performance
(Music) | Musical analysis. | Music—Performance—Psychological aspects.
Classification: LCC ML457 .M8614 2023 (print) |
LCC ML457 (ebook) | DDC 780.78—dc23/eng/20230711
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023025504
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023025505
ISBN: 978-1-032-28216-9 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-1-032-28217-6 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-29578-5 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9781003295785
Typeset in Times New Roman
by codeMantra
The extra audio-visual material can be accessed via the online Routledge Music Research
Portal: www.routledgemusicresearch.co.uk.
Please enter the activation word RRMusic and your email address when prompted. You will
immediately be sent an automated email containing an access token and instructions, which
will allow you to log in to the site.
The separate, public YouTube channel dedicated to this volume can be found at:
https://www.youtube.com/@musicperformanceencounters.
When it comes to the designation of musical pitches in a specific register, we have opted for
the “Helmholtz” system of notation: i.e., C‚, C, c, c′, c′′, c′′′, c′′′′. Pitch classes (irrespective of
register) have generally been indicated with capital letters.
Contents
List of Examples and Tables vii

List of Contributors xi
Preface xv
Acknowledgements xix
Introduction: “Who Are You?”: On Performers,

Scholars, Masters, and Pupils 1
MICHIEL SCHUIJER AND JOHN KOSLOVSKY
Critical Interlude 115

JOHN KOSLOVSKY
PART I
Tools of (Historical) Performance Practice17
1 “Che hanno contrapunto”: Counterpoint Training and

the Performance of Diminution in the Sixteenth and
Seventeenth Centuries 19
CATHERINE MOTUZ AND JOSUÉ MELÉNDEZ PELÁEZ
2 The Italian Imitative and Interdisciplinary Musical Ethos

of the Sixteenth Century: Ganassi’s Fontegara45
NUNO ATALAIA (PART I) AND TÍMEA NAGY (PART II)
3 Echos of Cor Alto and Cor Basse:

In Search of an Ideal Horn Sound 65
KATHRYN ZEVENBERGEN AND TEUNIS VAN DER ZWART
vi Contents

JOHN KOSLOVSKY
PART II
Scholars and Performers in Dialogue83
4 Analysing and Playing Chopin’s Nocturne op. 27, no. 1:

An Empirical Study of the Interaction between
an Analyst and a Performer 85
LUCA MARCONI AND STEFANO MALFERRARI
5 Resonant Openings: Collaborating on Crumb’s Nocturnes 106

MICHIKO THEURER AND DAPHNE LEONG

MICHIEL SCHUIJER
PART III
Institutional Endeavours131
6 The Absent Teacher Approach 133

JOB TER HAAR, MICHALIS CHOLEVAS, AND JULIANO ABRAMOVAY
7 Preparing Music Students for a Public Recital: Applying

Principles of Practice from Sport Sciences and Other Disciplines 164
FRANK C. BAKKER, JAN KOUWENHOVEN, VALLE GONZÁLEZ MARTÍN,
AND RAÔUL R.D. OUDEJANS

MICHIEL SCHUIJER
PART IV
Cultural Barriers and Embodied Knowledge181
8 Knowing the World through Music 183

BARBARA TITUS, SHISHANI VRANCKX, AND BART FERMIE
9 Performing Jennifer Walshe’s SELF-CARE205

ANDREAS BORREGAARD
Index217
Examples and Tables
Examples
1.1 L uca Conforto, Breve et facile maniera d’essercitarsi a far
passaggi (1593), 3v, with extrapolated outcomes 20
1.2 Luca Conforto, Breve et facile maniera, 3v, with extrapolated
outcomes22
1.3 Diego Ortiz, Trattado de Glosas (1553) 23
1.4 Giovanni Maria Artusi, L’arte del contraponto (1598), 33 25
1.5 Gio. Maria e Bernardino Nanino, Regole di Contrappunto, Ms.
in fol., di carte 78, fol. 22v 25
1.6 Gio. Maria e Bernardino Nanino, Regole di Contrappunto, fol. 22v 26
1.7 Giovanni Battista Chiodino, Arte pratica, 38 27
1.8 Giovanni Battista Chiodino, Arte pratica, 16 27
1.9 Chiodino, Arte pratica, 45 27
1.10 Francesco Rognoni, Selva di varii Passaggi (1620), Part 1, 26 28
1.11 F rancesco Rognoni, Selva di varii Passaggi, Part 1, 30, with
realisation29
1.12 Francesco Rognoni, Selva di varii Passaggi, Part 2, 43, with
transcription29
1.13 Riccardo Rognoni, Il vero modo di Diminuire, (1592), Part 2, 10 30
1.14 G.B. Bovicelli, Regole… (ed. Glenton, 2018), 10 31
1.15 Bovicelli, diminutions on Io son ferito, bars 140–end 31
1.16 Adrianus Petit Coclico, Compendium musices (Nürnberg, 1552),
gathering H-4v 33
2.1 Table of diminution in Ganassi’s Fontegara (1535, fol. 10v) 46
2.2 Matteo Pagano (1515–1588), Doge’s procession in Piazza San
Marco on Palm Sunday (detail) 47
2.3 Fontegara, Table of finger positions 53
3.1 The harmonic series showing the ranges of cor basse and cor alto66
3.2 Telemann, Concerto in D for Horn, TWV 51:D8 (1708–14),
Vivace, bars 11–20 68
3.3 Concerto ex Dis-dur, Lund no. 11, Allegro, bars 21–24 70
3.4 Concerto ex D-dur, Lund no. 13, Adagio bars 30–36 71
viii Examples and Tables
3.5
Concerto ex D-dur del Sig. Gehra, Lund no. 17b, Allegro Molto,
pickup to bar 48–69 72
3.6
Beethoven, Piano Concerto no. 5, op. 73 (1809–1811) first
movement, bars 393–402 73
3.7
Beethoven, Symphony no. 7 (1811–1812), op. 92, second
movement, bars 114–122, wind parts only 74
3.8
Beethoven, Symphony no. 8, op. 93 (1812–1813) third
movement, bars 52–56 74
3.9
Beethoven, Overture to Fidelio, op. 72, (1814), bars 49–59,
clarinet and horn parts only 75
3.10
Beethoven, Leonore Overture no. 1, op. 138, (1807),
bars 181–190; horn three and four and clarinet parts only 75
3.11
Beethoven, Symphony no. 9, (1823–1824); third movement:
fourth horn in E, bars 82–98 76
3.12
Beethoven, Sonata op. 17 in F major, 1st movement, bars 160–162 77
4.1
Chopin, Nocturne, op. 27, no. 1, bars 1–11 87
4.2
Debussy, “La Cathédrale Engloutie,” bars 16–19 88
4.3
4.4
4.5
4.6
4.7
4.8
4.9
4.10
4.11
Chopin, Nocturne, op. 27, no. 1, first unit of the cadenza 100
4.12
Chopin, Nocturne, op. 27, no. 1, second unit of the cadenza 100
4.13
Chopin, Nocturne, op. 27, no. 1, third unit of the cadenza 100
4.14
5.1
Nocturne I, system 1 109
5.2
Nocturne I, system 2, beginning 111
5.3
Nocturne III 112
5.4
Violin calls 114
5.5
Scrape gesture in piano (Nocturne I, system 4) 115
Lorca, Nocturno del hueco, Part II
5.6 116
5.7
Nocturne IV, systems 3–4 117
5.8
Nocturne IV, systems 1–2 118
5.9
Ligeti, Étude Book 1 No. 1 “Désordre,” ending. 121
6.1
Chopin, Sonata for Piano and Cello, op. 65, first movement,
bars 1–16 137
6.2
bars 17–18 137
6.3
Chopin, Sonata for Piano and Cello, op. 65, first movement, bar 17 138
6.4
bars 23–32 138
Examples and Tables ix
6.5 Chopin, Sonata for Piano and Cello, op. 65, first movement,
bars 43–45 138
bars 57–64 139
bars 60–61 (based on a sketch). After Gajewski 1988 139
bars 57–67 (Paris: Brandus, [post 1858]). Reproduced from
Franchomme’s personal copy 140
bars 78–80 140
bars 94–107 141
bars 110–111 141
bars 110-112. Friedrich Grützmacher (ed.), Fr. Chopins
Sämtliche Violoncell-Werke. Leipzig: Peters, [ante 1918] 142
bars 168–178 142
6.14 Chopin, Sonata for Piano and Cello, op. 65, first movement, bar 223 142
bars 219–223. (Paris: Brandus, [post 1858]). Reproduced from
Franchomme’s personal copy 143
bars 224–228 143
6.17 Representation of cadential and passing tones in taksim
transcriptions according to Aydemir 144
6.18 Rast Perde on the G staff 146
6.19 Phrase without and with Çarpma 147
6.20 Notating glissandi147
6.21 Phrases notated according to their rhythmic groupings 147
6.22 Groupings annotated on metric phrases 148
6.23 A pitch contour as represented in Sonic Visualizer 148
6.24a A makam scale map 149
6.24b The contour of Example 6.23 projected on the makam scale map 149
6.25 Double melodic curve 150
6.26 Complementary staff score and melodic contour 151
6.27 Transcription of the phrases from 0ʹ20ʺ to 0ʹ28ʺ of Ercüment
Batanay’s taksim improvisation on makam Hüseynî156
6.29 Transcription of the phrases from 3ʹ19ʺ to 3ʹ24ʺ, and from 5ʹ21ʺ
to 5ʹ25ʺ of Ercüment Batanay’s taksim improvisation
on makam Hüseynî156
x Examples and Tables
6.30 T ranscription of the phrases from 3ʹ02ʺ to 3ʹ07ʺ of Ercüment

8.1 The cycle of encounter, transformation, and creation 184
8.2 Marvin Gaye’s riff for “Sexual Healing” (1982) and Shwi
noMtekhala’s riff for “Ngafa” (2003) 189
Tables
4.1 Communicative/expressive effects in Chopin’s Nocturne,
op. 27, no. 1 91
7.1 Time table of the study lab 171
7.2 Scores for use of reflection and the 20 + 5 schedule immediately
and one year after finishing the SL 172
7.3 Scores for the assignments stimulating the use of an external
focus of attention immediately and one year after finishing the SL 173
7.4 Imagery assignment scores, immediately and one year after the
SL (2016: n = 5) 173
7.5 Scores for the general questions about the SL, both immediately
and one year after finishing the SL. (n = 12) 173
7.6 Performance assessment by the main teachers (only in 2016: n = 6) 173
Contributors
Juliano Abramovay is a Brazilian music researcher, educator, and guitar player

based in the Netherlands. Juliano works at Codarts (NL) as an artistic research
coach and as a tutor for the RASL Minor, which is a collaboration between
Codarts, Erasmus University College, and Willem de Kooning. He is a PhD
candidate in Ethnomusicology at Durham University.
Nuno Atalaia is a Portuguese researcher and musician based in the Netherlands.
His work explores the intersections between new media, performance, and the
history of the voice. He is Co-director and Founding Member of the musical
ensemble Seconda Prat!ca. He is currently completing a doctoral degree within
the ERC-funded project “Platform Discourses: A Critical Humanities Approach
to the Texts, Images, and Moving Images Produced by Tech Companies.”
Frank C. Bakker (1948), until his retirement in 2013, was Associate Professor
at the Faculty of Human Movement Sciences (HMS) of the Vrije Universiteit
Amsterdam (VUA), and responsible for the Sport Psychology Program of the
Faculty. After his retirement, he was appointed at the Conservatorium van Am-
sterdam (CvA). In close collaboration with Jan Kouwenhoven and Jaap Kooi,
he developed the so-called Study Lab.
Andreas Borregaard (Denmark, 1981) communicates the accordion’s fascinating
qualities and palette of expressions to a wide audience as a soloist and chamber
musician. He is actively influencing the development of this young instrument’s
use and repertoire. Andreas Borregaard is Accordion Professor at the Hannover
University of Music, Drama and Media.
Michalis Cholevas was born in Athens, Greece, in 1977. His musical education
started at the age of 5, with classical piano, jazz piano, and eastern Mediterra-
nean music studies until his early 20s. He followed MSc studies and completed
MA studies in music performance, the latter, for which he holds a PhD title in
makam music analysis.
Bart Fermie (percussionist and educator) studied Cuban and Brazilian percus-
sion in New York, Havana, and Amsterdam. Apart from teaching at the Amster-
dam and Rotterdam Universities of the Arts, he invented instruments for Pearl
xii Contributors
Percussion. Fermie has collaborated with international artists like Branford

Marsalis, Randy Crawford, and Maria Schneider.
Dr. Job ter Haar studied at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague. He is one of
the founding members of the Ives Ensemble, has toured major concert halls in
Europe and the USA, and has recorded a large number of prize-winning CDs.
He has performed with groups such as the Van Swieten Society, the Hortus
Ensemble, and the Archduke Ensemble. Next to his performing career, Job ter
Haar works at Codarts Rotterdam as a research supervisor and at the HKB in
Bern as a cello teacher.
Jan Kouwenhoven was an oboist for the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra from
1973 to 2015 and taught at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam until 2022.
During his time as a teacher, he began to investigate the applicability of sport
sciences to music performance. To this end, he developed a course with Frank
Bakker and Jaap Kooi called the “Study Lab,” which was intended to help stu-
dents deliver peak musical performances under pressure.
Daphne Leong’s work, which focuses on rhythm, analysis and performance, and
music since 1900, appears in her book Performing Knowledge: Twentieth-
Century Music in Analysis and Performance; in journals such as Journal of
Music Theory, Perspectives of New Music, and Music Theory Online; and in
edited collections. Leong is an active pianist and chamber musician, whose per-
formances and recordings include premieres of current music.
Stefano Malferrari received his diploma with honours from the conserva-
toire “G. Rossini” of Pesaro under the guide of Franco Scala. After that,
he continued his studies with the pianists Jörg Demus and György Sándor.
Classified among the winners of a few international competitions, he gave
concerts in Europe, central and south America, and Asia. Besides teach-
ing at the conservatoire “G. B. Martini” of Bologna, he held courses and
conference-concerts for several Italian musical institutions. Moreover, he
is Director of the book series “Chiavi d’ascolto” [Listening Keys] (Albisani
Editions).
Luca Marconi (1960–2019) taught “Music Pedagogy” and “History of Popular
Music” in the “Luisa D’Annunzio” Conservatory of music in Pescara (Italy).
He has published on the relationship between musical communication and the
analysis of music; in addition, he has published the volume Musica Espressione
Emozione (CLUEB, Bologna, 2001) and, with Gino Stefani, the book La melo-
dia (Bompiani, Milano, 1992).
Valle González Martín obtained the Oboe Bachelor’s Degree in 2014 from
the Real Conservatorio Superior de Música de Madrid. Later on, she moved
to the Netherlands, where she completed the Oboe Master’s Degree and the
Bachelor’s program in Baroque Oboe at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam,
complementing these studies at the Hochschule für Künste in Bremen. She cur-
rently combines music teaching and oboe playing with modern and historicist
groups.
Contributors xiii
Josué Meléndez Peláez (cornetto and recorder) studied music at institutions in

