GESTURE AND AGENCY: INCLUSIVE INTERPREATION TOOLS FOR HORNISTS by JUSTIN MICHAEL STANLEY A LECTURE-DOCUMENT Presented to the School of Music and Dance of the University of Oregon in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Musical Arts November 2021 “Gesture and Agency: Inclusive Interpretation Tools for Hornists,” a lecture- document prepared by Justin Michael Stanley in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Doctor of Musical Arts degree in the School of Music and Dance. This lecture-document has been approved and accepted by: Lydia Van Dreel, Chair of the Examining Committee November 22, 2021 Committee in Charge: Lydia Van Dreel, Chair Michael Grose Dr. Stephen Rodgers Accepted by: Leslie Straka, D.M.A. Director of Graduate Studies, School of Music and Dance ii © 2021 Justin Michael Stanley iii LECTURE-DOCUMENT ABSTRACT Justin Michael Stanley Doctor of Musical Arts School of Music and Dance November 2021 Title: Gesture and Agency: Inclusive Interpretation Tools for Hornists Performers are adept at creating lines and shape in the music we play. This comes from many hours of practicing, listening, playing with others, lessons, sectionals, and master classes. It also comes from studying musical form and music history. I argue that performance interpretation is analysis, and that interpretation can be enhanced by tools being created by scholars of performance and analysis. The pedagogy of musicality in the horn studio is improved through the shared agency (a term borrowed from theorist and performer Daphne Leong) of musical disciplines, including theory and musicology. To be inclusive of repertoires, I advocate for a greater use of analysis in music making by using concepts that are widely understandable, including gesture and agency. Many horn pedagogues already utilize these concepts, and their work is analyzed in Chapter 2. I propose that methodically adding theories of gesture and agency to horn pedagogy will provide a powerful tool to hornists – and all performers or pre-written works – to better perceive shape and structure in the music they prepare. Gesture and agency are methodically utilized in the analysis of Alice Gomez’s La Calavera and Robert Schumann’s Adagio and Allegro, Opus 70. iv CURRICULUM VITAE NAME OF AUTHOR: Justin Michael Stanley DATE OF BIRTH: June 30, 1986 GRADUATE AND UNDERGRADUATE SCHOOLS ATTENDED: University of Oregon New England Conservatory New York University DEGREES AWARDED: Doctor of Musical Arts in Horn Performance, 2021, University of Oregon Master of Music in Horn Performance, 2010, New England Conservatory Bachelor of Music in Horn Performance, 2008, New York University AREAS OF SPECIAL INTEREST: Music-in-Education Chamber Music Performance Horn Pedagogy Orchestral Performance v ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I wish to express sincere appreciation to Professors Van Dreel, Grose, and Rodgers for their support and assistance in the preparation of this lecture- document. Special thanks to Dr. Rodgers for introducing me to the field of Performance and Analysis, which has contributed greatly to my research, teaching, and performance. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter Page I. SHARED AGENTS ............................................................................................ 1 Structure Through Gesture .......................................................................... 7 Application on the Horn ............................................................................ 12 II. HORN PEDAGOGUES ENGAGED IN ANALYSIS ....................................... 18 Eugene Bozza – En Forêt ........................................................................... 18 Gustav Mahler - 5th Symphony Corno Obligato Solo ............................... 22 Franz Strauss – Nocturno .......................................................................... 26 Analysis Through Gesture and Agency ..................................................... 32 II. APPLICATION ................................................................................................ 35 Alice Gomez - La Calavera ......................................................................... 35 Robert Schumann – Adagio et Allegro, Op. 70 ......................................... 46 Conclusions ................................................................................................. 65 APPENDIX A. SCORES .......................................................................................................... 69 REFERENCES CITED ............................................................................................. 96 vii LIST OF FIGURES Figure Page 1. Pitch contour graph as seen in Leong, Performing Knowledge .............. 6 2. Rehearsal 4 to four measures after rehearsal 6 as seen in Eugene Bozza, En Forêt pour cor en fa et piano .................................................. 21 3. Mm. 1-8 as seen in Franz Strauss, Nocturno für Horn ..........................28 4. Mm. 9-23 as seen in Franz Strauss, Nocturno für Horn ........................ 29 5. Mm. 24-25 as seen in Franz Strauss, Nocturno für Horn ..................... 30 6. Mm. 1-14 as seen in Alice Gomez, La Calavera ..................................... 40 7. Mm. 15-28 as seen in Alice Gomez, La Calavera .................................... 