From Sketches to First Performance: The Influence of First Performers on a Musical Work.
Marjaana Virtanen, Academy of Finland and University of Turku, Musicology
Composers have throughout the history of western art music interacted closely with the musicians performing their compositions. Composers have also been known to revise unfinished compositions after negotiating with the future performers. However, the impact of such composer-performer interaction on the musical work has seldom been explored. The creation process of a work – the composition process and the rehearsals preceding the first performance – is private, even hidden from scholars and audiences.
In this paper I explore composer-performer collaboration throughout the creation process of a commissioned composition, Completorium by the contemporary Finnish composer Jyrki Linjama. The focus is on the interactive situations in the various phases of the process, from the composition phase and the initial sketches to the rehearsals leading up to the first performance.
Completorium was composed for the Stavanger Nordic Church Music Symposium and first performed on 18 September 2008. The performers included the countertenor Øystein Elle, the flautist Pauliina Fred (alto recorder and flauto traverso), the harpsichordist Anna Hämäläinen, the soprano Kaija Nuoranne, and the viola da gamba player Mikko Perkola. In an interview preceding the first performance, the countertenor described the curious role of performers giving the first performance (MD 2, 14:24-15:09):
[--] you rule yourself be the first reference of this piece, and that’s again this responsibility of trying to give the music what the composer wanted, but still not losing yourself in it, because you should have your own fingerprint on the music also. [--] A gift for the first performers is that you can add yourself in the composition.
In other words, the first performers try to convey the music and the composer’s intentions, but they simultaneously participate in constructing the musical work. The first performers also have a significant impact on how the music is perceived: for the audience, the novel musical work is what they hear the first performers play.
Studying composer-performer interaction
The study applies methods of qualitative analysis such as observation and interview, commonly used in ethnography. The focus is on a phenomenon – a specific case of composer-performer interaction – which requires observation of the events in the field (see Baszanger & Dodier 2004, 10-11). Observing the creation processes of Completorium included making field notes and recording the interactive situations. Audiovisual recordings hold an important place in the study: the interactive situations in rehearsal are ephemeral in nature, and their analysis on the basis of mere field notes and memory might weaken the reliability of the study. Another key element consists of interviews with the participants. The sketches and printed score for Completorium constitute a third element in the research material. The approach is thus multimaterial in nature – and the analysis is in fact challenged by the fact that the various different materials do not always support one another (on the problem of triangulation, see Silverman 2001, 233-234). The use of a wide range of types of research material, however, allows me to approach the case from a range of different perspectives.
The performer’s influence on the new work is explored by investigating what modes of composer-performer interaction can be identified. The first question to be explored concerns which musical parameters of the composition-in-progress the performers can influence, and how. Second, I will explore how the composer-performer dichotomy is both maintained and obscured during the composition and rehearsal processes. The first question relates to the received hierarchies of musical parameters in the western art music tradition (Meyer 1989, 14-15): the “primary parameters” (e.g. pitch, rhythm), determined by the composer, are conventionally seen as more essential for the identity of the musical work than the secondary parameters (e.g. tempo, dynamics, sonority), which are more typically and obviously influenced by the performers. Investigating the interactive situations during rehearsal, and the initial sketches for the emergent composition, reveals the potentially significant impact of the performers on the compositional solutions. The hypothesis here is therefore that the performers’ influence on the musical work goes beyond the treatment of the secondary parameters.
Exploring the manifestations of the conventional composer-performer dichotomy – the second research question – uncovers the extent to which the roles of the composer and the performer are fixed or flexible. Philosophers, historians and scholars studying western art music performance practice (e.g. Goehr 1992) have previously shed insightful light on the fine line between composing and performing, but studying the everyday rehearsal situations can also further challenge our conventional understanding of this dichotomy. My analyses of the performers’ creativity and of their role as “interpreters” are realized by closely examining the events in the field of practice.
Third, I will ask how the relation between composers, musical works and performances might appear when the composing and the rehearsal processes are taken more fully into consideration. Previous theories on the relations between works and performances (e.g. Goodman 1976) have seldom relied upon empirical research material.
