Expressiveness in Music Performance: Empirical Approaches across Styles and Cultures

Abstract

in Performance: Empirical Approaches Across Styles and Cultures, Edited by Dorottya Fabian, Renee Timmers, and Emery Schubert. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2014, 416 pp. ISBN 978-0-19-965964-7. £55.Dedicated to three of the founders of research on musical expression-Alf Gabrielsson, Bruno Repp, and John Rink-this book consists of 22 essays by 31 authors, both established and as yet lesser-known experts in their fields. The editors can all be described as empirical musicologists. Dorottya Fabian, wellknown for her research on performance practice, and Emery Schubert, who has published widely on music and emotion, are currently members of the School of the Arts and Media at the University of New South Wales in Australia; Renee Timmers is responsible for the Music Mind Machine research center in the Department at the University of Sheffield (United Kingdom). In addition to the two chapters of which they are coauthors, the editors contribute an Introduction and an Afterthought. Part 1, Reception and Aesthetics of Western Classical Performance, concerns the expressive performance of music; Part 2, Expressiveness Across Styles, the ways in which performance is perceived by audiences as expressive; and Part 3, Models and Quantifications of Expressive Performance of Western-Classical Music, the methods whereby expressiveness and its perception are measurable. Finally, five authors not otherwise represented, all key contributors to the field, were invited to read the manuscript and reflect on the implications of the research discussed in each chapter and its findings for music studies, cognitive psychology, ethnomusicology, music performance research, and education, respectively; their short essays form Part 4, Prospectives, with which the main part of the book concludes.Expressiveness is a slippery concept; it is therefore worth noting the definitions and delineations of expressiveness that authors were asked to use. The term1. refers to the effect of auditory parameters of music performance . . . covering acoustic psychoacoustic, and/or musical factors2. refers to the variation of auditory parameters away from a prototypical performance, but within stylistic constraints...3. is used in the intransitive sense of the verb...Expressiveness is not deviation relative to a musical score. [. . . It] is not the same as emotion. [. . . It] is dependent on historical and cultural context. (p. xxvii)The book is designed for a wide readership and has two aims: to provide a comprehensive overview of recent and current research on the topic of expressiveness in music performance, and to promote dialogue between researchers from different disciplinary backgrounds with interests in the music of different cultures and in different genres.The starting point for Mine Dog antan-Dack's Chapter 1 is Seashore's (1938) definition of in performance as deviation, and its implications for empirical research, which has typically focused on those aspects of performance that are quantifiable and verifiable, such as timing. Historically, expressiveness has been conceptualized, on the one hand, in relation to the performer's interpretation of the score, and, on the other, as inherent in the music itself; both views are, however, determined by cultural context. Dog antan-Dack therefore considers the extent to which music performance can ever be deemed universally expressive, suggesting that emotion-affective involvement-and evaluative judgment are the two factors underlying the perception of expressiveness, and arguing that scientific enquiry should in future be balanced with phenomenological research.Elena Alessandri illustrates Dog antan-Dack's points neatly in Chapter 2, reporting a survey of references to expression and related terms in 839 Gramophone reviews (1923-2010)-representing their authors' human experience of listening to performance- of recordings of Beethoven piano sonatas. …