41 8. Mm. 40-53 as seen in Alice Gomez, La Calavera ................................... 42 9. Mm. 72-102 as seen in Alice Gomez, La Calavera .................................. 43 10. Mm. 1-13 as seen in Robert Schumann, Adagio and Allegro Opus 70 for horn and piano ..................................................................... 49 11. Mm. 14-27 as seen in Robert Schumann, Adagio and Allegro Opus 70 for horn and piano ..................................................................... 52 12. Mm. 28-43 as seen in Robert Schumann, Adagio and Allegro Opus 70 for horn and piano ..................................................................... 53 13. Mm. 61-68 as seen in Robert Schumann, Adagio and Allegro Opus 70 for horn and piano ..................................................................... 57 viii 14. Mm. 69-80 as seen in Robert Schumann, Adagio and Allegro Opus 70 for horn and piano ..................................................................... 58 15. Mm. 84-86 as seen in Robert Schumann, Adagio and Allegro Opus 70 for horn and piano .................................................................... 60 16. Mm. 116-123 as seen in Robert Schumann, Adagio and Allegro Opus 70 for horn and piano ..................................................................... 62 17. Mm. 136-150 as seen in Robert Schumann, Adagio and Allegro Opus 70 for horn and piano ..................................................................... 63 ix I. SHARED AGENTS In 1990, John Rink wrote a scathing review of Wallace Berry’s book, Musical Structure and Performance. Berry had proposed that all analytical findings have implications for performance, but Rink remained “unconvinced that there is much in this book for either analytically experienced or inexperienced performers.”1 Rink offered one reason for this issue that fits well into the difficult topic of teaching musicality: …good performers rely at least in part on what I call “informed intuition” (or “acquired intuition”), which accrues with a broad range of experience and which may exploit theoretical and analytical knowledge at the “submerged level of consciousness” referred to by Berry. This term acknowledges that musicality is probably not innate … but arises through imitation. One plays musically when what has been learned through imitation is made one’s own…2 Performers are adept at creating lines and shape in the music we play. This comes from many hours of practicing, listening, playing with others, lessons, sectionals, and master classes. It also comes from studying musical form and music history. Rink argued that theorists or structuralists could learn something from performers, going as far to theorize that Heinrich Schenker’s hierarchical theory comes directly from his skill as a pianist and the ‘informed intuition’ about musical shape and hierarchy inherent in performance. I agree with Rink that music theory has historically been more concerned with the score than performance or listening. However, performers make thoughtful 1 John Rink, “Musical Structure and Performance by Wallace Berry (reviews),” Music Analysis 9, no. 3 (1990): 328. 2 Ibid., 324. 1 choices about how to shape music. I argue that performance interpretation is analysis, and that interpretation can be enhanced by tools being created by scholars of performance and analysis. The pedagogy of musicality in the horn studio is improved through the shared agency (a term borrowed from theorist and performer Daphne Leong) of musical disciplines, including theory and musicology.3 Unfortunately, fundamental concepts shared between theory and performance are not easily noticed. The language that theorists use is often different from that of performers. Compounding that issue, much theory, like a large portion of the horn canon, is rooted in Western Art Music, which alienates performers who are interested in performing other repertoire. To be more inclusive of repertoires, I advocate for a greater use of analysis in music making by using concepts that are widely understandable, including gesture, agency, and story. Many scholars have been utilizing these concepts in the field of performance and analysis (not to mention the concepts’ use in other fields like philosophy, language, semiotics, cognition, theater, and literature). Concepts shared between theory, performance, criticism, and even extra-musical disciplines are improved through collaboration. As I will demonstrate later in this chapter and in Chapter 2, many horn pedagogues already speak about these concepts, but without much shared agency. I propose that methodically adding theories of gesture and agency to Rink’s ‘informed intuition’ (imitation) will provide a powerful tool to hornists – and all performers or pre-written works – to better perceive shape and structure in the music they prepare. 3 Daphne Leong, Performing Knowledge: Twentieth-century Music in Analysis and Performance (New York: Oxford University Press, 2019), 30. 