Costa Rica, Guatemala, Mexico, the Netherlands, and Switzerland. He founded
the Festival Santo Domingo de Música Antigua and is Founder and Co-director
of the group I Fedeli. Meléndez Peláez is a specialist in the improvisation of
Renaissance and Baroque music and teaches cornett, diminution, and improvi-
sation at the universities of music in Frankfurt (HfMDK), Trossingen (HFM),
and Bremen (HFK).
Catherine Motuz pursues an active career as a performer, teacher, and scholar. She
is a co-artistic director of Ensemble I Fedeli and has performed and recorded
with numerous ensembles including the Freiburger and Amsterdam Baroque
Orchestras, Bach Collegium Japan, Concerto Palatino, Abendmusiken Basel,
the English Cornetto and Sackbut Ensemble, and ¡Sacabuche! Since 2018, she
has taught at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis, where she studied historical
trombone with Charles Toet from 2004 to 2007.
Tímea Nagy (Hungarian poet, recorder, and cornetto player [1985]) obtained her
recorder diploma from ESMuC, Barcelona, and Master’s degrees in cornetto
from HEM, Geneva. She has collaborated with ensembles such as Cappella
Mediterranea, Concert Brisée, Collegium 1704, Lucidarium, and Sollazzo.
Grant holder of the Hans Wilsdorf Foundation (Geneva) and the Giorgio Cini
Foundation (Venice), she worked as Research Assistant at HEM, Geneva, for
the project “The Ganassi Enigma,” directed by William Dongois.
Raôul R.D. Oudejans is (Associate) Professor of Sport and Performance Psychology,
Department of Human Movement Sciences, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and
Centre of Expertise Urban Vitality, Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences,
the Netherlands. His main research and teaching areas are perceiving and moving
in sports and other high-pressure contexts such as police work and performing
arts, with an emphasis on the psychological factors involved in performing.
Michiko Theurer uses sound, visuals, words, and movement to cultivate spaces
for shared wonder and community. Recent musical collaborations include pre-
mieres of ensemble works by Meredith Monk, Tyshawn Sorey, and Susie Ibarra
and a ceremony for collective witnessing at the Boston Public Library. As a PhD
candidate in musicology at Stanford University, she is currently producing a
multimedia companion for liberatory practice.
Barbara Titus is Associate Professor of Cultural Musicology at the University
of Amsterdam (UvA). She is the author of two books, Hearing Maskanda
(Bloomsbury 2022) and Recognizing Music as an Art Form (Leuven UP 2016),
and she is the curator of the Jaap Kunst Collection at the UvA.
Shishani Vranckx is a multi award-winning and internationally touring artist
whose versatility in music transcends genres and cultures. Her work expresses
a strong sense of social consciousness and intersects between research and art
performance. Her academic writing focuses on Namibia’s cultural heritage. She
has founded various projects (such as Namibian Tales, Miss Catharsis & Sister-
hood) highlighting marginalised perspectives.
xiv Contributors
Kathryn Zevenbergen’s skills on both the historic and modern horn keep her in
high demand as an orchestral and chamber music player. She holds two master’s
degrees, one in Horn Pedagogy from the Zurich School of the Arts, and one in
Early Music Performance from the Amsterdam Conservatory. She studied with
Nigel Downing, Glen Borling, and Teunis van der Zwart. Kathryn performs
regularly with La Chapelle Ancienne (Switzerland) and Solomon’s Knot (UK)
while living and teaching in Germany.
Teunis van der Zwart is one of the leading historical horn players of his gen-
eration. He is an internationally renowned specialist in historically informed
performance practice and active as a soloist, chamber music player, teacher,
and speaker. Van der Zwart is a principal subject teacher and Head of the Early
Music Department at the Royal Conservatoire The Hague.
Preface
Today, research into musical performance seems like a self-evident undertaking.

And yet, the ascendancy of performance-related research has been rather late within
the larger discourse of musical research, having begun in earnest in the 1970s and
having established itself as a genuine field of study only in the 1990s. Because of
the relative lateness of this field, a number of crucial questions remain unaddressed.
Why, for instance, do most musical performers and musical researchers continue to
inhabit divergent epistemic spaces? How have some tried to overcome these imag-
ined spaces? To what extent is the act of musical performance coextensive with the
act of doing musical research, and vice versa? And, at what point in the research
process can a performative act transform into a scholarly one, and a scholarly act
into a performative one? These, and other related questions, form the central focus
of Music Performance Encounters: Collaborations and Confrontations.
Based on a symposium organised at the Muziekgebouw aan ‘t IJ in Amsterdam,
the Netherlands (Researching Performance, Performing Research, October 2017,
henceforth “RPPR”), this volume brings together twenty-one musicians and schol-
ars to reflect on the relationship between musical performance and musical research
today, as well as to highlight the manifold ways in which “performers” and “schol-
ars” interact. To this end, each multi-authored chapter offers a fresh perspective on
a particular topic in music performance studies: improvisational traditions, (his-
torical) performance practices, analysis and performance, sports psychology, cross-
cultural musical interactions, embodiment, interdisciplinarity, and institutional
challenges. The voices offer not only a polyphony of perspectives, but they also
foreground divergent strategies towards the very discursivity of musical thought.
In recent years, and most notably in places such as the UK, Australia, and the
Scandinavian countries, research into musical performance has gained momentum
through so-called “artistic” or “practice-based” approaches, but it has also become
an integral part of traditional disciplines such as historical musicology, ethnomusi-
cology, and music analysis. In addition, areas such as cognitive science and sports
psychology have sought to understand better the nature of musical performance
as an activity of the human mind and body. And given the greater “performative
turn” in music studies as a whole, musical-scholarly practice has itself undergone
vast transformations over the past thirty years, in which attention has been paid not
xvi Preface
just towards the objects of research but also towards the ways in which scholars
go about practising their métier—in other words, how they perform their research.
As indicated in this book’s subtitle, a central aim of this volume is to explore the
manifold collaborations, but also the possible confrontations, that such research en-
genders. In contrast to other studies in music performance research, this volume as
a whole will highlight the complex interactions and negotiations between scholarly
and performative modes of discourse, whether they are expressed through multiple
individuals or embodied within one and the same person. In doing this, it allows for a
kaleidoscope of perspectives and discursive voices: such “voices” can be heard and
seen not only through the diverse musical topics on offer but also through the many
divergent approaches to writing, performing, and “researching” more generally.
Music Performance Encounters consists of four main parts, with a total of nine
chapters: (I) Tools of (Historical) Performance Practice; (II) Scholars and Per-
formers in Dialogue; (III) Institutional Endeavours; and (IV) Cultural Barriers and
Embodied Knowledge. Each main chapter (with the exception of Chapter 9) is
multi-authored and involves the collaboration of a scholar, a performer, and/or a
performer-scholar.
In Part I, three contributions from the area of historically informed perfor-
mance practice will centre around both the physical and conceptual “tools” that
give rise to performance-related questions, such as musical instruments, histori-
cal treatises, diminution practices, or the interaction with other artforms. Part II
zooms in on scholars and performers collaborating at the individual level. Devoted
to the musical nocturne, each chapter involves two individuals grappling with per-
formance and a nalytical issues in a single piece of music: respectively, Frédéric
Chopin’s Nocturne op. 27, no. 1 in C minor, and George Crumb’s Four Nocturnes.
Also divided into two chapters, Part III takes a look at scholars and performers
undertaking research on behalf of supporting institutions in the Netherlands: in
one case, by bringing together musicians within a single institution (Codarts Rot-
terdam) to explore what it means to “learn from an absent teacher”; in the other, by
bringing the insights from sports psychology to bear on the study and performance
of music, in a collaboration involving multiple institutions (the Conservatorium
van Amsterdam, the VU University, and the Amsterdam University of Applied
Sciences). Finally, the two chapters of Part IV explore issues of power, prestige,
and embodiment between different cultures, and demonstrate techniques that ex-
pose musicians to new types of physicality in their performances of contemporary
composition.
Because this volume brings together such a wealth of musical traditions, cul-
tures, practices, and methodological perspectives, we felt it necessary to provide
the readership with more of the critical context surrounding each individual con-
tribution, and to elaborate on some of the underlying themes of the volume as
a whole—that is, beyond what a preface or introduction might offer. We there-
fore precede each of the four parts with a “Critical Interlude,” as a way of both
contextualising more deeply the contributions offered in each part and offering
a critical comparison of those chapters vis-à-vis the others. While other recent
Preface xvii
multi-authored volumes in musical performance studies have made similar use of

“interventions” and “insights” from experts in the field, in the case of Music Per-
formance Encounters the interludes are written solely by the editors—in this way,
our role goes beyond the editorial, as we guide the reader more actively through
the volume. With these critical interludes in place, along with our introductory
chapter, we thus seek to incorporate our own narrative voice into the main thread
of the book.
Another indispensable feature of this book, though one that has become part
and parcel of many performance studies volumes, is the audio and visual compo-
nent. Because the 2017 symposium was recorded professionally, each contribution
will include not just a written text but also audio-visual material, drawn either
directly from the symposium or (in the case of a revised or expanded version) from
a later recording. These musical contributions offer not only polished performance
products but also real-time processing of musical material: be it a performer en-
countering a score for the first time; performer-scholars in rehearsal mode; or a
scholar and performer in direct dialogue in front of an audience. All original video
material is offered on a public YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/@mu-
sicperformanceencounters). The full URL to the playlist for each chapter is offered
in the first endnote to each respective chapter, and hyperlinks are given at the first
mention of each MPE video (e-book only). Supplementary text and other materials
are provided through the online portal hosted by Routledge, and will be indicated
at the appropriate place in the text (www.routledgemusicresearch.co.uk). Links to
external sites will be provided in the endnotes within the text (without hyperlink).
These online resources are construed as an integral part of this volume.
Since the publication of this volume comes roughly six years after the initial
symposium, the question may arise as to whether the recorded material is still rel-
evant, and whether it will remain relevant in the future. Like all published “texts,”
some of the contributions will maintain a certain time-stamp, as they either were
produced at the 2017 symposium or were recorded on a separate occasion. This is
the case for Chapters 3, 4, 5, 7, and 9. However, some of the contributions are still
in the process of development or will invite continual interactivity and updating.
While Chapters 1, 2, and 6 will all include media content that was made in 2021 or
later (in addition to incorporating content from the symposium), Chapter 8 blends
pre-recorded material (from various times and venues) and actively invites read-
ers to respond to their material. Because we have chosen to use a public YouTube
channel, the readership is encouraged to interact with this volume by providing
comments, links, and other forms of response through this channel.
As mentioned above, the selection of musical repertoire, cultures, and method-
ologies in this volume is highly diverse. It includes a variety of practices, theories,
and traditions from the sixteenth through twenty-first centuries, and from various
places on the globe. It is because of such variety that the kinds of “voices” that
are brought to bear on these practices are also multiplicitous, whether they be aca-
demic, anecdotal, performative, pedagogical, poetic, or scientific (with all of the
slippery connotations such designations bring). In this way, we did not privilege
xviii Preface
one kind of voice over another, but instead allowed for (and indeed encouraged)
a productive disparity between the various modes of expression and articulation
from the authors. We hope that the reader too will appreciate such a diversity of
approaches and voices.
This, we believe, is what will distinguish Music Performance Encounters from
many other volumes on musical performance—it is, in a word, a more “grassroots”
and eclectic approach to the topic. Thus, rather than attempting to streamline the
methodology between the contributions, or to create a volume in which individual
authors weigh in on a particular topic, we wish to confront readers with a more
diffuse and heterogeneous assortment of musical identities, backgrounds, and as-
pirations, with the aim of providing a space for practitioners, educators, and schol-
ars to express their voices in a multitude of ways: through words, images, bodily
movements, and of course sounds. We thus firmly believe that such a volume will
provide an important contribution to the ever-growing community of musicians
and scholars concerned with performance and artistic research. And while it was
not a deliberate choice of the volume, many, but not all, of the contributions are
from performers and scholars operating within the Netherlands. In this way, the
volume partially documents the variety of performance-related research practices
coming out of this country.
In the end, this book is intended for anyone interested in the intersection of
academic and performance research: scholars, teachers, students, and practising
musicians. Given the diversity of topics, repertoires, cultures, and strategies, we
hope that the book will be of use for a wide range of people and for both research
and educational purposes. If anything, it aims to offer a space in which the many
modes of music performance research can interact with one another.
John Koslovsky
Amsterdam, the Netherlands
31 August 2022
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank the anonymous reviewers of this book for their productive
critical remarks. Without these, the volume would not have taken the form it has.
We would also like to thank the senior editor of the music division at Routledge,
Heidi Bishop, for her interest and unwavering support for our project, as well as
Kaushikee Sharma and Tassia Watson for their logistical support. John Rink was
generous to provide advice to us at various stages of this project—we are grateful
for the many fruitful conversations we have had with him. Institutional support has
also proven vital to the completion of this work: first and foremost from the Con-
servatorium van Amsterdam, which helped us organise the 2017 symposium and
provided the necessary space and funding for the realisation of this book volume;
and the University of Amsterdam, Utrecht University, the VU University Amster-
dam, and the Amsterdam Orgelpark, all of which contributed to the organisation
of the symposium. Finally, we would like to thank all of the contributors to this
volume for their commitment to seeing this publication to completion and for the
talents and expertise they have brought to the world through this work.
Introduction
“Who Are You?”: On Performers,
Scholars, Masters, and Pupils
Michiel Schuijer and John Koslovsky
On Performers and Scholars (Michiel Schuijer)

