Interpretive Difficulty and Emergent Structure in Contemporary Music

This arti cle explores the notion of inter pre tive dif fi culty in con tem po rary music, treating it as a struc tural, tan gi ble aspect of anal y sis. Interpretive dif fi culty com prises any chal lenge a per former may encounter-physical, cognitive, emotional, specific to a musical passage, or generalized across a reper-toire or per for mance idiom. Five pro fes sional per form ers who spe cial ize in con tem po rary music are inter-viewed about their expe ri ences learn ing and performing spe cific works -Crimson (Rebecca Saunders, 2005), Taurangi (Gillian Whitehead, 1999), Mani.AiKq (Pierluigi Billone, 2012), Sept papillons (Kaija Saariaho, 2000), and La Nativit du Seigneur (Olivier Messiaen, 1935)-focus ing on how inter pre tive dif fi culty and musi cal struc ture inter sect in their prac tice. These inter views illu mi nate a rela tion ship between inter-pretive difficulty and musical structure that manifests in several domains: accuracy, interpretive latitude, nar ra tive, and con trol. While dif fi culty is uniquely deter mined by any musi cian's phys i cal, cog ni tive, envi-ron men tal, or cul tural con text, using these domains as a the o ret i cal frame work establishes rela tion ships among works, per form ers, and idi oms that might oth er wise appear to have lit tle in com mon-a par tic u-larly appeal ing pros pect for recently com posed rep er toire. In sub scrib ing to Nicholas Cook's (2013) rechar-acterization of the score as a "script" that is interpreted, supplemented, and molded in per for mance, this research encour ages the treat ment of per form ers' con tri bu tions as a fun da men tal object of anal y sis.