2 Jeffrey Swinkin proposes that music theories are “largely heuristic rather than factual,” and that analysis - and even the score itself - can be viewed as “a way of crystallizing the expressive potentials of performance.”4 Put another way, analysis is metaphor for interpretation. This point is central to the pedagogy of interpretation detailed throughout this document. Beyond noting what notes are in a chord, analysis is metaphorical and subjective. Humans naturally assign meaning to gestures; gestures are interpreted in the moment and meaning is assigned in ways both personal and cultural. Ole Kühl notes that gestural meanings are embodied and that they “are an important part of our national and cultural identities.”5 A gestural analysis of music that assigns metaphorical meaning to musical communication is inherently inclusive because of its roots in cognition and societal signification. The fictional and metaphorical aspect of analysis is prevalent in agential scholarship. For instance, Robert Hatten developed virtual agency (the virtual meaning not concrete or real), and Steve Larson compares typical behaviors of music to colloquial understandings of physical forces. Before moving on, I acknowledge interpretive analysis is not a new field. The most popular analytical tool for performance shared with theory is a Schenkerian sketch. Schenkerian analysis is impractical for use in horn pedagogy for two main reasons. The first is that Shenker created his theory of prolongation based on a small body of music. While that music (largely German music of the late-18th and 19th centuries) may currently occupy a significant part of concert culture, it does not reflect 4 Jeffrey Swinkin, Performative Analysis: Reimagining Music Theory for Performance (Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press, 2016), 41. 5 Ole Kühl, “The Semiotic Gesture” in New Perspectives on Music and Gesture, ed. Anthony Gritten and Elaine King (Milton: Taylor and Francis, 2016), 129. 3 the diversity of horn repertoire currently available. Whether Schenkerian sketches are of value outside of Classical and Romantic European music is debatable, but crowning a specific music is also emblematic of his racism, which could further alienate performers. My second rationale for not supporting a Schenkerian approach to performance interpretation is because prolongational analysis has been used much more as a tool for theory than for performance. If the gap between the way theorists and performers talk is large, the use of Schenker in scholarship may be emblematic of it. Schenkerian analysis and Formenlehre, the study of musical form, are deeply concerned with musical structure. What are the functional aspects of harmony and voice leading? These functional tools apply well to WAM, and there may be some effective use outside that repertoire. However, scholars have taken to task the idea that musical meaning must be inherently structural. For Rink, a performer’s main source of analysis, like the critic or audience, is hearing.6 Theory focuses on musical structure, but “performers attend primarily to musical ‘shape’,” which is like structure but “more dynamic through its sensitivity to momentum, climax, and ebb and flow… a set of gestures unfolding in time.” Rink calls this “performance analysis.” Not only are performers adept at interpreting shape through acquired intuition, “the treatment of parameters [in performance analysis] resistant to systematization is considerably less awkward in a procedure itself lacking in system… Thus we avoid the separation of Schenkerian analytical techniques and Schenkerian aesthetics.”7 6 Rink, “Musical Structure,” 323. 7 Ibid., 328. 4 Daphne Leong recently has been addressing theory’s structure habit. Her 2019 book focuses on musical structure in two ways. The first refers to the definition commonly accepted in music analysis, which is concerned with the score. The second “is much broader… it is the sense in which structure is created in the process of making music – by composers, performers, listeners and analysts… It can be active, fluid, and dynamic.”8 In this way, Leong is acknowledging agency among all the participants in creating musical experience. She authored the book with performers to create another agential idea, that of “shared agents.” By involving performers, theorists, critics, and composers in conversation, these people can share their agency to build culture around music.9 Chapters of Leong’s book interrogate aspects of developing that second definition of structure. In understanding Ravel’s Concerto pour la main gauche, she considers issues of embodiment. What is made difficult or easy with the use of one hand? Instead of a Schenkerian graph, she includes a pitch-contour graph, which shows both the shape of a line and the peculiarities of playing it with one hand (Figure 1). Similarly, the choices musicians make in pedaling during the cadenza can “determine harmonies, lines and, and gestures heard.”10 For Leong, every performance can be an interpretation of the score, “where to interpret is to explicate,” “to construe from a certain point of view,” “or to realize via 8 Leong, Performing Knowledge, 14. 9 Ibid., 30. 10 Ibid., 50. 5 pitch contour: Strepitoso .1 .. -J 57.2 - --,~ -1,1 .. -- --I I '., t_l I gliss. / A Mm? & black-key poatatonio I (ORCHESTRA) I . I ' -- - -- ..... r C.) --- i.: f pitch-class: A __________ r_ (D) A __ D y7 ___________________ l D: Figure 1: Pitch-contour graph as seen in Leong, Performing Knowledge, 44. artistic performance or presentation (to sound, show, embody).”11 Analyzing and interpreting, two sides of the same coin, are about what stories we tell and what stories we hear, depending on our point of view. Daniel Barolsky more clearly asks analysts to leave the score behind: “Different performed interpretations can similarly trace diverse paths through the musical work, thereby shaping the listener’s conception of the musical form.”12 Great performers make careful choices about musical shape, even if they are not thinking of shape in relation to theory. The agency of performers to affect listeners and to embody the score is well documented. It is of primary importance for this document to consider how horn pedagogues can best help students to explore musical structure in ways that are personal to the students. 