No art has engendered so much written scholarship as music. And yet no art has
divided scholars and practitioners more. These seem like two contradictory ob-
servations, but they are not. In medieval times, the word “music” could refer to
different fields of endeavour. Apart from being a performing art, music was also
a science, an object of intellectual speculation presumed to offer a window on
the natural world. As such, it was an integral part of the medieval university cur-
riculum. Therefore, the music scholar (or musicus), authoring treatises on musical
sound, proportion, and tuning, was many steps higher on the societal ladder than
the practising musician (cantor). The former was on a par with lawyers and clerics.
The latter was ranked between sorcerers and gravediggers to judge from Tommaso
Garzoni’s Piazza universale di tutte professioni del mondo (1586).1
Has this early division of labour in the music field sealed the relationship be-
tween music scholars and practising musicians in Western society? Does it have a
bearing on the ways representatives of these groups look at each other’s occupa-
tions today? Higher education still offers separate pathways for both. And these
pathways may even run through different kinds of institutions: on the one hand,
conservatories, academies of music, and Musikhochschulen; on the other, liberal
arts colleges and universities.
However, beneath this institutional landscape, fault lines have been shifting.
Diverse occupational communities have successfully claimed a stake in producing
knowledge and developing advanced education. This is not a recent phenomenon.
In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the rise of such professionalism led to
a proliferation of practice-driven degree programs at universities and vocational
schools combining practical training with theoretical education.
An outstanding example is how primary and secondary school teachers attained
professional status. When in the late eighteenth century national states took control
of their training, this gave them greater autonomy towards the local communities in
which they were employed. And out of the efforts to regulate the practice, develop
a relevant knowledge base, and establish general teaching standards, has grown a
proficient and self-reliant community of pedagogues. However, what ultimately
defined pedagogy as a professional discipline was not the body of knowledge and
DOI: 10.4324/9781003295785-1
2 Michiel Schuijer and John Koslovsky
skills this community maintained, but the broader relevance of this body and its ca-
pacity to inform other fields, like psychology, sociology, and educational sciences.
António Novóa, an eminent Portuguese educational scholar and administrator, has
explained what paradox this created. When teaching elevated to the status of a pro-
fession, this led to a division between university-based educational scholars on the
one hand, and highly skilled practitioners in the classroom on the other, resulting
in a “de-legitimation of the latter as producers of knowledge.”2
In this respect, engineers fared better, especially in Germany, where technical
colleges (Technische Hochschulen) fought a long battle for their societal recogni-
tion. The rapidly growing industry in the German states from 1850 onwards and
the need for a robust infrastructure to support it made the supply of engineers emi-
nently important. Yet, in Germany’s rigidly stratified class system, graduates of the
technical colleges did not hold the same status as those of the university. Therefore,
in 1899, emperor Wilhelm II conferred the right on these colleges to award the doc-
toral degree for original research, which was until that time the prerogative of uni-
versities. There has been debate about whether the colleges have brought technical
education under the rule of science—to the detriment of the craftsmanship and tacit
knowledge of earlier generations of engineers—or instead succeeded in uniting
engineering practice and scientific theory.3 But this debate itself has become po-
larised between academic engineers and graduates from nonacademic engineering
schools, who often found themselves competing for the same positions.4
These two examples show how professionalism could arise in various occu-
pational fields and help raise their societal prestige. Meanwhile, institutional
structures continued to separate the “thinkers” from the “doers,” hampering their
conversation.
As for this rising professionalism, music, it must be said, was a slow starter. The
music conservatories mushrooming in nineteenth-century Europe did not make a
similar dent in professional society as the teacher institute or the technical col-
lege. In their founding acts and annual reports, some compared themselves to a
university, like the Royal College of Music in London (founded in 1883)5 and the
Amsterdam Conservatory (founded in 1884).6 Others mentioned the “scientific”
status of the music profession (Leipzig, 1843). Still, it was unclear what that meant
for the practice and study of music.
For example, in Leipzig, the conservatory founders (Felix Mendelssohn was
one of them) stated that “theoretically and practically, its instruction covers all
branches of music, considered a science and art.”7 Rebecca Grotjahn has argued
that it was not so much the university as the German gymnasium that served them
as a reference point. The new institution provided budding musicians a place for
their Bildung.8 Judging from the continuation of the proclamation, it offered a com-
prehensive program of general learning, including harmony and composition, in-
strumental and vocal performance, and “lectures on musical literature, aesthetics,
and other parts of the science of music [Musikwissenschaft].” Unfortunately, this
ambitious program didn’t fulfil its promise, partly because of an over-permissive
entrance policy of the conservatory, resulting in a highly uneven student-teacher
ratio and a total lack of supervision, and partly because of a rather exclusive and
Introduction 3
unyielding orientation on the Viennese classical repertoire.9 In its conservatism, the

institute equalled the old universities of England.
In 1895, the music scholar Hugo Riemann, an alumnus of the Leipzig conserva-
tory, uttered a scathing critique of the education offered at German conservatories.
He wrote that these schools took no responsibility for students’ general education
and did not enable them to grow as articulate artists, knowledgeable professionals,
and autonomous citizens. Instead, they gave them “exclusive training in applied
music.”10 Riemann was not as harsh as Anton Schindler, Beethoven’s dodgy first
biographer, who had scolded such schools for breeding a “musical proletariat.”11
But his critique was all the more relevant, coming from one aiming to establish a
meaningful corpus of professional knowledge in music.12
And it was to remain valid for a considerable time, too. Seventy-one years later,
Allen Sigel proved Riemann’s judgment to apply still to some European conserva-
tories. Sigel, an American clarinetist teaching at the State University of New York
at Stony Brook, had visited six leading institutions in Europe during the 1966–1967
academic year and reported his findings in an issue of the College Music Sym-
posium. Although impressed by the level of musical competency students were
exposed to, he marvelled at the limited range of the education most European con-
servatories offered. The only requirements common to all programs, Sigel noted,
were the study of an instrument and the training of sight-reading and aural skills.
“Other subjects, such as harmony, counterpoint, orchestration, conducting, music
history, secondary instrument, ensemble, and non-music subjects are not uniformly
required of, or available to, all students.”13
These conditions have not been conducive to the involvement of practising
musicians in the pursuit of knowledge and collective understanding. Indeed, they
helped the medieval opposition of music practice to scholarship survive, as no-
ticed by sociologists concerned with professional culture. “Success in music,” Jon
Frederickson and James F. Rooney wrote in 1990, “is measured through readily
observable skill, not through certification of knowledge. Doing is more important
than knowing.”14
But is it really? Experienced musicians generally know what they do. Moreover,
there is a vast body of reference to prove it. Alongside speculative music theory—
whose revered traditions of canonics and the harmony of the spheres started to
wane in the seventeenth century (but at the same time veered towards the study of
acoustics and later tone psychology in the nineteenth century)—other discourses
have evolved. First-hand musical knowledge and experience have been gathered
in treatises on composition, orchestration, keyboard improvisation, and accompa-
niment; in guides to control musical affect and expression; in taxonomies of mu-
sical genre and style; and in instrumental and vocal methods. In addition, more
informal written documentation survived that sheds light on music performance
considerations: private correspondences, compositional sketches, and annotated
performance materials.
Not all music performance traditions have left such a legacy of writing. And ex-
tant written legacies, such as those engendered by the practices of notated music in
Europe and the Americas, continue to raise questions, mainly, and not surprisingly,
when it comes to performance. Curiously, however, their study became the

province of a new form of music scholarship, musicology, which developed not as
a consequence of the professionalisation of musicians but modelled itself after aca-
demic disciplines such as history, philology, ethnography, and the natural sciences.
It looked at scores and relevant textual sources for a historically and theoretically
informed understanding of musical practices. It offered music publishers guidance
to supply reliable performance materials. And it helped articulate certain standards
of musical artistry and excellence.
The person to whom musicology owes its birth certificate, Guido Adler, wrote
that this new academic discipline distinguished itself from other, more established
ones not by its approach but solely by its object.15 With this remark, he implic-
itly granted music scholars a superior discursive position compared to performers,
whose practice was different from that of traditional scholars altogether—that is
to say, in both its object and approach. It is important to note that Adler and other
pioneering musicologists had received a great deal of musical education (Adler
studied with Anton Bruckner at the Vienna Conservatory) but had earned their aca-
demic credentials in disciplines such as law, history, theology, or philosophy.16 In
that respect, they served as role models for many future scholar-performers. Com-
bining a diploma in music performance or composition with a related university
degree would become a particularly successful inroad to music scholarship.
At the same time, the conjunction “scholar-performer” suggests that, in the
words of Frederickson and Rooney, the music occupation indeed had “failed to
become a profession.” It offered no rewards for performers advancing new knowl-
edge, skills, and technologies and exploring music’s broader relevance. Instead,
self-motivated individuals pursued such aspirations on their own initiative. The
extent to which educational institutions facilitated this differed from country to
country. Schools of music accommodated by universities, or conservatories col-
laborating with them, offered resources that could nurture young musicians’ pro-
fessionalism. Such institutional relationships had been common in the United
States, which explains Allen Sigel’s surprise at the curricular insularity of most of
the European conservatories he visited in the 1960s. Only a single institution, the
Detmold Musikhochschule, had struck Sigel positively. It offered students “a good
general education, a broad musical education,” and they developed “true expertise”
in a specific musical area.17
This was no coincidence. In the preceding decades, many German conservato-
ries, music schools, and music academies had been transformed into Musikhochs-
chulen. As such, they held a status equal to universities before the law. The German
Länder ministers of education and cultural affairs issued a proclamation to that
effect in September 1967.18 This status did not alter the primary allegiance of these
institutions, which still was to the teaching of talented young musicians. But it
mandated them to secure an appropriate level of general education in the earlier
phases of study. From the early 1980s on, they could also award doctoral degrees
in musicology and music pedagogy.19
In Britain, on the other hand, the path for practising musicians to contribute to
knowledge, scholarship, and professional development was circuitous, requiring
Introduction 5
them to combine two studies or accumulate them one after the other. Here, the 1992
Further and Higher Education Act brought change. It introduced a single funding
structure for universities, polytechnic schools, and a select number of independent
colleges.20 Under the terms of the Act, polytechnics could adopt the title of uni-
versity. Consequently, their music departments could apply for research funds and
award the full range of academic degrees to philosophiae doctor. The same held for
independent professional music schools, although offering a PhD required a liaison
with a university in most cases.
Today, similar arrangements have emerged throughout Europe and beyond:
art academies with university status, whether or not renamed “universities of the
arts” or “universities of music and performing arts,” like in Germany, Austria,
and Finland; conservatories amalgamated with universities, like in Australia and
New Zealand; music and other art academies that have created doctoral programs
in partnership with one or more universities (France, Belgium, the Netherlands);
and research universities offering artistic doctoral degrees beside scholarly ones
(Sweden). These arrangements reflect a trajectory of higher education in the past
decades towards greater accessibility and comparable levels of achievement across
domains. But they also speak to the role of research and experimentation in mod-
ern art practice itself, in its constant search for meaning and value.21 By furthering
“artistic research”—or “(artistic) practice as research,” as it is called in Britain—
they carved out a space for the creative and performing arts to contribute to pro-
fessional society as well as to artistic culture.22 Thus, like teachers and engineers
before them, artists could define, claim, and develop, within the academy, a domain
of knowledge hitherto deemed mainly “practical”—a domain, moreover, that had
been valued precisely because of its qualities resisting academisation.23
It would seem that multiple avenues for the professionalisation of musicians and
their involvement in scholarly practices are now available. Have they helped dis-
solve barriers between music scholars and musical performers at long last? Have
they led to more integration between their métiers? The answer is not an unequivo-
cal yes or no. Such barriers still exist, despite the avenues passing over them. They
involve not only institutional cultures and practices but also professional identi-
ties. And with the latter come special skills, research interests, modes of learning
and communication, and definitions of achievement. There are performing artists
whose work is explorative and breaking new ground but who are wary of having to
meet standards of academic accountability. And there is formal scientific research
that can be highly relevant for musical performers without requiring their exper-
tise. (Performance psychology is a case in point here.)
Moreover, music scholarship itself has been divided all along. Besides the study
and interpretation of documented legacies of music and musical thought, it has
spawned other methods of knowledge acquisition: methods that concern oral mu-
sic traditions (ethnographic field study and participant observation) and methods
tailored to the study of music perception and cognition (experimentation in labora-
tory settings). This division of labour and expertise has long prevented musicology
from discussing music as performance more generally. Ethnomusicologists were
better equipped for this than historical musicologists and music theorists, who, as
a result of their longtime involvement with questions concerning notated music,

tended to view performance as a mere act of delivery. Those thoroughly trained
to read and interpret scores, lead sheets, tablatures, etc., often lacked the means
(or the interest) to come to terms with something as ephemeral as a performance
event—let alone bring performance knowledge to bear on other fields of inquiry.
However, in the last thirty years or so, performance has become an area of inter-
est for music scholars of all stripes. In fact, it has evolved into a distinct branch of
music scholarship, cutting across divisions of genre and culture. With performers
of early music addressing issues of performance style, historical recordings creat-
ing diversity in the music supply market, and pop, jazz, and improvised music
sparking musicological interest, new avenues for music research opened besides
those concerned with the agency of the composer and the score. While such re-
search was facilitated by technology to extract relevant data from recorded per-
formances, it had to develop a critical apparatus to deal with the mediating effects
of audio recording and studio production. In other words, it had to take multiple
agencies into account, which was unusual in studies of western art music. It is no
coincidence that those who made a name for pioneering such research, like Dorot-
tya Fabian, Nicholas Cook, Robert Philip, and John Rink, came from precisely this
background.
Cook has traced the impetus for studying performance in other areas than music,
even beyond the performing arts. He situated this practice as part of a performative
turn in all humanities and social sciences, which had already led to such divergent
outcomes as John Austin’s speech act theory, developed in the 1950s, and Judith
Butler’s book Gender Trouble from 1990.24 Following these two authors and oth-
ers who have applied the concept in their fields of study, like literary theorists and
cultural anthropologists, we can see performance as a constituent of all social and
language behaviour and as the expression of a specific functional knowledge. It is
how one projects one’s identity in the public space, as a representative of a culture
or social class; as a member of a gender or age group; or as an artist, scholar, or
other professional.
Seen thus, performance may constitute the common ground between a number
of disciplinary domains, and it may even form the locus of knowledge for all as-
pects of musical activity—playing, writing, thinking, and moving. It now remains
to be discussed how such musical knowledge is imparted by its various practition-
ers; or better, to expose the roles we often play when in the process of creating such
knowledge. Who, in fact, is entitled to impart musical knowledge?
On Masters and Pupils (John Koslovsky)

