Musical performance and its problems

Performance as a special kind of artistic activity does not exist in all arts. In painting,
for example, it is inseparable from creativity: to create a picture is what it means to “fulfill” it. Once, in music, the creation and performance of a piece were not separated from each other: in ancient times, a musician sang or played what he himself composed and improvised.
But the creation of a painter or sculptor is embodied in the material that preserves it for centuries, and the material of music (sound) lives while it sounds. Continue reading →