11 Ibid., 63 12 Daniel Barolsky, “The Performer as Analyst,” Music Theory Online 13, no. 1 (March 2007). 6 Structure Through Gesture In the rest of this document, I develop and demonstrate a methodological way for students to use their inherent understanding of gesture to make informed decisions on how to communicate meaning, or Leong’s broad sense of “structure,” to an audience. First, I will further explore current scholarship around gesture. Writing on musical gesture or agential forces carry different meanings depending on the background of the author; the terms have meanings and background in disparate fields including theatre, harmonic and structural musical analysis, embodiment, historical framing, semiotics, and cognition. Of primary note for this document are Seth Monahan’s nested conception of agency, Steve Larson’s musical forces, Robert Hatten’s theory of virtual agency, Edward Klorman’s agential approach to classical formenlehre. Seth Monahan, inspired by the mid-20th century work of Edward Cone and later work of Fred Maus, developed his theory of “nested” agential classes.13 Monahan is concerned with fictional personas or agential classes, from the “individuated element” (gesture) to the personification of a music work, the analyst’s fictionalized idea of the composer, and finally the analyst imagining the other three classes. Monahan writes that musical objects or gestures can be volitional and purposive in a way that indicates psychological states. Monahan’s theory provides a framework for the method of gestural analysis for interpretation in this document. The individuated element can be “any element that could be understood as a kind of dramatic ‘character’,” including “individual themes, 13 Seth Monahan, “Action and Agency Revisited,” Journal of Music Theory 57, no. 2 (2013): 332. 7 motives, gestures, keys, chords, topics, and even pitch classes.”14 I would also include written changes in dynamics and tempo, rhythms, and grooves. The work persona “is a single unbroken consciousness, unique to a movement and extending through- out its duration.”15 In my understanding, the work persona created phenomenologically in the interpretation of gestural signs occurring, disappearing, changing, and reoccurring. The fictional composer is the analyst conception of the composer. More plainly, listener, theorist and performer all sense the fact that the piece was composed by a person with some form of intent. For instance, we know that Robert Schumann wrote Adagio et Allegro, op. 70. Our image of Schumann’s intent and psychological state while writing the piece is fictional. We will naturally consider the composer as agent, but doing so intentionally is important to orient ourselves in the world and culture of the composer. By placing ourselves in that world, we can better understand gestural meaning. For instance, a complete change of a pitch set from one moment to the next would have a completely different meaning in a 21st-century composition than it would in an 18th- century composition. The last agent is the analyst. In concert, the analyst will be our audience. In preparation for performance, the analyst is the performer. What defines the individuated element (gesture)? What is the power of gesture? For Ole Kühl, “The most stable element in musical semantics is the primary signification from musical phrase to gesture and from musical gesture to emotional content and 14 Ibid., 327. 15 Ibid., 328. 8 social belongingness.”16 He describes the differences between musical signification and linguistic signification: …the musical sign has a low level of specification, while the linguistic sign has a high level of specification. The musical sign is more vague, more general, while the linguistic sign is more precisely defined. This difference does not make the musical phrase any less a sign. Instead, it should be seen as a qualitative distinction between two semiotic systems, telling us something about what it means to be human. The apparent vagueness of the musical sign does not make it completely empty… The specification is at a lower level, indicating a general direction rather than a specific object.17 Musical gestures are “rich Gestalts” that function crossmodally.18 Our perception extracts shapes from “the surface of the musical stream,” which listeners naturally interpret and begin to weave a narrative. Kuhn suggests that musical expression “originates from layers of pre-verbal consciousness.”19 In early childhood, perception is amodal. Signifiers in artistic expression can function cross-modally, leading to connections with movement, emotion, and sensory systems. In his work on virtual agency, Robert Hatten notes five types of gestures in music: (1) spontaneous gesture, an original mapping of human expression to a “sounding form”; (2) thematic gesture, which we perceive like a motive; (3) dialogical gesture, which responds to another gesture; (4) rhetorical gesture, which breaks a flow; and (5) tropological gesture, which blends concepts of two other gestures (Hatten 2018, 16 Kühl, “The Semiotic Gesture,” 123. 