For all the adulation they typically invite, masters sometimes get a bad rap. In
the most radical of interpretations, the very word “master” (and related terms like
“mastery,” “masterwork,” and so forth) runs the risk of carrying connotations of
unequal power relations, class distinction, suppression, social inequity, cultural su-
periority, hegemonic signification, and domination along sexual and racial lines.
Friedrich Nietzsche, whose ideas on master and slave morality would go on to
Introduction 7
inspire generations of critical cultural and social theory, described the matter in a
brutishly straightforward fashion:
My idea is that every specific body strives to become master over all space
and to extend its force (—its will to power:) and thrust back all that resists
its extension. But it continually encounters similar efforts on the part of other
bodies and ends by coming to an arrangement (“union”) with those of them
that are sufficiently related to it: thus they then conspire together for power.
And the process goes on—25
Better avoid the word “master” altogether, one might think.

And yet, the master concept engenders a wholly different set of connotations
when transposed into the context of the “master-pupil” relation. As a tradition
that can be traced back to just about any culture, the master-pupil relation carries
in its ideal form the imparting of knowledge or skill from one human being to
another. It is in one sense a rite of passage, involving trials and tribulations of
all sorts; in another sense, it is an act of sharing that brings the master and pupil
into an ever closer bond. And while connotations of “will to power” are lurk-
ing even here, the master-pupil relation can involve moments of collaboration
and even productive confrontation, whereby both the “pupil” and the “master”
walk away with something of mutual benefit, and even alternate roles with one
another. In fact, we all act out roles as “masters” and “pupils” at every moment
of our lives—even the most experienced practitioner or knowledgeable scholar
can still take on the role of pupil, and often in the most unexpected of ways. So,
whether we play the role of master or pupil at any given moment, the process
is by any calculation one of the most human and indeed humane endeavours we
can ever undertake.
In some sense, this book is a testament to the master-pupil relation and the ways
in which such a relation can manifest itself in the study of music performance (in the
broadest sense, as described in the previous section). As in other traditional trades
and skills (those of merchants, craftsmen, martial artists, and the like), the acquisi-
tion of musical skills and knowledge has functioned largely by way of individual
transmission. Professional music conservatories continue to thrive on a model in
which an expert imparts a knowledge to which only a chosen few are privy, be it
from an instrumental or vocal tutor, a composition or conducting teacher, or even a
teacher of music theory. Even in academic settings such as universities, the master-
pupil system plays a vital role in the formation of a young mind, for instance, in
the form of thesis advisors and individual academic tutors. And these are just in-
stitutionalised examples: far from being an antiquated form of knowledge transfer,
one could argue that the master-pupil system is still alive and well, even within the
more democratically oriented structures of present-day institutes of higher educa-
tion. And for us, this is an aspect of human endeavour that need not be shunned or
expunged—in its right form, it can provide a source of nourishment and betterment
for both the pupil and master.26 It is thus with an eye towards masters and pupils
that we can begin to engage the contributions to this volume.
To begin with, there are tangible forms in which the master-pupil relation plays
out in this volume. Many of the authors, for instance, once shared some form of
direct teacher-student relationship, which has now evolved into a collaboration on
genuinely collegial grounds. These include the chapters by Zevenbergen and van
der Zwart (Chapter 3), by Theurer and Leong (Chapter 5), by Cholevas and Abra-
movay (Chapter 6), and by Titus and Vranckx (Chapter 9). This was an unexpected
bonus to the volume, as it highlights how a relationship between a former teacher
and a pupil can develop over time, whereby the original roles played by each pro-
tagonist can shift seamlessly. These relationships offer a prime example of how
research ideas can emerge from “the ground up.”
But even for those co-authors who never shared a formal relationship as teacher
and student, there is still a sense in which each contributor in one moment plays
the role of master, but in the next moment becomes the pupil of the other. A good
example includes the contribution by Marconi and Malferrari (Chapter 4): both are
professionals in their own right, and had different professional paths before their
collaborative project. But, when coming together, they had to negotiate a space in
which each played both master and pupil with one another. As we describe in more
detail below (Critical Interlude 2), the manner by which each of these protagonists
plays out his respective role is indicative of the ways in which a traditional binary
between scholar and performer can still lead to new insights, even if those insights
(and their consequences) need to be teased out (i.e., performed) by the reader.
And then there are the more intangible (but no less pertinent) forms of the
master-pupil relation, in which the interlocutor (the “author” of the essay) searches
for a place within a vast, discursive matrix that brings together both textual and
non-textual forms of knowledge: on the one hand, playing the role of pupil to those
who have come before and absorbing the knowledge imparted by them; on the
other, seeking to become the master of the material studied in order to impart a new
form of knowledge (oftentimes, but not always, with the aim of superseding one’s
predecessors). Motuz and Meléndez Peláez (Chapter 1), for instance, take their cue
from the contrapuntal masters of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in order to
gain new mastery over the improvisation of historical diminutions. As pupils of an
impressive assortment of theorists from centuries past, Motuz and Meléndez Peláez
consolidate their knowledge not only through detailed reasoning, but in fact show
the consequences of their deliberations through improvised performative acts.
Another example comes from Atalai and Nagy (Chapter 2), each of whom ab-
sorbs various ideas from Silvestro Ganassi’s La Fontegara in order to highlight the
emergence of an interdisciplinary ethos in sixteenth-century Venice: Atalai through
the medium of voice; and Nagy through that of painting. As committed pupils to
Ganassi’s treatise, Atalai and Nagy (each in their own way) master the material of
La Fontegara in order reveal some of its underlying premises: not just as an exercise
in critical exegesis, but as a means of making audible (through performance) the
consequences of their textual mastery. So it is that Atalai and Nagy can each reflect a
new aspect of the master-pupil relation, in both learning from Ganassi’s text but then
refocusing it in order to impart a broader, audible, and interdisciplinary knowledge.
Introduction 9
As mentioned above, the contributions of Zevenbergen/van der Zwart and of

Theurer/Leong share a common origin in a teacher and student relationship, which
transformed over time into the collegial collaboration as witnessed in this volume.
But the commonalities between these essays go beyond the coincidence of a former
teacher-student relationship, when taken from the point of view of the master-pupil
relation. On the one hand, both essays exemplify a form of collaboration in which
the binary of “scholar” and “performer” fuses “organically” (in the unpretentious
sense of the word) into the “performer-scholar.” All four of these contributors, in
other words, have gained a mastery of both scholarly and musical-performative
acts. On the other hand, these authors all immerse themselves as “pupils” of the
very material they seek to master: Zevenbergen/van der Zwart of the Cor Alto
and Cor Basse; and Theurer/Leong of George Crumb’s Four Nocturnes for violin
and piano. So whether technical, physical, or musical, the demands of the mate-
rial itself challenge these authors to hone their skills and knowledge as performer-
scholars, to embody the personae of pupil and master simultaneously vis-à-vis the
material, and to collaborate in a way that begins to deconstruct their own master-
pupil relation.
But the discursive matrix in which this last form of the master-pupil relation
plays out can involve not just “texts” and “materials” but also the sounding world
of performance, whether of a historical or of a more recent vintage, and whether
real or imagined. The contribution of ter Haar (Chapter 6), for instance, takes its
cue not just from historical documentation and recent performance practice schol-
arship, but indeed attempts to draw on a past master of cello performance, Alfredo
Piatti. In what he calls a “dialogue with a dead performer,” ter Haar assumes the
role of pupil under the tutelage of a great master, one whom he has never met but
with whom he engages in an imagined dialogue in order to understand nineteenth-
century performance practice. The case becomes even more complicated when the
voices of other great cello masters begin to ring in ter Haar’s ears. Who plays the
master and who plays the pupil becomes the locus of tension in ter Haar’s account
of performing Chopin’s cello sonata.
A similar case is made by ter Haar’s direct colleague Cholevas (also Chapter 6),
who also finds himself in the midst of a dialogue with masters of taksim perfor-
mance past and present. But unlike ter Haar, who hears a cacophony of masterly
voices around him, Cholevas controls his masters and consolidates their knowl-
edge through the implementation of computer software, with the aim of informing
pupils of taksim improvisation on the workings of past masters. One of Cholevas’s
own former pupils, Abramovay (Chapter 6), then takes up the charge to gain his
own mastery of the material of one particular taksim master, Ercüment Batanay.
Abramovay does this in part by drawing on the technologies and methodologies
developed by Cholevas, and partly by taking inspiration from the world of modern
music analysis (among other things, the idea of structural layers as found in Schen-
kerian analysis). In the end, Abramovay’s contribution takes the form of praxis, as
he creates new taksim improvisations and hence becomes master of the material in
his own right.
Sometimes the role of master and pupil is deliberately reversed, whereby the
ones we would initially perceive to act as masters in fact take on the role of pu-
pils in order to learn from the pupils themselves. Such is the case in the chapter
by Bakker, Kouwenhoven, Martín, and Oudejans (Chapter 7). Described in more
detail below (Critical Interlude 3), their collaborative contribution is aimed at iden-
tifying the learned expertise of musicians and in sharpening the ways in which such
expertise can be honed under live performance situations. Such an example shows
how the master-pupil relation can begin to break down when experts from various
domains begin to collaborate, regardless whether one is a student at a conservatory
or a professor emeritus at a research university.
In Part IV, “Cultural Barriers and Embodied Knowledge,” the intertwinement
of the master-pupil relation takes on a new focus (and perhaps finally begins to
deconstruct the distinction altogether). In “Knowing the World through Music”
(Chapter 8), Titus, Vranckx, and Fermie take part in a dialogue with music-making
in a globalised economy: Titus in her research into South African Maskanda prac-
tices; Vranckx in her encounters with the San community of Namibia; and Fermie
through his “Practical Approach To Enhancing Musical Performance Abilities”
(Patempa), an embodied view towards musical knowledge production. Indeed, all
three of these contributions implicitly aim to leave behind any distinction of “mas-
ter” and “pupil,” though we believe that such a distinction remains inherent in their
multilayered engagements with various cultures and their own, complicated role
as scholars and musicians operating within a European context (a role they fully
acknowledge).
The final core contribution to the volume, by Andreas Borregaard (“Performing
Jennifer Walshe’s SELF-CARE,” Chapter 9), is similarly engaged with issues of
embodiment in musical performance: not only that, but given his musical material,
Borregaard’s performative commitments extend to the limits of the physical realm
(described in more detail in Critical Interlude 4). And even though he is a “sole”
author, his contribution also invokes the metaphor of master and pupil. In his case,
however, he is both master and pupil of his performative capacities, and in this
way he engages in deep self-reflection in order to uncover the limits to which his
embodied musicianship can be taken.
Notes
1 Bianchi (2017, 73).
2 Novóa (2000, 52).
3 Wengenroth (1997, 148–50).
4 For more detail, see Gispen (1990, 160–86).
5 See Brightwell (2007, I: 93ff).
6 Conservatorium der Afdeling Amsterdam van de Maatschappij tot Bevordering der
Toonkunst, “Bericht van het vierde schooljaar 1887–1888” (November 1888, 15).
This and other annual reports from between 1884 and 1970 have been collected
and bound in seven volumes, which are kept in the library of Conservatorium van
Amsterdam.
Introduction 11
7 Anonymous (1843, 201).

