Philosophy of the Performing Arts

appreciating performable works in performance 65
of W will be present in both performances.^18 So, in this respect at least, it
doesn’t matter, for our ability to appreciate the work performed, which
kind of instrumentation has been used in generating the performance to
which we listen. But, again, this doesn’t show that the musical work W is
to be identified with the sonic properties that these performances share,
or with the class of performances having just these sonic properties. It
may matter for the appreciation of W what instrumentation was intended,
and it may also matter in what musico-historical context the prescriptions
with which the performance complies were laid down. Appreciation of W ,
then, may require that we hear the audible properties common to the two
performances as played on the prescribed instruments and as composed in
a particular musico-historical context. But both performances will serve
equally well as sources of the relevant sound qualities for the apprecia-
tion of the piece, if it is given that they are identical in their timbral sonic
properties. And again, given that we have defined a work-instance in terms
of the experiential role it plays in appreciation, both performances will
count as work-instances of W , unless there is some other salient difference
between them.^19
This brings out the importance of distinguishing three questions concern-
ing a performable work: (1) what properties does the work prescribe for
its correct performances? (2) what properties are required in the work’s
work-instances, and (3) what properties of the work bear upon its proper
appreciation?^20 Consider, first (1). Suppose we favor an instrumentalist
construal of musical works. According to the instrumentalist, a composer
prescribes the generation of a particular timbral sound sequence on par-
ticular instruments. If, as just suggested, something qualifies as a perform-
ance of a musical work W only if the performers attempt to follow the
composer’s prescriptions for W , a performance of W must be on the pre-
scribed instruments. A sonically indistinguishable rendering of W ’s pre-
scribed sound sequence on a PTS will not count as a performance of W.
But, turning to (2), the defining condition for a work-instance of a work
is epistemic: a work-instance is something that is fully qualified to play a
particular experiential role in the appreciation of a work. The performance
of W ’s prescribed sound sequence on a PTS, while not a performance of W ,
will, ceteris paribus , count as a work-instance of W. If we imagine another
work W * whose prescriptions are identical to those for W save that the pre-
scribed instrumental means is a PTS that simulates the timbral qualities of
the instruments prescribed in W , then, while W and W * will share no per-
formances, they will share work-instances. Turning finally to (3), while, as
we have just seen, two distinct works can have work-instances in common,
the properties that bear on their proper appreciation may differ for either
instrumentalist or contextualist reasons.