17 Ibid., 128. 18 Ibid., 123. 19 Ibid. 124. 9 27).20 Hatten’s theory ties gesture to agency, character, and identity through musical form and experience. One way he does this is by adopting a version of Steve Larson’s theory of musical forces. Larson purposefully used studies that included music from around the world – not just Western Art Music – to develop his theory describing how music behaves. He developed a theory of three musical forces: gravity, magnetism, and inertia. Gravity is defined as the tendency for a pitch heard above a stable pitch to descend. Magnetism suggests that an unstable note will move to the closest stable tone. Inertia suggests that, once a musical pattern is set, it will continue.21 Hatten finds agency in any force or energy that defies those forces. Therefore, gestures that defy gravity, magnetism, and inertia are agential.22 There is room for dispute here. If, as Kühl argues, humans are always hearing elements of music as gestures with signification, why would it only be unexpected gestures that become agential? As one example, many of us experience modern popular music emotionally and kinesthetically, even though the form and rhythm rarely subvert expectations. Noting uniqueness is obviously very important: when the musical flow suddenly upsets our expectations, it follows that our perception would try to explain that opposing force in building a work persona. Eric Clarke puts much of the power of gestural communication in the hands of the 20 Robert Hatten, A Theory of Virtual Agency for Western Art Music (Bloomington: Indiana University Press: 2018), 27. 21 Steve Larson, Musical Forces: Motion, Metaphor, and Meaning in Music (Bloomington, Indiana University Press: 2012), 83-96. 22 Hatten, A Theory of Virtual Agency, 49-51. 10 performer, noting that they can “lead (and mislead) the listener in an unlimited number of directions.”23 Another perspective comes from writing on atonal analysis. Buchler writes about gesture in a way that challenges long-held reductive analysis beliefs. He cited Hatten in understanding ornamentation as gestural in atonal music (Buchler 2020, 1).24 He challenges the rule, as described in a 1987 article by Joseph Straus, that ornamentation must be prolongational in a Schenkerian sense. If we understand ornamentation – passing tones, neighbor tones, arpeggiation, and appoggiatura – as gesture, atonal music can be studied in a reductive analysis. Ornamentation often allows the musical flow to, at a local level, go against musical forces. From these conceptions of gesture, several scholars have proposed methods of agential analysis. Hatten’s virtual agency follows gesture into character, identity, and narrative through structure. Hatten’s calls this “virtual agency,” since gestures, themes, and forces do not actually have human agency. Edward Klorman developed “multiple agency” using Monahan’s nested agential classes. Klorman focuses on chamber music of the Classical period. Through a historical account of the way chamber musicians in that time read music together, and the purpose for which music was written, he understands that individual instrumental parts could have moments of agency: a metric modulation 23 Eric Clarke, “Expression in Performance: Generativity, Perception and Semiosis” in The Practice of Performance: Studies in Musical Interpretation, ed. By John Rink (Cambridge: Cambrige University Press, 1995), 51. 24 Michael Buchler, “Ornamentation as Gesture in Atonal Music,” Music Theory Spectrum 42, no. 1 (2020): 1. 11 started by a violist could be an action by the violist to draw attention from the other instruments (Klorman 2016, 122).25 While not originally meant for late-Romantic repertoire, I use multiple agency as a tool for analyzing Schumann’s Adagio et Allegro in Chapter 3 of this document. I find multiple agency is helpful for pieces with more than one active musical line (a static Alberti bass is an example of an inactive line), putting gestures in dialogue with one another and allowing gestural metaphors to interact. Application on the Horn Several hornists have investigated ways we can make musical choices, and many have connections to agency and gesture. As is true for many instrumental performers, information in horn playing is passed down in a mentor and apprentice environment (lessons, presentations, master classes). There is much that goes on inside studios that is unpublished, and, in my experience, there is significant consideration of gestural elements in the teaching of musicality. Here I will consider the work of five published pedagogues. Philip Farkas, one of the most influential hornists of the 20th century, hears phrases as having a “point of maximum tension in a ‘suspension’ note just before the resolution of a phrase.” Hornists can emphasize this pivot point to broadcast the music’s “yearning quality and... desire to ‘resolve.” This condition is central to WAM, but may be of limited to no use in other types of music. For Farkas, the agency of performers is in our ability hear different pivot points from one another, allowing “the musician’s 25 Edward Klorman, Mozart’s Music of Friends: Social Interplay in the Chamber Works (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: 2016), 122. 