Previous research
Previously, studies on rehearsal processes have been carried out utilizing ethnographic research material. Jane Davidson and James Good (2002) have explored the social interaction among members of a string quartet using research material such as rehearsal recordings; but they do not discuss what the musicians’ potential impact on the rehearsed works might be (e.g. Mozart’s String Quartet K156). My study aims at an approach that addresses the impact of the two-way interaction between works and performances. Another recent study applying ethnographic research material is that by Eric Clarke, Nicholas Cook, Bryn Harrison and Philip Thomas (2005), who explore the ways in which a performer rehearses a commissioned composition (Harrison’s être-temps). The study is the outcome of collaboration between two analysts (Clarke and Cook), a pianist (Thomas), and a contemporary composer (Harrison). My doctoral dissertation (2007) also investigated rehearsal processes in the field of practice, examining the rehearsals and public performances of Einojuhani Rautavaara’s piano concerti. In this article I will further develop the idea of studying composer-performer collaboration by examining not only the rehearsals, but also the composition phase of Linjama’s Completorium.
This study also relates to the debate about “authorship” in music (see Burke 1992; Mäkelä 2005; Riikonen, Tiainen & Virtanen, eds. 2005). In art music research, this subject has been a topic of particular interest since the 1990s, when the identification within the art music research tradition of the concept of “authorship” exclusively with composers came under severe criticism. Discussion arose concerning the dichotomy in the research culture between creative and performative art (see Mäkelä 1988 a and 1988b). The next step has been to study and re-interpret these interrelationships.
There has been lively debate among musicologists on the relations between composers, works and performers. Several studies have explored the historical processes through which composing and performing have come to be seen as strictly separate activities, revealing how the seemingly “natural” composer-work-performer relationship of today has emerged (see, for example, Davies 2001, Goehr 1992, Mäkelä 1988 a and 1988 b, Mäkelä 1989). The music philosopher and historian Lydia Goehr (1992, 1998, 2000) dates this separation at around the year 1800, when a “paradigm shift” occurred within western art music simultaneously with the emergence of a regulative concept of a musical “work.” By exploring the forms that the composer-performer interaction assumes in practice, however, my study approaches this question from a different direction than, say, the discussions within philosophy of music (e.g., Goehr 1992, Goodman 1976, Levinson 1990, 63-88 and 215-266).
The composing process
Jyrki Linjama (b. 1962) studied composition at the Sibelius Academy under Einojuhani Rautavaara and Paavo Heininen. He also studied outside Finland, at the Hochschule der Künste in Berlin with Witold Szalonek (1991-2). Currently, he is working full-time as a composer, but he has also taught at the University of Turku, the Sibelius Academy, and the University of Helsinki.
Linjama’s list of works includes three violin concertos (Linjama is a violinist himself), orchestral, chamber ensemble, vocal and choral compositions, and works for solo instruments. In 2010 he completed work on a church opera, Die Geburt des Täufers. In recent years, he has composed liturgical music, in which he combines cantus firmus melodies with post-serialist textures. He sees a gap between the service music of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland and modern concert music (see Uusipaikka 2006); his Vesper (2002-3), for example, is a modernist composition influenced by the twentieth-century continental liturgical music tradition, and by works such as Olivier Messiaen’s organ mass or masses by Paul Hindemith and Erik Bergman.
Completorium, whose title is the Latin name for Compline, the final church service of the day, also represents liturgical music. Linjama had already previously collaborated with several of the performers in the Completorium project. The soprano Kaija Nuoranne had extensive experience with Linjama’s compositions: Completorium was her fourth premiere performance of his music (MD 6, 00:10-01:15). Furthermore, Anna Hämäläinen had performed Linjama’s Metamorphoses for solo harpsichord while on tour with the Candela ensemble, which consists of herself and the flautist Pauliina Fred.
During the composing phase – mainly during 2008 – Linjama met individually with all the musicians, except for Elle, who lives in Norway, to go through the sketches for the parts; similarly, Elle was sent the sketches for the countertenor part. The musicians thus had the opportunity to provide various kinds of input on Completorium already in the composing phase: in particular, on the primary and secondary parameters, instrumentation, playing technique, transposing, the positioning of the lyrics in relation to the melody, and notation.