8 Grotjahn (2005).
9 Wasserloos (2004).
10 Riemann (1994, transl. E. Douglas Bomberger).
11 See Kunkel (1855, passim).
12 Riemann published numerous books—for scholars, performers, and music students—
as well as for the general concert-going public. His Musik-Lexikon (1882) became a
household possession for music lovers and specialists. Handbuch der Musikgeschichte
(1903–13) set a professional standard for music history teachers. And Riemann’s har-
monic theories served as a benchmark (if not a bone of contention) for subsequent gen-
erations of German music theorists before their American counterparts remixed it to
“neo-Riemannian theory” a century later.
13 Sigel (1968, 29). The conservatories Sigel visited were those in Amsterdam, Brussels,
Detmold, London (Royal Academy of Music), Paris, and Rome.
14 Frederickson and Rooney (1990, 198).
15 Adler (1885, 20).
16 Ludwig Holtmeier (2012) has made a similar point concerning nineteenth-century mu-
sic theorists like Gottfried Weber and Adolf Bernhard Marx. They had also studied law,
which they combined with a somewhat sketchy musical education. Holtmeier confronts
their inventorying and systematising approaches to harmony and musical form with the
simultaneously declining interest among famed composers in theoretical instruction.
17 Sigel (1968, 34–5).
18 Winter (2019, 162).
19 Mrenes (2011, 168).
20 https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1992/13. See also Department of Music Educa-
tion and Science (1991).
21 Pas (2016).
22 For a discussion of the influence of funding schemes on practice-based orientations in
British music research, see Cook (2015).
23 Borgdorff (2012, 5).
24 Cook (2013, 25).
25 Nietzsche (1968, 340). Another important thinker in Western philosophy to reflect on the
“master-slave dialectic” (which is more properly rendered as “Mastery” and “Servitude”
from the German Herrschaft and Knechtschaft) was Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel in
his Phenomenology of Spirit. Hegel’s famous discussion of the matter, however, has
more to do with the emergence of self-consciousness in the individual. See Hegel (2018,
108–116). In more recent years, and building on the work of Jacques Lacan, Slavoj
Žižek has also theorised about the concept of the “Master-signifier,” which indicates the
“performative” role that particular words can play in “closing the loop” of linguistic sig-
nification. In this way, the master-signifier acts as an “empty” place holder intended to
consolidate thought and assert control over other, deferred means of signification (often
with violent social-political consequences, such as the use of the word “Jew” by anti-
Semites). See e.g. Gunkel (2014). Though they are of a more benign nature, expressions
like “artistic research,” “music analysis,” “historically informed performance practice,”
and other disciplinary designations have a similar function as master-signifiers. Hence
the multiplicitous ways in which concepts of “master,” “mastery,” “masterwork,” and
related terms can manifest themselves in language, thought, and deed.
26 In his chapter on Fuxian counterpoint in The Cambridge History of Western Music The-
ory, Ian Bent describes three basic ways in which dialogue can play out in a treatise: (1)
as catechismic (questioning from master to pupil); (2) as erotematic (questioning from
pupil to master); and (3) as conversational (genuine dialogue and questioning between
two parties, usually among equals). See Bent (2002, 570–574).
References
Adler, Guido. 1885. “Umfang, Methode und Ziel der Musikwissenschaft.” Vierteljahrss-
chrift für Musikwissenschaft 1: 5–20.
Anonymous. 1843. “Das Conservatorium der Musik zu Leipzig.” Neue Zeitschrift für Musik
19/51: 201–4.
Bent, Ian. 2002. “Steps to Parnassus: Contrapuntal Theory in 1725 [,] Precursors and Suc-
cessors.” In The Cambridge History of Western Music Theory, edited by Thomas Chris-
tensen. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 554–602.
Bianchi, Eric. 2017. “Scholars, Friends, Plagiarists: The Musician as Author in the Seven-
teenth Century.” Journal of the American Musicological Society 70/1: 61–128.
Borgdorff, Henk. 2012. The Conflict of the Faculties: Perspectives on Artistic Research and
Academia. Leiden: Leiden University Press.
Brightwell, Giles William Edward (2007). “‘One Equal Music’: The Royal College of Mu-
sic, its Inception and the Legacy of Sir George Grove 1883–1895,” Ph.D. Thesis Durham
University. http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/2611/
Cook, Nicholas. 2013. Beyond the Score: Music as Performance. New York: Oxford Uni-
versity Press.
———. 2015. “Performing Research: Some Institutional Perspectives”. In Artistic Practice
as Research in Music, edited by Míne Doğantan-Dack. Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate, 11–32.
Department of Education and Science. 1991. Higher Education: A New Framework. Lon-
don: Her Majesty’s Stationary Office.
Frederickson, Jon, and James F. Rooney. 1990. “How the Music Occupation Failed to Be-
come a Profession.” International Review of the Aesthetics and Sociology of Music 21/2:
189–206.
Gispen, Kees. 1990. New Profession, Old Order: Engineers and German Society, 1815–
1914. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Grotjahn, Rebecca. 2005. “‘Die höhere Ausbildung in der Musik’: Gründungsidee und
Gründungsgeschichte des Leipziger Konservatoriums.” In Musical Education in Eu-
rope: Compositional, Institutional, and Political Challenges, edited by Michael Fend and
Michel Noiray. Berlin: Berliner Wissenschafts-Verlag, 301–30.
Gunkel, David. 2014. “Master-signifier.” In The Žižek Dictionary, edited by Rex Butler.
Durham, NC: Acumen, 190–193.
Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich. 2018. The Phenomenology of Spirit. Translated and edited
by Terry Pinkard. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Holtmeier, Ludwig. 2012. “Feindliche Übernahme: Gottfried Weber, Adolf Bernhard Marx
und die Bürgerliche Harmonielehre des 19. Jahrhunderts.” Musik & Ästhetik 16/63: 5–25.
Kunkel, Franz Joseph. 1855. Die Veurtheilung der Conservatorien zu Pflanzschulen des
musikalischen Proletariats durch Herrn. A. Schindler, seine Begründung hierzu, zusam-
mengestellt und durch kritische Beleuchtung und historische Nachweisungen zu widerle-
gen versucht. Frankfurt: Heinrich Keller.
Mrenes, Caterina. 2011. “60 Jahre Rektorenkonferenz der deutschen Musikhochschulen:
eine Chronik.” In Die Deutschen Musikhochschulen: Positionen und Dokumente, edited
by Werner Heinrichs, Ulrich Meyer-Doerpinghaus, and Petra Löllgen. Bonn: Hochschul-
rektorenkonferenz, 148–211.
Nietzsche, Friedrich. 1968. The Will to Power. Translated by Walter Kaufmann and R.J.
Hollingdale, edited by Walter Kaufmann. New York: Vintage Books.
Introduction 13
Novóa, António. 2000. “The Teaching Profession in Europe: Sociological and Historical
Analysis.” In Problems and Prospects in European Education, edited by Elizabeth Sher-
man Swing, Jürgen Schriewer, and François Orivel. Westport, CT: Praeger, 45–71.
Pas, Johan. 2016. “That is a Very Good Question. I Should Not Want to Spoil It with an
Answer.” In Art and/as Research at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp, edited by
Els de Bruyn and Johan Pas. Heijningen: Jap Sam Books, 21–28.
Riemann, Hugo. 1994 [1895]. “‘Our Conservatories’ from Präludien und Studien (1895),”
translated by E. Douglas Bamberger. The Bulletin of Historical Research in Music Educa-
tion 15/3 (1994): 220–35.
Sigel, Allen. 1968. “A Report on Six European Conservatories.” College Music Symposium
8 (1968): 27–41.
Wasserloos, Yvonne. 2004. Das Leipziger Konservatorium der Musik im 19. Jahrhundert:
Anziehungs- und Ausstrahlungskraft eines musikpädagogisches Modells auf das interna-
tionalen Musikleben. Hildesheim: Georg Olms Verlag.
Wengenroth, Ulrich. 1997. “Zur Differenz von Wissenschaft und Technik.” In Technikent-
wicklung und Industriearbeit: Industrielle Produktionstechnik zwischen Eigendynamik
und Nutzerinteressen, edtied by Daniel Bieber. Frankfurt etc.: Campus Verlag, 141–51.
Winter, Martin. 2019. “Akademisierung der Musikhochschulen: Zur Entwicklung eines be-
sonderen Hochschultyps.” Das Hochschulwesen 67/6: 160–70.
John Koslovsky
The first three essays to this volume all draw their inspiration from what has by
now become a veritable tradition, namely “historically informed performance”
practice (or HIP, for short). The title to Part I suggests that historical performers,
as researchers, draw upon various “tools” in order to conduct their work. But the
tools they use do not only have to be of the physical sort, they can also derive from
a more conceptual need. So it is that Motuz and Meléndez Peláez, a trombonist
and cornetist respectively, make use not only of their instruments for which they
conduct their research—they also explore the ways in which counterpoint training
of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries can supply performers with the neces-
sary tools for the execution of diminutions. To this end, their chapter, titled “Che
hanno contrapunto,” offers a detailed investigation of the ways in which Italian
and Spanish treatises from that time assumed a thoroughgoing knowledge of strict,
improvised counterpoint as the basis for performing diminutions. They then adapt
the knowledge they acquired to their own performing practices (rendered in a re-
cording session).
In the second chapter, by Atalai and Nagy (“The Italian Imitative and Interdis-
ciplinary Musical Ethos of the Sixteenth Century”), the performance of historical
diminutions remains an underlying concern. However, in this case the tool is not
of many but of a single sixteenth-century author, Silvestro Ganassi, whose 1535
treatise Opera Intitulata Fontegara provides the starting point for an “interdiscipli-
nary” approach to historical performance practice. For Atalai, Ganassi is the quin-
tessential “Renaissance man” who helped elevate the status of instrumental music
to the level of a liberal art by drawing links between the recorder and the human
voice; for Nagy, Ganassi’s emergent interdisciplinary attitude is evoked through his
painterly sensibilities and even through his choice of specific vocabulary, notably
the word “prontezza.” Their renditions of select sixteenth-century music, which ac-
company this volume, bring together various colleagues of the ensemble Seconda
Prat!ca and thereby bring the interdisciplinary ethos of Ganassi’s ideas to life.
DOI: 10.4324/9781003295785-2
16 John Koslovsky
Finally, Zevenbergen and van der Zwart pick up on the performance of another
historical instrument, the Cor Alto and Cor Basse. Unlike the first two chapters, their
focus here is not on creating improvisations or diminutions, but rather on locating
an “ideal sound” of the historical horn. And, instead of drawing their knowledge
from a treatise or from another artform, the tool that becomes most readily apparent
in their knowledge acquisition involves the length of just a couple of millimetres
or so, the horn’s mouthpiece. But the almost microscopic difference of mouthpiece
size proves to take on macroscope proportions in the various colours and timbres
that result from cor alto and cor basse. Zevenbergen and van der Zwart’s chapter
is similarly informed by their historical research into one of the most renowned
hornists of the late eighteenth century, Giovanni Punto (1746–1843). To be sure,
their engagement with Punto, alongside their technical concerns, leads them to
consider their own historically informed performance of Beethoven’s music, both
in his orchestral music and specifically in his Horn Sonata, op. 17. Their rendition
from the 2017 RPPR symposium, performed with their fortepiano colleague Olga
Pashchenko, demonstrates the sounding result of such a technical and historical
research project.
Part I
Tools of (Historical)
Performance Practice
1 “Che hanno contrapunto”
Counterpoint Training and the
Performance of Diminution in the
Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries1
Catherine Motuz and Josué Meléndez Peláez
One might have complained twenty years ago that, since most of the ornamentation
treatises of the Renaissance and Early Baroque had already been rediscovered and
studied, it would be difficult to add substantially to our knowledge about the art of
making passaggi.2 But while scholarly editions and close and comparative readings
of the treatises of Diego Ortiz, Girolamo Dalla Casa, Giovanni Bassano, Riccardo
Rognoni, Giovanni Battista Bovicelli, Francesco Rognoni, and others have been
invaluable to reviving the art,3 the work of performers in the last two decades in
putting treatise material to active, performative, and regular use has been a driving
force in pushing our understanding of historical ornamentation to a higher level.
Among the developments during this time has been the revival of the skill of coun-
terpoint as a practical art. Counterpoint has been transformed from a written-out
practice to a performance practice, to be parsed or even created in real time. Barto-
lomeo Barbarino is one of many who writes of the necessity for virtuoso musicians
to be skilled in counterpoint, writing that those who “have counterpoint” (che hanno
contrapunto) are able to improvise diminutions rather than just execute them.
But what does it mean to “have counterpoint”? What does it change in how we
go about performing music from the Renaissance and Early Baroque? While it can
be demonstrated in writing why musicians need some understanding of counter-
point in order to ornament well, these and other practical questions must be ad-
dressed through practical experience and performance.
The present authors attempt to answer these questions from the perspective of
performance research. We understand “performance” not only as what happens on
stage, but also in the context of music making in practice rooms and teaching stu-
dios. Because we are discussing historically informed performance practice (HIP),
we also draw on treatises from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Ultimately
it is our practical experience working with these sources on a regular basis and
bringing them into performance that leads us to our conclusions.
While close reading of diminution treatises can give a scholar an overview of the
practice of making diminutions in various styles, using a pedagogical treatise for
regular practice and teaching provides a much more comprehensive understanding.
For example, multiple authors have described what we call the “copy-and-paste”
approach to making diminutions.4 The simplest approach to this method relies on
tables of ornaments organised by melodic motion and rhythmic value, such as those
DOI: 10.4324/9781003295785-4
20 Catherine Motuz and Josué Meléndez Peláez
found in nearly every diminution treatise. The player, ornamenting a single line of
a polyphonic piece, chooses a melodic interval on which to add an ornament, picks
an ornament from the table based on the melodic interval and rhythmic values, then
replaces the simple version with the ornamented one. Luca Conforto provides the
clearest indication that this approach is a historical one and indeed the purpose of
providing such extensive tables: “And if you wish to embellish any musical piece,
it will be enough only to consider the quality of the note, and the proper place to be
embellished, and then according to their values, from those take a copy.”5 He goes
on to explain how to adjust ornaments to different rhythms by doubling or halving
the note values of the ornament.
We have found the “copy-and-paste” method indispensable, not only for learn-
ing to ornament ourselves, but also for teaching diminution technique: by copying
ornaments from treatises into real pieces, the student slowly builds a repertoire of
ornaments. However, is it not long before it is clear that just matching melodic
intervals and rhythmic values is not always enough to make a satisfying and cor-
rect ornament.6 In some cases, knowledge of counterpoint is also required. For
example, on the very first line of his treatise, Conforto offers a rising step (in seven
different clefs and with a “C” time signature) followed immediately by a choice of
ways to ornament it: the reader must choose a path through the crotchets he gives
(Example 1.1a). If we imagine this example in a polyphonic context (in this case
by adding a lower counterpoint), we note that the unornamented step might be ac-
companied by any number of intervals with the bass, such as from a third to a fifth
(Example 1.1b) or a sixth to an octave (Example 1.1c), but if we choose a path
through all of the topmost crotchets, then it works well over the first bass (Example
1.1d), but not the second (Example 1.1e), which contains a harsh contrapuntal er-
ror: a leap to a ninth on the second crotchet.
Example 1.1 Luca Conforto, Breve et facile maniera d’essercitarsi a far passaggi (1593),
3v, with extrapolated outcomes.
This example brings up two questions: is Example 1.1e actually wrong, in the
context of improvising diminutions?; and if so, how could it be avoided in im-
provisation? As we will show, while sixteenth-century writers normally allowed
certain contrapuntal errors to be introduced in making diminutions, nevertheless
they condemned those that caused acoustic harshness or that obscured the clarity
Counterpoint Training and the Performance of Diminution 21
of the counterpoint. As to how to avoid errors, some treatise authors offer foolproof
strategies or even specific ornaments that work in any polyphonic context, but they
make it clear that these do not always provide the most elegant divisions. To im-
provise passaggi as a virtuoso, or as Francesco Rognoni put it, con arte e maestria
(with art and mastery),7 professional singers and instrumentalists relied on a strong
grounding in counterpoint, which allowed them to hear the other voices and avoid
errors accordingly.
This brings us back to the question, what does it mean to “have counterpoint,”
i.e., what does a strong grounding in counterpoint mean to a historical performer?
In order to understand this, we must understand the background or education in
counterpoint that expert improvisers possessed. Close readings and analyses of
treatise examples present the reader with partial answers to this question but, like
many aspects of historical performance, the remaining gaps can only be solved by
practising and performing, putting treatise material to use in improvised contexts.
...Che hanno/non hanno contrapunto