12 personality to become involved in the music.”26 Contemporary pedagogue and performer Eli Epstein writes that “our role as a musician is to breathe life into the composer’s story with our own story,” acknowledging agency in the role of composer and performer.27 Writing in the 1990s, David Kaslow advocates for adhering closely to the score, but for performers “notations are like shoes: once we put them on we may walk wherever we wish, within the confines of historical practices.”28 French performer Daniel Bourgue also acknowledges the importance of the interpreter along with the composer. Style is a form of personal expression: “If there is a traditional style for each era, baroque, classical, romantic, there is also a traditional style for each composer, and consequently for each interpreter.”29 These hornists all believe that individual interpretation is key to musical communication. Verne Reynolds takes this one step further. A student of the horn (and, by extension, any performer) must be able to answer “why?” in choosing an interpretation: mature student can be asked to make and defend musical choices.”30 Here, I come back to gestural analysis. These pedagogues consider gesture, but often without either defining gesture or approaching it methodologically. We could 26 Philip Farkas, The Art of Musicianship: A Treatise on the Skills, Knowledge, and Sensitivity Needed by the Mature Musician to Perform in an Artistic and Professional Manner (Bloomington: Musical Publications, 1976), 9. 27 Eli Epstein, Horn Playing from the Inside Out: A Method for All Brass Musicians (Boston: Eli Epstein Productions, 2016), 73. 28 David Kaslow, Living Dangerously with the Horn: Thoughts on Life and Art (Bloomington: Birdalone Books, 1996), 20. 29 Daniel Bourgue, Conversations About the Horn, trans. By Nancy Jordan Fako (Paris: International Music Diffusion, 1996), 71. 30 Verne Reynolds, The Horn Handbook (Portland, OR: Amadeus Press, 1997), 49. 13 attribute this to the personal and cultural aspects of gesture. For instance, Farkas’ pivot point is related to a specific culture of music making. Pedagogues can teach this cultural gesture to students, but a gesture that evokes an emotion or agential force (a scene, a personality, a cultural archetype), is less teachable. Students may have to come to decisions on how to interpret those gestures on their own. However, I posit that a separate reason for leaving gesture relatively undefined is because of a lack of shared agency between the horn studio and what is happening in other disciplines; not just theory and musicology, but linguistics, semiotics, theatre, and cognition. Writing from another era in American horn playing, Farkas believes that the word “music” means something else to a musicologist, theorist, historian, or composer. The performer “thinks in an entirely different manner than do those in the other phases of the musical art.”31 This document proves this statement is fundamentally flawed. Bourgue and Epstein both approach the work persona through theatrical means, one way of addressing the personal nature of gestures. In Horn Playing from the Inside Out, Epstein provides a step-by-step guide to teach someone to achieve this goal by applying adjectives to the music, connecting those adjectives to life experience, creating a character, and then placing that character in a story. Inspired by Constantine Stanislavski, he asks performers to embody the feeling of a piece, either through words or drawing.32 Bourgue believes that we can approach a new piece the same way an actor might approach a script: “Is it a monologue, a work in verse, in prose? Is it a tragedy, a 31 Farkas, The Art of Musicianship, 4. 32 Epstein, Horn Playing, 74. 14 comedy?”33 These ideas are closely related to theories of fictional agency like Hatten’s and Klorman’s in that they allow the performer to conceive of agents within the music either as individual characters or by deciding on the mood of the piece. Daphne Leong asks similar questions in a chapter about hearing story in structure: “What story do performers tell? How is the scene set? Do we give guidance through the thick textures? Is the sound to be beautiful and lyrical, or unpleasant and ugly?”34 Published Writing on horn pedagogy often has to do with teaching fundamentals. These are important aspects of the imitation that Rink discusses, as they are imperative to developing a sound concept and the technical abilities to perform the music that needs to be interpreted. Reynolds notes something that may be universally understood by hornists: we have all know hornists with incredible technical mastery who play unmusically, and we have all known hornists with deep musical ideas that cannot be well expressed due to a lack of physical control.35 As this document is concerned not just with performance interpretation, but more specifically with performance interpretation using the horn, the way we interact with the instrument must be considered. For horn players to effectively analyze music, they acknowledge the relationship of that music not just to themselves but to the sounding instrument. De Souza writes that that “musical sound and text are supplemented by performing bodies,” and the “performing bodies themselves are supplemented by instruments” (De Souza 2013, 2).36 33 Bourgue, Conversations, 67. 