THE MAGIC OF PERFORMANCE - PART II

On the Elusive Nature of
the Nationalist Spirit in Music,
by ANDREW SCHARTMANN

I

Last week's article on the challenge faced by 21st-century performing artists when confronted with the potential staleness of a finite repertoire yielded the following conclusion: 'one must first evaluate the social context in which a piece was composed and negotiate the differences between nineteenth-century and contemporary habit responses; only then can an artist nuance his performance to recreate the sense of novelty and surprise that once gave life to present-day relics.'

This week, I'd like to nuance that conclusion by identifying some of the limitations on historical performance practice as a means of bringing something new and recherché to the concert setting. More specifically, I'd like to examine how some ideas, no matter how intellectually rich, are impossible to express in the musical domain...

NINETEENTH-CENTURY MUSIC

ROBERT SCHUMANN

FRYDERYCK CHOPIN

FRANZ LISZT

POLITICS

FOLK MUSIC