The question of instrumentation particularly applied to Pauliina Fred’s part, which was originally planned for the alto recorder. When Fred met with Linjama to play through the initial sketch, however, she suggested that only some of the ten movements should be played on the alto recorder, while the others should be played on the flauto traverso. Not only would this introduce greater variety, but the change would help overcome the problem of the voice of the alto recorder becoming stuffy if the instrument is played continuously for a longer period of time. Fred and Linjama, therefore, played the woodwind part through together – Linjama has also studied the recorder – to decide which movements should be played on which instrument. The final decision reflected the recognition that the tone material and range in some of the movements was better suited for the traverso than for the recorder. [1] (MD 4, 01:48-03:18; MD 7, 5:27-6:26.)
Also, the playing techniques and resulting effects were discussed by Linjama and the musicians. Linjama’s experience in composing for the viola da gamba was limited, and he consulted with Perkola on how to achieve the desired effects with the instrument. In measure 13 of the eighth movement Canticum Simoensis, where the word “verbum” appears in the parts of the two singers, Linjama wanted the gamba part to imitate the buzzing sound of the extended “r” (Figure 1, Completorium, page 46). Perkola tried out a certain kind of use of the bow, the ricochet technique, in which the bow bounces on the strings producing a buzzing tone color. The effect was subsequently incorporated into the printed score (MD 5, 6:01-8:30).
Figure 1, Completorium, page 46.
The questions that Linjama negotiated with the singers mainly concerned transposition issues, tone color in different parts of the range, and the positioning of the lyrics in relation to the melody. The soprano Kaija Nuoranne sang through the sketches of her part for Linjama in spring 2008. Linjama ended up writing three different transpositions of the ninth movement (Pater noster for solo soprano) starting on e, g and b-flat, in order for Nuoranne to choose the one that she preferred. She chose the middle one, starting on g, which Linjama then used in the final score. Nuoranne and Linjama also discussed the positioning of the lyrics in relation to the melody, and in some cases agreed to transfer individual syllables from one note to another. (MD 6, 06:30-07:02, 10:05-11:00.)
The notation was also discussed. For instance, in the gamba part for the eighth movement, Canticum Simoensis, measure 28, Linjama had placed glissandos from c to g , but Perkola pointed out that it was difficult, if not impossible, to aim at a precise tone (g) with that playing technique. Linjama, therefore, abandoned the exact pitch. (MD 4, 10:18-11:02.) Such modifications of the score match a general tendency in the finalizing phase of the composition of Completorium, when Linjama lightened his rather heavy textures and cut out entire sections (MD 1, 53:10-58:10). Finally, in May 2008, he submitted a completed score to the Finnish Music Information Center, distributed prints of the corrected parts to the musicians, and waited with anticipation for the forthcoming rehearsal process in August.
Musicological models in which the score is transmitted from the composer through the performers to the listener were already seriously challenged by Clarke, Cook, Harrison and Thomas (2005, 63). The analysis of the composing process for Completorium suggests that the score might very well be seen as a script (Cook 2003, 206) which steers the choreographies and social relations between the musicians, and such a view highlights the two-way interaction between the performers and the score. Within the context of my study, this script relates not only to the relationships between the musicians, but also to the interactions between the performers and the composer. Whether the musical work is understood as a score, performance or script, it is clear that in the case of Completorium, the performers were already able to exercise significant influence during the composing phase.
The rehearsals
The rehearsals for Completorium were organized at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki on 26-29 August 2008. The rehearsing was intensive, because this was to be the only opportunity for the musicians to rehearse as an ensemble before the premiere. The next time they gathered was only a couple of days prior to the Stavanger performance. When interviewed, Linjama described how he wanted his role to be in the rehearsals (MD 4, 19:34-20:18):
I find appealing the baroquish idea that the composer is a part of the professional community of his field, the community of players and singers, so that he is a professional and a craftsman [--]. I try to be all ears and say useful things in order for the performance to be successful [--]. I try not to let my own egotism or greed for power or anything like that confuse and blur things.
Linjama did in fact often appear as part of the ensemble and even played together with the musicians. This has to do with the strong presence of Linjama’s own musicianship in Completorium’s creation process: in addition to professional violin training, he has also studied the harpsichord and the recorder and has, furthermore, sung for six years in several choirs.
Many of the aspects of Completorium which were negotiated in rehearsal were the same ones that had already been discussed during the composing process: for instance, the question of transposition was revisited during the rehearsals. The soprano Kaija Nuoranne eventually chose to sing the ninth movement from b-flat, although during the composing phase she had chosen to sing it from g; the official score thus shows the “wrong” key. After singing together with the ensemble, however, Nuoranne felt that the new key seemed more appropriate and also favorable for her voice (MD 6, 10:05-11:00).