34 Leong, Performing Knowledge, 134. 35 Reynolds, The Horn Handbook, 49. 36 Jonathan De Souza, Music at Hand: Instruments, Bodies, and Cognition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), 2. 15 He argues there is a dual connection from agent to instrument and instrument to agent. To better understand this connection, De Souza and Leong both turned to ecological psychology, which “argues for direct coupling between action and perception, between organism and environment.”37 Objects in the environment, like our horns or scores from which we play, afford possibilities, “both good and bad, relative to an agent.”38 If a hornist does not have the technical skills necessary to play a piece of music, they will not recognize the affordances of the instrument. It is only through accumulation of skill that affordances reveal themselves. In Reynolds example, the musician with extreme skill and little musicality has noticed affordances but has not acted upon them in a way that communicates musical gesture. Put another way, the student might not have built the skill to realize the affordances of a musical score. In understanding the affordances of the instrument, hornists develop Gestalts around the gestures in the sounding of the instrument. For instance, we tend to associate pitch on a “verticality schema” in western culture (high and low). However, Sundanese musicians associate pitch with size (small and large).39 Based on the number of hours practicing, hornists may associate pitch with speed based on the way we breath air into the horn in different ranges. For dynamics, Eli Epstein imagines milk, from skim to heavy cream.40 Our relationship with the horn adds another variable to how we perceive gestures in music. 37 Ibid., 12. 38 Leong, Performing Knowledge, 66. 39 De Souza, Music at Hand, 7-8. 40 Epstein, Horn Playing, 41. 16 Gestures, full works, composers (or imagined composers), analysts and performers all have agency in the interpretation of music. Interpretation in the diverse repertoire performed by horn players is enriched by understanding gesture as the basic element musical communication. In Chapter 2, I will explore interpretive analyses of three horn pedagogues (Daniel Bourgue, Eli Epstien, and Verne Reynolds) and I will use that data in Chapter 3, along with theories of agency and embodiment, to analyze selections from Alice Gomez’s La Calavera (2000) and Robert Schumann’s Adagio and Allegro (1849). Approaching pedagogy from a shared-agency perspective will provide an effective way to teach interpretation in the studio. 17 II. HORN PEDAGOGUES ENGAGED IN ANALYSIS To interpret music, we consider variables like the fictional composer, style, culture, form, personal metaphors, and embodied use of the instrument. This chapter explores the elements that performers can consider in making interpretive choices in music through the work of other pedagogues and by incorporating the theories explored in Chapter 1. Because of the complexity of musical performance, there is not a simple method to fully investigate every interpretive possibility. I argue for a collaborative approach to interpretation, drawing musical metaphors from a variety of perspectives. Using gesture, nested agential personas, and musical forces as starting points, we can interpret music from the point of view of composers, theorists, historians, listeners, and critics. Furthermore, this approach allows us to think in terms of movement or character, and to engage with other disciplines like theatre, physics, biology, kinesiology, language, and cognition to the table. I will investigate the writing of three horn pedagogues (Eli Epstein, Daniel Bourgue, and Verne Reynolds) to determine what metaphors are common for interpretation and how they apply to gesture, agency, and musical forces. Each pedagogue has written substantially about the technical aspects of horn performance. Here, however, I draw specifically from their musical approach to concrete examples in the horn repertoire. Eugene Bozza - En Forêt Daniel Bourgue is a well-known horn player and teacher from France who has lectured on horn all around the world. Bourgue believes that simple musical-visual metaphors can be helpful for young students who may find “the interpretation of an 18 entire page of music” to be taxing.41 He understands interpretation as having two parts: (1) following the musical notation closely and (2) expressing the piece’s structure, “its form and its mood.”42 He did not write explicitly what he would find to be taxing for young students, but we might extrapolate that they lack knowledge about various genres and forms. They may still have trouble expressing all the directions in a score. They may have trouble situating a piece in the culture in which it was created. In the following excerpt from a compilation of Bourgue’s presentations, he considers Eugene Bozza’s En Forêt in terms of active scenes for young players. "In the Forest"… the title alone elicits an image in our minds. We can imagine the following scene. At the beginning, we are on horseback galloping through the forest as part of a hunting party. Two horn players exchange signals with their trompes. One is right in front of us, the other replies in the distance. Then we go deeper into the