Performances of the same piece can differ from one another in innumerable ways and for many different reasons. The aim of the current study is t o analyze the timing and dynamic patterns of a large sample of performances in order to explore the musical reasons for both the occurrence of such patterns and the differences in their location and characteristics. The investigation focuses on twenty-nine performances of Chopin's Mazurka Op. 24 No. 2, which features clear four-bar phrases and correspondingly consistent sectional units, but which also has characteristics such as a steady crotchet accompaniment that remain constant throughout. This results in a potential tension between "through-performed'' and sectionalized features. In this study we examine the performances accordingly, investigating the relationship between the work's structural and thematic characteristics on the one hand and the timing and dynamic characteristics of performances on the other. Following this, we narrow our investigation of these and other features by undertaking a comparative analysis of three recordings by the same performer, Artur Rubinstein. A toolkit of methods is employed, including an approach that has been little used for this purpose: Self-organizing Maps. This method enables the systematic analysis and comparison of different performances by identifying recurrent expressive patterns and their location within the respective performances. The results show that, in general, the structure of the performed music emerges from and is defined by the performance patterns. Particular patterns occur in a range of contexts, and this may reflect the structural and/or thematic status of the locations in question. Whereas the performance patterns at section ends seem t o be most closely related to the large-scale structural context, however, those within some sections apparently arise from typical features of the mazurka genre. Performances by the same performer over a 27-year span are characterized by striking similarities as well as differences on a global level in terms of the patterns themselves as well as the use thereof.
This chapter begins by investigating perspectives on practice and creativity in the scholarly literature and in both practical and pedagogical writing, and it argues that to date little attention has been paid to creativity in relation to individual practice. To redress this, the chapter then explores the creative processes that underlie the practising of classical musicians, focusing on the findings of a research project that allowed participants to identify aspects that they considered important to the creative development of their performances. Creative processes to do with moment-by-moment practice strategies are discussed, along with those resulting in the creative development of interpretations and a sense of ownership in music-making. This discussion leads to a series of insights concerning musicians’ creative ways of working, how technical and expressive elements can be interrelated and integrated, the nonlinear nature of the creative processes in question, and what practice itself entails. The chapter ends by encouraging new ways of thinking about practice and by suggesting some approaches which both teachers and individual student musicians might find effective.
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