In addition to transposition issues, other questions, such as tone color, tempo and pronunciation, were also discussed for the singers. Now that the entire group was rehearsing together for the first time, the treatment of many musical parameters needed to be re-evaluated; Linjama had met with most of the performers separately, but the musicians had not worked together previously on Completorium. Elle mentioned that, for example, intonation and the use of vibrato had to be modified after rehearsing with the group, since his vibrato had to be congruent with the soprano’s (MD 2, 28:08-30:06).
In the following paragraphs, one excerpt from the rehearsals is discussed in detail, in order to shed light on the nature of rehearsal interaction between the composer and the ensemble, the role adopted by the composer in rehearsal, and the musical parameters which were negotiated. Some of the movements of Completorium raised challenges and necessitated negotiation, for example the Invocation (Figure 2, Completorium, third movement, page 9). The tempo of this movement is fast, with the time signature 5/8, and its character is restless and anxious.
Figure 2, Completorium, third movement, page 9
The countertenor Elle found it very challenging to follow the accompanying harpsichord part, as a result of which Perkola – who was not supposed to play at all in this movement – began tapping the rhythm with his hand on the side of the gamba. During the discussion reproduced below, Linjama was standing beside the harpsichordist, and every once in a while stopped to comment on the playing and the singing of the musicians (Video 10: 4:15-6:42):
Linjama: ((the ensemble plays mm. 1-62. Mikko Perkola taps the rhythm))
((to Hämäläinen)) Did you have a wrong note here?Hämäläinen: Yes, I’m sure I did, and the rhythm also has to be… ((Hämäläinen plays the chord in measure 49, after which Linjama plays it again, correcting d to c#)) Hämäläinen: I see, lower Linjama: c#, yes Linjama: ((to Elle)) Can you start with the “Cum:” ((plays the starting note with the harpsichord and sings the word simultaneously)), just sing, this sign means always, this double dot indicates it must be long, so that “m” is long, cumm… in-vo-ca… ((sings)) and so Elle: Yeah, ok Linjama: And the b? Elle: Yeah ((sings mm. 9-13)), there? Linjama: Pauliina, play even more broadly and placidly your…, so that its character would be different Fred: All right Linjama: From the beginning
In the interview, when Linjama was asked how far he felt he had tried to influence the interpretation of Completorium in rehearsal, he emphasized his wish to respect the musicians and that he did not want to become an authority figure “breathing down their necks” (MD 8, 42:23-43:05). His aim was, rather, to assume “the role of a servant and an encourager, so that my presence would make it easier for the musicians to do their work” (MD 4, 19:00-19:18). In the passage discussed above, but also in the rehearsals in general, he nonetheless seems to have exercised a significant influence on the shaping of the interpretation, and he verbally gave a number of performance instructions that were not written down in the score (e.g., asking the flautist to play more “broadly” and “placidly”). He also paid attention to the markings in the score and their realization.
If Linjama had an impact on the performative interpretation of Completorium – which in itself challenges the composer/performer or creator/interpreter dichotomies – the musicians in rehearsal, for their part, also influenced the compositional solutions. For instance, Perkola’s tapping on his instrument was originally intended simply to address challenges experienced by the ensemble during rehearsal, but both Linjama and the musicians felt that it suited the movement well, and it was, consequently, included in the Stavanger performance. Furthermore, on the basis of the rehearsal process, Linjama began to consider including the tapping action in the Invocation movement as well, and making other changes to the score. Modifying the score this late in the creation process – during the rehearsals preceding the premiere – was possible since the score has not yet actually been published. One print is located at the Finnish Music Information centre, where further copies can be made upon request.
The score of Completorium thus presents itself as a script which relates to the composer-performer interaction in the process of composing and rehearsal – and more changes are on the way. After the premiere in September 2008, three further performances in October 2009, and a planned forthcoming radio performance, Linjama will then implement the final adjustments to the score (MD 8, 33:00-35:35). The process of creation for Completorium has thus been a lengthy one, from a three-year-long process of composing and rehearsing to the first performances and the fine tuning of the score, which is yet to be carried out.