forest and arrive at a monastery where we hear monks chanting. Little by little the noise of the hunt grows fainter and we can appreciate the tranquility. But suddenly, the entire pack of hunters emerges from the forest with great commotion. At last the hunters withdraw and we savor the charm of the countryside. Then, in conclusion, the music returns to the initial galloping scene.43 To create a sequence of visual scenes with agents – hunters, monks, horses – Bourgue must assume that the music contains agential gestures. However, to maintain simplicity for students, he does not specify what in the music can be thought to evoke said agents. By considering the composer’s will in the title, the history of the horn, and presumably gestures in the music, he envisions a hunt. At rehearsal 4, the horn begins a theme that echoes with stopped horn. For Bourgue, this is the exchange of signals 41 Bourgue, Conversations, 67. 42 Ibid., 64. 43 Ibid., 68. 19 between hunting horn players.44 A chant-like section with stacked parallel 5ths in the piano and horn begins at rehearsal 6 and lasts until rehearsal 8, with some added harmonic complexity incorporated in the five bars before rehearsal 8. Bourgue envisions this as the monastery scene, with the transition signifying tranquility. At rehearsal 8, the hunters emerge from the forest. In the music, this is signified with a new hunting-horn theme introduced in the piano and followed by the horn. Between rehearsals 10 and 11, the music begins to change, aided with ritard markings and a change in theme and texture. At 12, the “initial galloping scene” returns in a recapitulation of the starting theme (this does not account for an out-of-time section and coda starting at rehearsal 15). Asking students to interpret music through scenes will encourage them to look for gestures in music that evoke the scenes, just as I did. However, the simplicity of the scenes may result in students ignoring several aspects of the piece. For instance, written for “Cor chromatique,” in the mid-20th century, the piece takes full advantage of the instrument’s valves. In the introductory section, the horn flips quickly between different tonicizations. Chromaticism is everywhere: the piece starts in F, but the horn’s entrance (in F) falls on top of a D7 chord in the piano45. Could a student use the chromaticism of the opening gesture to paint a more evocative picture? Between rehearsals 4 and 6, Bourgue envisions two riders signaling each other, one close and one distant (Figure 2). To me, this does not account for the piano part. Its simplicity suggests something mystical or dreamy. Before rehearsal 5, the piano begins 44 A full score for Bozza’s En Forêt is provided in the appendix. 45 All pitches referenced in this document will be in concert pitch. 20 >-- ':_"II. -p oco - ~ <' - r,, / 1 J,lt1n un PP .. , '. - ~ - pp ---- -------- f ... ... , ... ,r,t'/i I '"' •'" r., r., I <' r., lo♦ll•liiu t-- y . ppp 2 > "' - ~ [§] fL->' - > J I\ / t / ~ / ~ / ~ bi_ 17', f.l .. >> ~ : { I\ l~J lbJ IIJ lbJ 1: > > - --~. h.~ 17', tJ > 3 rit. . Vivo rit, "' I;'\ + + pp Ji 17', :> rit.. A.nd&nt.e eepre••ivo . ...___,.,, ---- [ill Andante e■pre■■ivo J= &U ff : 8 . -•.•. - - ..•• -- - ••• ----•. •. - . ---- .• ---. - -- • -------- - . - • • . - -------------•. - • - ••• - l . L.tt,IU 71 4 ---== <9----- --- - --- - ----- - ----- ----------- - --- --: i.on 11 , l u r:•...':---,.._ f =-- -::::::, ====-- 3 Allegro v i vo IB] AJieg-ro vivo J=t :12 /environ) ......_ . 72 _.._ A - ~ Ir · .i f - ,, ..,~. : -- Ir- > " > I\ . ' tr ., f I -;; - ~ ~ ::: .. t --.. - tr- . ◄ I\ ~· " ... - 1:..l..J • > D i "11 p ~ - ~ t,Y- - .. .. - r it., A :::- ., - - 1' - f -= 1......1....J - rit.. fl -wt v • ... . ~ , ~? v .. ti ~ ~ 79" ... I, L 1, . . . ... ... " .... -:i. -; t ~~ qf l ~ ~i -:i. ~ Tempo M oin• vif A ( mtllH ,oa rd. .) poco r it. A,L, tl,tU 73 8 rtt.. ~ ' ---- ::,,.---..,. -,.._-._ P lu• lent. " ~ .. =;/ . ~4 - -,J-' ---... '- -- p r~p rtSI, ,, ~ Plus l ent { tJ 1,~ : .. V' "' .. : P , I - I I - 1F· bf fhf bf- rnf--= .;___.,, -- f ~ f--=-=-=--=--- A.lletrro moderat.o l•■lavu 1..iurd.) ro moderato J:t >> > ......... 74 7 >--- ... 1-le1n .ton f ff P aco piu \•ivo . . _[fl Poco ptu vtvo rlt. . > f 75 76 Gustav Mahler – Symphony No. 5, Scherzo, rehearsals 10-1185 85 Gustav Mahler., Symphony No. 5 (Leipzig: C.F. Peters, 1904). 77 78 Alice Gomez - La Calavera for Unaccompanied Horn86 86 Alice Gomez, La Calavera for Unaccompanied Horn (Austin: Creative Music Source, 2000). 79 La Calavera • 2 1J J'-=o .: J%=tY.-/H,J.,., ,if §IJ• so J - Il @¥ff@• ff > 80 81 Robert Schumann – Adagio and Allegro, Opus 7087 87 Robert Schumann, Adagio and Allegro Opus 70 for Horn and Piano (New York: International Music Company, 1952). The asterisk on this score states that the piece was originally written with orchestral accompaniment. This is an error; the piece was written for horn (or cello) and piano. 82 .. ,.., 83 " ,. ., 84 fia:;<;h 11nd f.-u.rig. (i\U(',i;:-l'o oon brio.) ' ·' .. f 85 6 ,, J_ ., 86 .. " ,. ., 87 88 9 ,,. "' 89 10 ... .. ,,,. t./ .. • ----- > .... 90 JJ , ... 91 12 • 92 178 '" __. .:.__'._:=:J• 93 I( ... "' 94 95 REFERENCES CITED Agawu, Kofi. “Tonality as a colonizing force in African music.” May 29, 2014. CIRMMT Distinguished Lectures in the Science and Technology of Music. 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