The institutional study of diminution and counterpoint in the twenty-first century is
divided between performers and music theorists. Learning how to ornament takes
place in lessons, performance practice classes, or workshops, usually taught by
performers. Counterpoint, though now occasionally being taught through improvi-
sation, is still normally studied as part of a theory curriculum and taught by music
theorists. The divide between those who teach counterpoint and those who teach
ornamentation is a historical one, reflected in the sixteenth century by treatises
that normally discuss either counterpoint or diminution techniques, but rarely both.
Books that teach the fundamentals of music provide a solid grounding in counter-
point but only occasionally offer advice about diminution (see Coclico, Finck, and
Zacconi).8 The diminutions they provide are among the simplest, usually involving
only crotchets and quavers. Treatises that specialise in diminution, with extensive
ornamentation tables and often entire pieces with diminutions, demand counter-
point skills but never endeavour to teach them. Those who were advanced enough
to make use of diminutions in semiquavers, “twenty-fourth notes” (treplicate), and
demisemiquavers were assumed to already be proficient in counterpoint.
Luigi Zenobi’s letter “On the Perfect Musician” makes a distinction between
the skill set of the mediocre and the excellent musician.9 Zenobi mentions coun-
terpoint on multiple occasions, writing that knowledge of counterpoint is the first
requirement for singing securely, for directing an ensemble, for composers, instru-
mentalists, and finally for the singer, especially the soprano, who sings the most
embellishments and therefore “must be expert in counterpoint, for without that he
sings haphazardly and commits a thousand blunders.”10
Bartolomeo Barbarino takes a more accommodating approach in his second
book of motets, presumably at least in part because he was aiming to appeal to a
wider audience. He printed two versions of each monody:
The simple version is for those who don’t have the ability to sing diminutions,
and for those who have the ability to sing diminutions and know counterpoint
(che hanno contrapunto), who can do themselves diminutions and all other
ornaments that are required for the proper way of singing. The diminished
version then, for those who, having the ability to sing diminutions, but not
knowing counterpoint (che havendo dispositione, non hanno contrapunto),
don’t have the capacity to make diminutions according to the rules.11
Conforto is also less demanding than Zenobi. He introduces his treatise as an ex-
pedient for those who, growing up far from cities and courts, had to learn their
art painstakingly through imitation rather than instruction.12 Conforto understands
that these singers, although they eventually became professionals, may have had
varying levels of training in counterpoint. He goes on with an example of why this
is important: the restrictions on a melodic leap of a fourth or a fifth in a passaggio
are not worth trying to explain to “those who have no understanding of the conso-
nances” (che non hanno cognizione delle consonanze), but those who do will know
that leaping up a fourth from a fifth over the bass will make an octave.13
Understanding that melodic leaps are the most risky for producing errors such
as those discussed in Example 1.1, Conforto helpfully writes a little cross (una
crocetta) next to passaggi that work with an octave, tenth, or twelfth from the bass,
and instructs that these be learned first. We can find this cross in his first example
after the first crotchet, showing that the singer who follows the path (again in so-
prano clef) through G–A–F–G–A or G–A–B–G–A will be safe from creating harsh
dissonances against any normal bass in whole notes, beginning on an octave, tenth,
or twelfth (and also a sixth, though Conforto does not recognise this). Example 1.2
demonstrates the possibilities.
Example 1.2 Luca Conforto, Breve et facile maniera, 3v, with extrapolated outcomes.
The resulting vertical intervals for the first possible path (Examples 1.2b–e)
include leaps to and from dissonances, but this figure is a recognised idiom, called
a double-neighbour.14 While Peter Schubert specifies that the figure is to be used in
Counterpoint Training and the Performance of Diminution 23
cadences, he notes that evaded cadences allow a variety of bass motions.15 The sec-
ond possible path is unproblematic except for the version that begins on the twelfth
and ascends to the fourteenth (i.e., from the fifth to the seventh, plus an octave,
Example 1.2h), but examples from fully ornamented pieces by Maffei, Dalla Casa,
and others show that this interval pattern is common in diminution repertoire.16
Like Conforto, Diego Ortiz writes failsafe examples of diminutions, explaining
that by returning to the original note at the end of each ornament, it is impossible to
introduce contrapuntal errors.17 One example is offered in Example 1.3.
Example 1.3 Diego Ortiz, Trattado de Glosas (1553).
Girolamo Diruta and Aurelio Virgiliano also recommend returning to the origi-
nal note at the end of an ornament, but the latter adds that one should also play it in
the middle if it is convenient.18 Ortiz and Diruta specify that this way of ornament-
ing is the simplest approach, although Ortiz concedes that following this rule will
not produce the most beautiful flourishes. Clearly, Virgiliano does not expect this
rule to be followed every time either—if so, he would not need his next rule, which
states that one should maintain the same direction of travel from one note to the
next as in the unornamented version (soggetto).
Like many authors, Ortiz considered counterpoint a fundamental skill, at least
for professional musicians,19 but distinguished it from composition, a more ad-
vanced skill. Most of the exercises he provides in the second book of his Trattado,
making ornamentations of polyphonic models or improvising on a ground, require
his readers to be fluent in counterpoint, but to add a fifth voice to a four-voice
piece “presupposes ability in composition on the part of the player to do it.”20 Ortiz
differentiates between the basic skill of counterpoint and grasping the multiple
contrapuntal relationships of a four-part piece. But by introducing a compositional
skill into a manual about improvisation he is blurring the line between written and
oral practices.
Counterpoint as Oral Practice

This brings us back to our central question: What does it mean to “have” counter-
point? To be more specific, what did it mean from the point of view of a Renais-
sance performer? Among recent scholars, Rob Wegman has addressed this issue,
arguing that “counterpoint” was understood since the Middle Ages as basic note-
against-note structures, distinguished from the elaborate ornamentation to which
it provided a foundation and from parallel structures such as organum.21 Wegman
highlights the oral nature of counterpoint in his distinction between music “makers”
and “composers.”22 Julie Cumming gives a brief history of how twenty-first century
scholars came to revise their understanding of Renaissance “counterpoint” from a
primarily written to a primarily mental and oral task. This includes a discussion
and extension of Jesse Anne Owens’s ground-breaking study of composing without

a score. Peter Schubert re-claimed the term “counterpoint” to mean “improvised
polyphony for singers.”23 Anna Maria Busse Berger has exerted a deep influence
on the twenty-first century revival of improvised counterpoint with her observa-
tion that medieval and Renaissance counterpoint pedagogy was centred around
the memorisation of two-voice interval progressions, with very little emphasis on
abstract rules.24 Catherine Motuz has learned and taught basic counterpoint im-
provisation based on memorisation, and has compared this pedagogical approach
to studies of jazz improvisation pedagogy.25
Both Schubert and Lynette Bowring have shown that Renaissance counterpoint
was oral in nature, whether it led to performance or composition, and both provide
surveys that examine the oral foundations either taught by or required as prereq-
uisites to Renaissance compositional treatises.26 Schubert’s reconstruction of the
mental processes of the composer reflects the memorisation practices proposed by
Busse Berger:
The improviser is actively engaged, responding on the spot, and coming up

with little (mostly 2- and 3-voice) combinations, or inventioni, that can be
used in a composition. The composer has a thesaurus of these at the back of
his mind, inculcated with his earliest training as a singer.27
Turning back to historical authors, the need for constant practice in order to train
this “thesaurus” is summed up elegantly by the Master in Morley’s A Plaine and
Easie Introduction to Practicall Musick (1597):
Phi: What is the meane to sing upon a playne song.

Ma. To know the distances both of Concords and Discords.
[…]
Phi: I praie you shew me how they [i.e., parallel fifth and octaves] bee per-
ceived among other cordes.
Ma. There is no waie to discerne them, but by diligent marking wherein
everie note standeth, which you cannot doe but by continuall practise,
and so by marking where the notes stand, and how farre everie one is
from the next before, you shall easilie know, both what cordes they be,
and also what corde commeth next.28
The role of practical contrapuntal training as foundational to composition is con-

firmed by Pietro Pontio and Giovanni Maria Artusi, who describe the progression
from simple to florid counterpoint as a step towards composition. Pontio gives
careful explanations and examples of the approach to and from each vertical inter-
val, while Artusi presents tables showing two-voice note-against-note progressions
similar to Tinctoris’s progressions from the Liber de Arte Contrapuncti (c1477),29
but in an easily memorisable format (see Example 1.4).
Artusi’s focus was on counterpoint for training composers, but other authors
wrote out similar tables explicitly to help improvising singers, extending the
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
The Project Gutenberg eBook of Chambers's
Journal of Popular Literature, Science, and Art,
fifth series, no. 134, vol. III, July 24, 1886
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United
States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away
or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License
included with this ebook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you
are not located in the United States, you will have to check the
laws of the country where you are located before using this
eBook.
Title: Chambers's Journal of Popular Literature, Science, and

Art, fifth series, no. 134, vol. III, July 24, 1886
Author: Various
Release date: December 31, 2023 [eBook #72564]
Language: English
Original publication: Edinburgh: William and Robert Chambers,

1853
Credits: Susan Skinner, Eric Hutton and the Online Distributed

Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file
was produced from images generously made available
by The Internet Archive)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK

CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL OF POPULAR LITERATURE, SCIENCE,
AND ART, FIFTH SERIES, NO. 134, VOL. III, JULY 24, 1886 ***
CHAMBERS’S JOURNAL
OF
POPULAR
LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND
ART.
CONTENTS
THE GERMANISATION OF AMERICA.
IN ALL SHADES.
VISITS TO THE ZOO.
WHERE THE TRACKS LED TO.
AN OLD LAMMAS REVEL.
THE LOTTERY OF DEATH.
ABOUT WEEDS.
TECHNICAL EDUCATION AT GORDON’S COLLEGE, ABERDEEN.
AN EXPERIMENT IN CO-OPERATIVE FARMING.
THE CONSUMPTION OF TEA.
TO A CHERRY BLOSSOM.
No. 134.—Vol. III. SATURDAY, JULY 24, 1886. Price 1½d.
THE GERMANISATION OF AMERICA.
Those who know any part of America, or have even a small
acquaintance with Americans, will not have been surprised at the list
of names published in the daily papers of the persons who were
arrested as the authors of the late disturbance at Chicago. With
perhaps one exception, there is not an English name among them;
they are all foreign, and to the true American public, must bring
home in full force the certain operation of a process hitherto only half
apparent—that their country is fast passing through a period of
incubation, which, if allowed to continue, will end in the development
of a new Germanism, destroying the individuality of the Anglo-
Saxon, and flooding the land with theories for the relief of an Old
World discontent.
Before steamships and railways had made travel a matter of
comparative ease, it was customary to laugh at the peculiarities of
our American cousins, in the belief they were the result of the natural
growth of transatlantic life; but a wider knowledge of the continent
has brought to light the indisputable fact that they are to a very
considerable extent the habits and customs of the lower middle class
of Germany. The true American, taking into consideration difference
of thought, is as much a gentleman, from the English point of view,
as the Englishman himself. If there is anything which characterises
an Englishman, as distinct from the rest of his species, it is his
sensitiveness on the point of similarity to his kind, and his willingness
in carrying this out, to submit himself to personal inconvenience,
rather than allow any singularity to appear. Where this comes in, the
American does not bow to the same strict conventional rule, his
constant activity and the dissimilitude of life having of necessity
forced him to take circumstances into account. Laying aside the
distinction, however, and it is one which does not always intrude
itself, making allowance also for a greater conservatism which has
retained old English customs and expressions, where is the line to
be drawn in cultivated circles between an Englishman and an
American? If, also, we look into the great upper middle classes of the
two countries, who will grant that the dead level of uniformity in
England is more attractive in its outward than its inward form; and
who will doubt that for the pleasure of intercourse, the advantage is
wholly on the side of America both as regards originality of thought
and freedom from restraint?
The juvenile republican of Europe, panting on the outskirts of
exclusivism, makes a great mistake when he imagines America is
free from ‘class’ prejudice. Let him emigrate to a house on the wrong
side of Boston, and we can promise he will have leisure during the
remainder of his life to calculate the difference in degree between
the descendants of those whose patent of nobility bears the date of
the Mayflower and the representatives in the Old World of Norman
blood. In the present day, we take it for granted the society of every
country is willing to welcome the man of genius or money who is,
besides, a gentleman, and does not run his head against established
facts. Be that as it may, there is one thing certain—the old idea of
Americans, considered typical of the race, and still lingering in some
quarters, is entirely an error.
Let us look at a few of the supposed characteristics of our
‘cousins’—one and all taken from the travelling citizen of other days,
but who latterly has faded into the background before the true
American, and is only now to be seen in second-class hotels or
lodgings. Does he ask interminable questions with the curiosity of an
inquisitor, till nothing remains but a point-blank demand to know the
amount of your income? If so, engage rooms in a German pension,
and relate your experiences after a three days’ stay. Does he worry
you to death with a skilful display of the knife-trick? Go to a German
pastry-cook’s and watch the same performance at four o’clock in the
afternoon by a well-dressed young lady on a solid pie. Does he
smoke everywhere and spit freely? Enter a Paris tramway car or a
second-class German railway carriage, and you will learn that Uncle
Sam has not the monopoly of expectorating power. Does his square-
cut coat hang upon him like a sack? Does he wear shirt fronts and
glazed cuffs, long boots with high heels, and a hat whose style has
originated in his inner bosom? If you have observed these things, go
to any small German town and see their prototypes. Does he destroy
his digestion by drinking iced water as he sits down to dinner? Does
he eat a heavy meal in the middle of the day and hurry off as if the
table were let? Does he brag like a schoolboy and believe that
existence centres in himself? If he does, make the acquaintance of
the first German at the nearest watering-place. Does he, in his native
town, when aspiring to a higher place in the respect of the citizens,
turn himself quite inside out in the effort to be agreeable? Does he
take his hat off to the man of distinction with a wide wave, forgetful of
his own dignity, eyeing him with suppressed jealousy, and when he
dares, endeavouring to patronise, as a means of recommending
himself to notice, the realisation of ich empfehl’ mich which is shot
out occasionally, more especially in Austria? If so, study the German
character in the lower middle class. Is this class, however, making all
allowance for humanity, morally sound, and is it the same in the
United States? We answer unhesitatingly, ‘Yes;’ though perhaps in
Europe it ought to be limited to Northern Germany. We would also
affirm that the men in both countries are intellectually decidedly
above their customs or their manners; while the women ripen early,
and have a natural vivacity added to good appearance, which
supplies the want of a corresponding culture.
It would be easy to multiply questions proving the origin of supposed
Americanisms; and indeed, the better classes are more tinged with
continental ways than they might care to admit, as, for instance, the
‘Pap-a’ and ‘Mam-ma’ of well-born babies; or the Mrs Colonel and
Mrs Dr So-and-so, like the Frau Pastor or Frau Doctor of Germany;
but we have only desired to show how the foundation has been
almost unconsciously laid for the naturalisation of European
customs, and, as a consequence, of thought also, so that what is
called American is really German. These ideas have been carried to
America, of course, by the tide of emigration; and as the population
grew out of the emigrants of all nations, native manners were
partially lost by the lower orders.
That America should be more Germanised than Irishised or
Frenchified, is a tribute to the higher qualities of the Teuton; and that
a certain class of Americans could become so transformed from its
original type, only tells how completely it has been absorbed, and
how far away it already is from the Anglo-Saxon race. That this is a
matter of grief to all true Americans, is well known; and it is always
said, whenever a case comes up, the man in question is a ‘German
American.’ The tenacity of the Teuton has preserved his individuality
under foreign conditions, and he now forms a distinctly powerful
element in the country, lives the same way as if he were in Germany,
thinks the same thoughts, and clings to his language. The American,
true to trade instincts, has studied his wants and ministered to them,
as, for example, in the consumption of Rio coffee, so that in a way
he is responsible for the fostering of nationalities. Societies, too,
representing these, formed on philanthropic grounds, everywhere
exist; and though the man may call himself American, he is in reality
partly Irish, Swiss, or Dutch.
There is, therefore, a hard task before the American people—the
necessity to weld into an harmonious whole European elements with
long histories of animosity to each other, at all times more or less
active, possessing Old World grievances that are inoperative in the
United States, and bent upon maintaining their own ideas under the
shelter of a common home. That measures will be taken to suppress
the disturbances of divers nationalities whenever they occur against
the American people, there is no doubt; but it is rather hard upon a
new country to have to submit up to fighting-point to the airing of
doctrines which do not affect it, and that might create artificial
grievances causing endless trouble. In the attempt to banish national
distinctions, to develop the Anglo-Saxon race, America has a firm
friend here; and just as her truest sons, when desirous of looking
beyond themselves, turn for their inspirations to the genius of the
British people, so do we in return take a leaf from that chapter of
events in the progress of humanity which it seems to be the mission
of Americans to arrange.
IN ALL SHADES.
CHAPTER XXXVII.
Twilight, the beautiful serene tropical twilight, was just gathering on
Wednesday evening, when the negroes of all the surrounding
country, fresh from their daily work in the cane-pieces, with cutlasses
and sticks and cudgels in their hands, began to assemble silently
around Louis Delgado’s hut, in the bend of the mountains beside the
great clump of feathery cabbage-palms. A terrible and motley crowd
they looked, bareheaded and bare of foot, many of them with their
powerful black arms wholly naked, and thrust loosely through the
wide sleeve-holes of the coarse sack-like shirt which, with a pair of
ragged trousers, formed their sole bodily covering. Most of the
malcontents were men, young and old, sturdy and feeble; but among
them there were not a few fierce-looking girls and women, plantation
hands of the wildest and most unkempt sort, carelessly dressed in
short ragged filthy kirtles, that reached only to the knee, and with
their woolly hair tangled and matted with dust and dirt, instead of
being covered with the comely and becoming bandana turban of the
more civilised and decent household negresses. These women
carried cutlasses too, the ordinary agricultural implement of all
sugar-growing tropical countries; and one had but to glance at their
stalwart black arms or their powerful naked legs and feet, as well as
at their cruel laughing faces, to see in a moment that if need were,
they could wield their blunt but heavy weapons fully as effectively
and as ruthlessly in their own way as the resolute, vengeful men
themselves. So wholly unsexed were they, indeed, by brutal field-
labour and brutal affections, that it was hard to look upon them
closely for a minute and believe them to be really and truly women.
The conspirators assembled silently, it is true, so far as silence under
such circumstances is ever possible to the noisy demonstrative
negro nature; but in spite of the evident effort which every man made
at self-restraint, there was a low undercurrent of whispered talk,
accompanied by the usual running commentary of grimaces and
gesticulations, which made a buzz or murmur hum ceaselessly
through the whole crowd of five or six hundred armed semi-savages.
Now and again the women especially, looking down with delightful
anticipation at their newly whetted cutlasses, would break out into
hoarse ungovernable laughter, as they thought to themselves of the
proud white throats they were going to cut that memorable evening,
and the dying cries of the little white pickaninnies they were going to
massacre in their embroidered lace bassinettes.
‘It warm me heart, Mistah Delgado, sah,’ one white-haired, tottering,
venerable old negro mumbled out slowly with a pleasant smile, ‘to
see so many good neighbour all come togedder again for kill de
buckra. It long since I see fine gadering like dis. I mind de time, sah,
in slavery day, when I was young man, just begin for to make lub to
de le-adies, how we rise all togedder under John Trelawney down at
Star-Apple Bottom, go hunt de white folk in de great insurrection. Ha,
dem was times, sah—dem was times, I tellin’ you de trut’, me fren’,
in de great insurrection. We beat de goomba drum, we go up to
Mistah Pourtalès—same what flog me mudder so unmerciful dat de
buckra judges even fine him—an’ we catch de massa himself, an’ we
beat him dead wit stick an’ cutlass. Ha, ha, dem was times, sah. Den
we catch de young le-adies, an’ we hack dem all to pieces, an’ we
burn de bodies. Den we go on to odder house, take all de buckra we
find, shoot some, roast some same we roast pig, an’ burn some in
deir own houses. Dem was times, sah—dem was times. I doan’t
s’pose naygur now will do like we do when I is young man. But dis is
good meeting, fine meeting: we cry “Colour for colour,” “Buckra
country for us,” an’ de Lard prosper us in de work we hab in hand!
Hallelujah!’
One of the women stood listening eagerly to this thrilling recital of
early exploits, and asked in a hushed voice of the intensest interest:
‘An’ what de end ob it all, Mistah Corella? What come ob it? How
you no get buckra house, den, for youself lib in?’
The old man shook his head mournfully, as he answered with a
meditative sigh: ‘Ah, buckra too strong for us—too strong for us
altogedder; come upon us too many. Colonel Macgregor, him come
wit plenty big army, gun an’ bay’net, an’ shoot us down, an’ charge
us ridin’; so we all frightened, an’ run away hide in de bush right up
in de mountains. Den dem bring Cuban bloodhound, hunt us out; an’
dem hab court-martial, an’ dem sit on Trelawney, an’ dem hang him,
hang him dead, de buckra. An’ dem hang plenty. We kill twenty—
twenty-two—twenty-four buckra; an’ buckra kill hundred an’ eighty
poor naygur, to make tings even. For one buckra, dem kill ten,
fifteen, twenty naygur. But my master hide me till martial law blow
ober, because I is strong, hearty young naygur, an’ can work well for
him down in cane-piece. Him say: “Doan’t must kill valuable
property!” An’ I get off dat way. So dat de end ob John Trelawney
him rebellion.’
If the poor soul could only have known it, he might have added with
perfect truth that it was the end of every other negro rebellion too;
the white man is always too strong for them. But hope springs
eternal in the black breast as in all others, and it was with a placid
smile of utter oblivion that he added next minute: ‘But we doan’t
gwine to be beaten dis time. We too strong ourselbes now for de
soldier an’ de buckra. Delgado make tings all snug; buy pistol, drill
naygur, plan battle, till we sure ob de victory. De Lard wit us, an’
Delgado him serbant.’
At that moment, Louis Delgado himself stepped forward, erect and
firm, with the unmistakable air of a born commander, and said a few
words in a clear low earnest voice to the eager mob of armed rioters.
‘Me fren’s,’ he said, ‘you must obey orders. Go quiet, an’ make no
noise till you get to de buckra houses. Doan’t turn aside for de rum
or de trash-houses; we get plenty rum for ourselbes, I tellin’ you,
when we done killed all de buckra. Doan’t set fire to de house
anywhere; only kill de male white folk; we want house to lib in
ourselbes, when de war ober. Doan’t burn de factories; we want
factory for make sugar ourselves when de buckra dribben altogedder
clean out ob de country. Doan’t light fire at all; if you light fire, de
soldiers in Port-ob-Spain see de blaze directly, an’ come up an’ fight
us hard, before we get togedder enough black men to make sure ob
de glorious victory. Nebber mind de buckra le-ady; we can get dem
when we want dem. Kill, kill, kill! dat is de watchword. Kill, kill, kill de
buckra, an’ de Lard delibber de rest into de hands ob his chosen
people.’ As he spoke, he raised his two black hands, palm upwards,
in the attitude of earnest supplication, towards the darkening heaven,
and flung his head fervently backward, with the whites of his big
eyes rolling horribly, in his unspoken prayer to the God of battles.
The negroes around, caught with the contagious enthusiasm of
Delgado’s voice and mutely eloquent gesture, flung up their own
dusky hands, cutlasses and all, with the self-same wild and
expressive pantomime, and cried aloud, in a scarcely stifled
undertone: ‘De Lard delibber dem, de Lard delibber dem to Louis
Delgado.’
The old African gazed around him complacently for a second at the
goodly muster of armed followers, to the picked men among whom
Isaac Pourtalès was already busily distributing the pistols and the
cartridges. ‘Are you ready, me fren’s?’ he asked again, after a short
pause. And, like a deep murmur, the answer rang unanimously from
that great tumultuous black mass: ‘Praise de Lard, sah, we ready, we
ready!’
‘Den march!’ Delgado cried, in the loud tone of a commanding
officer; and suiting the action to the word, the whole mob turned after
him silently, along the winding path that led down by tortuous twists
from the clump of cabbage-palms to the big barn-like Orange Grove
trash-houses.
With their naked feet and their cat-like tread, the negroes marched
along far more silently than white men could ever have done, toward
the faint lights that gleamed fitfully beyond the gully. If possible,
Delgado would have preferred to lead them straight to Orange Grove
house, for his resentment burnt fiercest of all against the Dupuy
family, and he wished at least, whatever else happened, to make
sure of massacring that one single obnoxious household. But it was
absolutely necessary to turn first to the trash-houses and the factory,
for rumours of some impending trouble had already vaguely reached
the local authorities. The two constables of the district stood there on
guard, and the few faithful and trustworthy plantation hands were
with them there, in spite of Mr Dupuy’s undisguised ridicule, half
expecting an insurgent attack that very evening. It would never do to
leave the enemy thus in the rear, ready either to attack them from
behind, or to bear down the news and seek for aid at Port-of-Spain.
Delgado’s plan was therefore to carry each plantation entire as he
went, without allowing time to the well-affected negroes to give the
alarm to the whites in the next one. But he feared greatly the perils
and temptations of the factory for his unruly army. ‘Whatebber else
you do, me fren’s,’ the old African muttered more than once, turning
round beseechingly to his ragged black followers, ‘doan’t drink de
new rum, an’ doan’t set fire to de buckra trash-houses.’
At the foot of the little knoll under whose base the trash-houses lay,
they came suddenly upon one of the faithful field-hands, Napoleon
Floreal, whose fidelity Delgado had already in vain attempted with
his rude persuasions. The negroes singled him out at once for their
first vengeance. Before the man could raise so much as a sharp
shout, Isaac Pourtalès had seized him from behind and gagged his
mouth with a loose bandana. Two of the other men, quick as
lightning, snatched his arms, and held them bent back in a very
painful attitude behind his shoulders. ‘If you is wit us,’ Delgado said,
in a hoarse whisper, ‘lift your right foot, fellah.’ Floreal kept both feet
pressed doggedly down with negro courage upon the ground. ‘Him is
traitor, traitor!’ Pourtalès muttered, between his clenched teeth. ‘Him
hab black skin, but white heart. Kill him, kill him!’
In a second, a dozen angry negroes had darted forward, with their
savage cutlasses brandished aloft in the air, ready to hack their
offending fellow-countryman into a thousand pieces. But Delgado,
his black hands held up with a warning air before them, thundered
out in a tone of bitter indignation: ‘Doan’t kill him!—doan’t kill him! My
children, kill in good order. Dar is plenty buckra for you to kill, witout
want to kill your own brudder. Tie de han’kercher around him mout’,
bind rope around him arm an’ leg, an’ trow him down de gully yonder
among de cactus jungle!’
As he spoke, one of the men produced a piece of stout rope from his
pocket, brought for the very purpose of tying the ‘prisoners,’ and
proceeded to wind it tightly around Floreal’s body. They fastened it
well round arms and legs; stuffed the bandana firmly in his mouth so
as to check all his futile attempts at shouting, and rolled him over the
slight bank of earth, down among the thick scrub of prickly cactus.
Then, as the blood spurted out of the small wounds made by the
sharp thorns, they gave a sudden low yell, and burst in a body upon
the guardians of the trash-houses.
Before the two black policemen had time to know what was actually
happening, they found themselves similarly gagged and bound, and
tossed down beside Napoleon Floreal on the prickly cactus bed. In a
minute, the insurgents had surrounded the trash-houses, cut down
and captured the few faithful negroes, and marched them along
unwillingly in their own body, as hostages for the better behaviour of
the Orange Grove house-servants.
‘Now, me fren’s,’ Delgado shouted, with fierce energy, ‘down wit de
Dupuys! We gwine to humble de proud white man! We must hab
blood! De Lard is wit us! He hat’ put down de mighty from deir seats,
an’ hat’ exalted de lowly an’ meek!’
But as he spoke, one or two of the heaviest-looking among the
rioters began to cast their longing eyes upon the unbroached
hogsheads. ‘De rum, de rum!’ one of them cried hoarsely. ‘We want
suffin for keep our courage up. Little drop o’ rum help naygur man
well to humble de buckra.’
Delgado rushed forward and placed himself resolutely, pistol in hand,
before the seductive hogsheads. ‘Whoebber drink a drop ob dat rum
dis blessed ebenin’,’ he hissed out angrily, ‘before all de Dupuys is
lyin’ cold in deir own houses, I shoot him dead here wit dis very
pistol!’
But the foremost rioters only laughed louder than before, and one of
them even wrenched the pistol suddenly from his leader’s grasp with
an unexpected side movement. ‘Look hyar, Mistah Delgado,’ the
man said quietly; ‘dis risin’ is all our risin’, an’ we has got to hab
voice ourselbes in de partickler way we gwine to manage him. We
doan’t gwine away witout de rum, an’ we gwine to break just one
little pickanie hogshead.’ At the word, he raised his cutlass above his
head, and lunging forward with it like a sword, with all his force,
stove in one of the thick cross-pieces at the top of the barrel, and let
the liquor dribble out slowly from the chink in a small but continuous
trickling stream. Next moment, a dozen black hands were held down
to the silent rill like little cups, and a dozen dusky mouths were
drinking down the hot new rum, neat and unalloyed, with fierce
grimaces of the highest gusto. ‘Ha, dat good!’ ran round the chorus
in thirsty approbation: ‘dat warm de naygur’s heart. Us gwine now to
kill de buckra in true earnes’.’
Delgado stood by, mad with rage and disappointment, as he saw his
followers, one after another, scrambling for handful after handful of
the fiery liquor, and watched some of them, the women especially,
reeling about foolishly almost at once from the poisonous fumes of
the unrefined spirit. He felt in his heart that his chances were slipping
rapidly from him, even before the insurrection was well begun, and
that it would be impossible for a crowd of half-drunken negroes to
preserve the order and discipline which alone would enable them to
cope with the all-puissant and regularly drilled white men. But the
more he stormed and swore and raved at them, the more did the
greedy and uncontrolled negroes, now revelling in the unstinted
supply, hold their hands to the undiminished stream, and drink it off
by palmfuls with still deeper grunts and groans of internal
satisfaction. ‘If it doan’t no hope ob conquer de island,’ the African
muttered at last with a wild Guinea oath to Isaac Pourtalès, ‘at
anyrate we has time to kill de Dupuys—an’ dat always some
satisfaction.’
The men were now thoroughly inflamed with the hot new rum, and
more than one of them began to cry aloud: ‘It time to get to de reg’lar
business.’ But a few still lingered lovingly around the dripping
hogshead, catching double handfuls of the fresh spirit in their
capacious palms. Presently, one of the women, mad with drink, drew
out a short pipe from her filthy pocket and began to fill it to the top
with raw tobacco. As she did so, she turned tipsily to a man by her
side and asked him for a light. The fellow took a match in his
unsteady fingers and struck it on a wooden post, flinging it away
when done with among a few small scraps of dry trash that lay by
accident upon the ground close by. Trash is the desiccated refuse of
cane from which the juice has been already extracted, and it is
ordinarily used as a convenient fuel to feed the crushing-mills and
boil the molasses. Dry as tinder, it lighted up with a flare
instantaneously, and raised a crackling blaze, whose ruddy glow
pleased and delighted the childish minds of the half-drunken
negroes. ‘How him burn!’ the woman with the pipe cried excitedly.
‘Sposin’ we set fire to de trash-house! My heart, how him blaze den!
Him light up all de mountains! Burn de trash-house! Burn de trash-
house! Dat pretty for true! Burn de trash-house!’
Quick as lightning, the tipsiest rioters had idly kicked the burning
ends of loose trash among the great stacked heaps of dry cane
under the big sheds; and in one second, before Delgado could even
strive in vain to exert his feeble authority, the whole mass had
flashed into a single huge sheet of flame, rising fiercely into the
evening sky, and reddening with its glow the peaks around, like the
lurid glare of a huge volcano. As the flames darted higher and ever
higher, licking up the leaves and stalks as they went, the negroes,
now fairly loosed from all restraint, leaped and shrieked wildly
around them—some of them half-drunk, others absolutely reeling,
and all laughing loud with hideous, wild, unearthly laughter, in their
murderous merriment. Delgado alone saw with horror that his great
scheme of liberation was being fast rendered ultimately hopeless,
and could only now concentrate his attention upon his minor plan of
personal vengeance against the Dupuy family. Port-of-Spain would
be fairly roused by the blaze in half an hour, but at least there was
time to murder outright the one offending Orange Grove household.
For a few minutes, helpless and resourceless, he allowed the half-
tipsy excited creatures to dance madly around the flaring fire, and to
leap and gesticulate with African ferocity in the red glare of the
rapidly burning trash-house. ‘Let dem wear out de rum,’ he cried
bitterly to Pourtalès. ‘But in a minute, de Dupuys gwine to be down
upon us wit de constables an’ de soldiers, if dem doan’t make haste
to kill dem beforehand.’
Soon the drunken rioters themselves began to remember that
burning trash-houses and stealing rum were not the only form of
amusement they had proposed to themselves for that evening’s
entertainment. ‘Kill de buckra!—kill de buckra!’ more than one of
them now yelled out fiercely at the top of his voice, brandishing his
cutlass. ‘Buckra country for us! Colour for colour! Kill dem all! Kill de
buckra!’
Delgado seized at once upon the slender opportunity. ‘Me fren’s,’ he
shrieked aloud, raising his palms once more imploringly to heaven,
‘kill dem, kill dem! Follow me! Hallelujah! I gwine to lead you to kill de
buckra!’
Most of the negroes, recalled to duty by the old African’s angry
voice, now fell once more into their rude marching order; but one or
two of them, and those the tipsiest, began to turn back wistfully in the
direction of the little pool of new rum that lay sparkling in the glare
like molten gold in front of the still running hogshead. Louis Delgado
looked at them with the fierce contempt of a strong mind for such
incomprehensible vacillating weakness. Wrenching his pistol once
more from the tipsy grasp of the man who had first seized it, he
pointed it in a threatening attitude at the head of the foremost negro
among the recalcitrant drunkards. ‘Dis time I tellin’ you true,’ he cried
fiercely, in a tone of unmistakable wrath and firmness. ‘De first man
dat take a single step nearer dat liquor, I blow his brains out!’
Reckless with drink, and unable to believe in his leader’s firmness,
the foremost man took a step or two, laughing a drunken laugh
meanwhile, in the forbidden direction, and then turned round again,
grinning like a baboon, toward Louis Delgado.
He had better have trifled with an angry tiger. The fierce old African
did not hesitate or falter for a single second; pulling the trigger, he
fired straight at the grinning face of the drunken renegade, killing him
instantaneously. He fell like a log in the pool of new rum, and
reddened the stream even as they looked with the quick crimson
flow.
Delgado himself hardly paused a second to glance contemptuously
at the fallen recalcitrant. ‘Now, me fren’s,’ he cried firmly, kicking the
corpse in his wrath, and with his eye twitching in a terrible fashion,
‘whoebber else disobeys orders, I gwine to shoot him dead dat very
minute, same as I shoot dat good-for-nuffin disobedient naygur dar!