The composer-performer dichotomy was both strengthened and fractured during the rehearsals: strengthened by the composer’s at times authorial role and the performers’ aim to realize the composer’s intentions, and fractured by the composer often appearing as a member of the ensemble as well as by the performers’ opportunity to influence the score and the composer’s intentions, even this late in the creation process.
Conclusion
From this examination of the relations between composer and performers, it is clear that Completorium incorporates elements which are susceptible to composer-performer interaction. Already during the composing process, there was reciprocal interaction that had an impact on the formation of the resulting score. When the score was encountered by the same participants in rehearsal, the performers’ direct interaction with the composer even modified some of the composer’s compositional and interpretive choices.
The performers had the opportunity to influence both the primary and secondary parameters during the creation process for Completorium. The composer did, however, exercise a more marked control over the treatment of the primary parameters, and the performers’ influence was most obvious in issues such as playing technique and tone color. Nonetheless, the distinctions between their roles were not always clear-cut: the performers gave impetus to several compositional solutions, and Linjama – despite his differentiated role as the composer – played together with the ensemble and had an impact on interpretive issues as well, thus challenging conventional role distributions. Although the differentiation between the roles of composer and performer, within the boundaries set by the institutions of art music culture, is relatively clear, in practice there is a significant degree of flexibility.
The phenomenon of authorship in music may, thus, be seen as comprising the creative input of not just one, but multiple agents involved in the creative process. Completorium can, of course, be attributed to Linjama, and the intention here is not to underestimate his authorship. The purpose has rather been to demonstrate that the performer’s task is very different from the ideal of “performance transparency” as defined in terms of the Werktreue aesthetic, which sees the performer’s role as a “window” between the work and the audience, letting the autonomous, self-sufficient work shine through (see Goehr 1998, 232 and Goehr 1992, 142). In my study, neither the composer nor the performers spoke of the performers as mere mediators. Indeed, composers and performers seldom conceive of musical performance as the transparent reproduction of a text.
In addition to composer-performer interaction, my study also interrogates the concept of the musical work in relation to the roles of the composer and the performers. It emerges that in this case, at least, the performers exercised a permanent impact on the work, and thus became, in a sense, in-composed into the composition. The events studied in the field did not support a work-concept that posits the existence of a musical work as a Platonic entity and performances as ephemeral approximations. Moreover, although Completorium will probably still undergo more changes, the premiere is likely to hold its position as an important manifestation of the work, and have a significant impact on future performances.
Notes
- Linjama’s flexibility with instrumentation is also linked with the rather practical character of the baroque aesthetics which is manifested in Completorium.
References
1. Video recordings
Video 1. Rehearsals of Completorium, Sibelius Academy, Helsinki, 26 August 2008, 01:07:11
Video 2. -“- 26 August 2008, 01:01:45
Video 3. -“- 26 August 2008, 00:12:36
Video 4. -“- 27 August 2008, 00:47:27
Video 5. -“- 27 August 2008, 01:00:32
Video 6. -“- 27 August 2008, 00:44:03
Video 7. -“- 28 August 2008, 00:47:06
Video 8. -“- 28 August 2008, 00:38:44
Video 9. -“- 28 August 2008, 00:13:18
Video 10. -“- 28 August 2008, 00:32:11
Video 11. -“- 28 August 2008, 00:22:53
Video 12. -“- 29 August 2008, 00:54:54
Video 13. -“- 29 August 2008, 01:00:12
Video 14. -“- 29 August 2008, 00:38:51
Video 15. Premiere of Completorium, Stavanger, 18 September 2008, 00:46:54
Video 16. Performance of Completorium, Porvoo, 1 October 2009, 00:43:36
2. Interviews
MD 1: Interview of Jyrki Linjama, 27 March 2008, Helsinki 01:12:13
MD 2: Interview of Øystein Elle, 27 August 2008, Helsinki, 00:37:59
MD 3: Interview of Anna Hämäläinen, 27 August 2008, Helsinki, 00:21:07
MD 4: Interview of Jyrki Linjama, 28 August 2008, Helsinki, 00:39:25
MD 5: Interview of Mikko Perkola, 28 August 2008, Helsinki, 00:22:48
MD 6: Interview of Kaija Nuoranne, 29 August 2008, Helsinki, 00:29:58
MD 7: Interview of Pauliina Fred, 29 August 2008, Helsinki, 00:26:10
MD 8: Interview of Jyrki Linjama, 1 October 2008, Helsinki, 00:49:02
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