Philosophy of the Performing Arts

challenges to the classical paradigm in music 91
created after 1750, and non-instrumentalism for most works created prior
to 1750. Stephen Davies espouses a related kind of pluralism for classical
musical works while also remaining within the classical paradigm. Classical
works for performance, he argues, can be more or less “thick” or “thin” in their
constitutive properties (S. Davies 2001, 20). An eighteenth-century work such
as Mozart’s Divertimento in D, K. 136, is thin in that its prescriptions leave
considerable freedom to the performer in determining the acoustic properties
of a performance. Thinness is often a consequence of the fact that instrumenta-
tion is left open. A work such as Bach’s Goldberg Variations , for example, can be
played on different keyboard instruments, so specific timbral properties are
not prescribed. In the case of a comparatively thick work like Stravinsky’s The
Rite of Spring , on the other hand, “a great many of the properties heard in a per-
formance are crucial to its identity, and must be reproduced in a fully faithful
rendition of the work” (S. Davies 2001, 20).
Neither Levinson nor Davies calls into question the applicability of the
classical paradigm itself to the Western musical tradition as a whole. A more
radical challenge, however, is posed by Lydia Goehr’s (2007) analysis of
eighteenth-century practices of musical performance. Goehr argues that
what she terms “the work-concept” – the concept of what we have termed
the performable musical work –developed only at the end of the eighteenth
century. Prior to that date, it played no part in regulating musical prac-
tice, even though we treat eighteenth-century compositions as performable
works. She identifies various aspects of eighteenth-century musical practice
that were grounded in a key difference in the function of musical perform-
ance at that time (Goehr 2007, ch. 7). Since the early nineteenth century,
performances of classical music have usually taken place in a “concert”
environment whose primary purpose is to present the music performed.
Eighteenth-century performances, however, usually served an extra-musi-
cal function, most obviously by accompanying religious services. As a result,
the character and duration of a performance was determined largely by
the needs of the extra-musical event which it supplemented. Performances
were frequently interrupted by other elements in the religious services
that they accompanied, for example. The primary concern of performers,
therefore, was to make the music fit the extra-musical events. Because of
the variable nature of these events, those responsible for the performance
did not think of themselves as composing or performing something that
might be repeated as a whole in other contexts. Rather, in adapting to the
needs of a particular performance situation, musicians made liberal use of
passages from other performances, either their own earlier performances
or those of other performers. It was such elements or themes, capable of
being incorporated into distinct performances as needed, rather than the
contents of performances as a whole, that were thought of as repeatable.