Music Performance Encounters Collaborations and Confrontations John Koslovsky Michiel Schuijer Full Chapter PDF

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Music Performance Encounters Collaborations and Confrontations John Koslovsky Michiel Schuijer Full Chapter PDF

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Music Performance Encounters;

Collaborations and Confrontations

The Oxford Handbook of Music Performance. Development

The Misery Of International Law: Confrontations With

Inside Arabic Music: Arabic Maqam Performance and

Feminist Methodologies: Experiments, Collaborations And

Music, the Moving Image and Ireland, 1897–2017 John

Epsilon 1. Primo corso di analisi matematica Michiel

1 st International Congress and Exhibition on

Traditions and Encounters 6th Edition, (Ebook PDF)

Why do most musical performers and musical researchers continue to inhabit

John Koslovsky is a professor of music history, theory, and analysis at KU Leuven

Michiel Schuijer is a musicologist and music theorist, and currently head of

The Routledge Research in Music series is home to cutting-edge, upper-level

Music, Place, and Identity in Italian Urban Soundscapes circa 1550-1860

Perspectives on Contemporary Music Theory

Shaping Sound and Society

Contemporary Musical Virtuosities

Music and Identity in Twenty-First-Century Monasticism

Music Performance Encounters

For more information about this series, please visit: https://www.routledge.com/

Edited by John Koslovsky

ISBN: 978-1-032-28216-9 (hbk)

List of Examples and Tables vii

Introduction: “Who Are You?”: On Performers,

Critical Interlude 115

1 “Che hanno contrapunto”: Counterpoint Training and

2 The Italian Imitative and Interdisciplinary Musical Ethos

3 Echos of Cor Alto and Cor Basse:

Critical Interlude 281

4 Analysing and Playing Chopin’s Nocturne op. 27, no. 1:

5 Resonant Openings: Collaborating on Crumb’s Nocturnes 106

Critical Interlude 3127

6 The Absent Teacher Approach 133

7 Preparing Music Students for a Public Recital: Applying

Critical Interlude 4179

8 Knowing the World through Music 183

9 Performing Jennifer Walshe’s SELF-CARE205

6.30 T ranscription of the phrases from 3ʹ02ʺ to 3ʹ07ʺ of Ercüment

Juliano Abramovay is a Brazilian music researcher, educator, and guitar player

Percussion. Fermie has collaborated with international artists like Branford

Josué Meléndez Peláez (cornetto and recorder) studied music at institutions in

Today, research into musical performance seems like a self-evident undertaking.

multi-authored volumes in musical performance studies have made similar use of

Michiel Schuijer and John Koslovsky

On Performers and Scholars (Michiel Schuijer)

unyielding orientation on the Viennese classical repertoire.9 In its conservatism, the

when it comes to performance. Curiously, however, their study became the

a result of their longtime involvement with questions concerning notated music,

On Masters and Pupils (John Koslovsky)

Better avoid the word “master” altogether, one might think.

As mentioned above, the contributions of Zevenbergen/van der Zwart and of

7 Anonymous (1843, 201).

Catherine Motuz and Josué Meléndez Peláez

...Che hanno/non hanno contrapunto

Example 1.3 Diego Ortiz, Trattado de Glosas (1553).

Counterpoint as Oral Practice

and extension of Jesse Anne Owens’s ground-breaking study of composing without

The improviser is actively engaged, responding on the spot, and coming up

Phi: What is the meane to sing upon a playne song.

The role of practical contrapuntal training as foundational to composition is con-

Title: Chambers's Journal of Popular Literature, Science, and

Release date: December 31, 2023 [eBook #72564]

List of Examples and Tables vii

Critical Interlude 115

Critical Interlude 281

5 Resonant Openings: Collaborating on Crumb’s Nocturnes 106

Critical Interlude 3127

6 The Absent Teacher Approach 133

7 Preparing Music Students for a Public Recital: Applying

Critical Interlude 4179

8 Knowing the World through Music 183

9 Performing Jennifer Walshe’s SELF-CARE205

6.30 T ranscription of the phrases from 3ʹ02ʺ to 3ʹ07ʺ of Ercüment