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Publication list arranged by project

 

Analysing motif in performance

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Expressive gesture and style in Schubert song performance

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Style, performance, and meaning in Chopin's Mazurkas

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The recording business and performance, 1925-32

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Abstracts for project publications

ANALYSING MOTIF IN PERFORMANCE

Neta Spiro, Nicolas Gold and John Rink. ‘The form of performance: analyzing pattern distribution in select recordings of Chopin’s Mazurka Op. 24 No. 2’, Musicae Scientiae (forthcoming 2010)

The investigation described here focuses on twenty-nine performances of Chopin’s Mazurka Op. 24 No. 2, which features clear four-bar phrases and correspondingly consistent sectional units, but which also has characteristics such as a steady crotchet accompaniment that remain constant throughout. This results in a potential tension between 'through-performed' and sectionalized features. In this study we examine the performances accordingly, investigating the relationship between the work’s structural and thematic characteristics on the one hand and the timing and dynamic characteristics of performances of that work on the other. Following this, we narrow our investigation of these and other features by undertaking a comparative analysis of three recordings by the same performer, Artur Rubinstein. A toolkit of methods is employed, including an approach that has been little used for this purpose, i.e. Self-Organising Maps. This method enables the systematic analysis and comparison of different performances by identifying recurrent expressive patterns and their location within the respective performances. The results show that, in general, the structure of the music as performed emerges from and is defined by the performance patterns. Particular patterns occur in a range of contexts, and this may reflect the structural and/or thematic status of the locations in question. Whereas the performance patterns at section ends seem to be most closely related to the large-scale structural context, however, those within some sections apparently arise from typical features of the mazurka genre. Performances by the same performer over a 27-year span are characterized by striking similarities as well as differences on a global level in terms of the patterns themselves as well as the use thereof.

John Rink, Neta Spiro and Nicolas Gold. ‘Motive, gesture and the analysis of performance’, in New Perspectives on Music and Gesture, ed. Anthony Gritten and Elaine King (Aldershot: Ashgate, forthcoming 2010)

‘Musical gestures are musical acts, and our perception and understanding of gestures involves understanding the physicality involved in their production.’ Arnie Cox’s provocative statement serves as the point of departure for this essay. One of its main premises is that music’s gestural properties are neither captured by nor fully encoded within musical notation, but instead require the agency of performance to achieve their full realisation. The performance in question need not be live: recordings too have distinctly gestural properties even if the visual dimension and experiential character of live music-making are lacking. This essay also reverses a common tendency to assign the status of musical gestures to conventional musical motives. In contrast, we regard the gestures created in and through performance as potentially having motivic functions within the performed music. Such ‘motives’ are defined not in terms of pitch, harmony or rhythm, however, but as expressive patterns in timing, dynamics, articulation, timbre and/or other performative parameters which maintain their identity upon literal or varied repetition. The essential point has to do with the nature and function of the given motives. By way of example, the discussion focuses on the motivic properties of select performances of Chopin’s Mazurka Op. 24 No. 2, including certain dance-related gestures characteristic of the mazurka genre as a whole.

Neta Spiro, Nicolas Gold and John Rink. ‘Plus ça change: analyzing performances of Chopin’s Mazurka Op. 24 No. 2’, in Proceedings of 10th International Conference on Music Perception and Cognition, ed. Ken’ichi Miyazaki et al (Sapporo: ICMPC10, 2008), 418-27

Performances of the same piece can differ from one another in innumerable ways and for many different reasons. Such differences are of considerable interest to musicologists and psychologists. The aim of the current study is to analyze the timing and dynamic patterns of numerous performances in order to explore the musical reasons for use as well as differences in use of those patterns. More specifically it investigates the relationship between 1) structural and thematic characteristics of a piece and the timing and dynamic characteristics of performances of that work and 2) the relationship between patterns of timing and those of dynamics. A new methodology is developed and applied which enables the systematic analysis and comparison of different performances by identifying patterns of performance, or performance motives, and their location in performance. The results show that, in general, the structure of a piece emerges from the performance patterns. The relationship between timing and dynamics is not direct and the sources for use of particular patterns seem to be many and varied, including structural and thematic considerations. However, the performance patterns at section ends seem to be most closely related to the surrounding long-term structural characteristics, while those within some sections seem to be closely related to the motivic patterns driven by genre-specific characteristics of the piece.

Neta Spiro, Nicolas Gold and John Rink. ‘In search of motive: identification of repeated patterns in performance and their structural context’, in Proceedings of the Inaugural International Conference on Music Communication Science (ICoMCS), ed. Emery Schubert et al. (Sydney: ARC Research Network in Human Communication Science (HCSNet), 2007), 152-54

Motives are short melodic, rhythmic, and/or harmonic patterns repeated either exactly or in varied form and have long been recognised as important elements of musical structure. Less well-explored is the relationship between motives and their manifestation in performance, and the perception thereof. Expressive motives originating in performance – which we term “performance motives” – are also of considerable interest but have received scant theoretical attention, despite their potential significance in music performance and perception.

In this paper we present a method that combines a simple pattern-matching approach with Formal Concept Analysis to allow the exploration of repeating timing patterns in performance. We present the initial results of applying this method to quaver-timing data from performances of Chopin’s Etude Op. 10, No. 3. The results demonstrate the viability of the method and identify repetitions in timing patterns in several contexts: those occurring with motivic material identifiable in the score, those with the same structural positions, those occurring in areas played very quickly, and those not directly coinciding with any of the above. All of these warrant further exploration. (Click here for full text of this paper.)

Neta Spiro, Nicolas Gold and John Rink. ‘Performance motives: Analysis and comparison of performance timing repetitions using pattern matching and Formal Concept Analysis’, in Proceedings of the International Symposium on Performance Science, ed. Aaron Williamon and Daniela Coimbra (Utrecht: European Association of Conservatoires, 2007), 175-80

A method combining a pattern-matching approach with Formal Concept Analysis is used to explore repeated timing patterns in performance in order to analyse characteristics of performances and differences among them. Initial analysis of timing data from performances of Chopin’s Etude Op. 10, No. 3 suggests that repetitions in timing patterns occur in several contexts: with motivic material identifiable in the score, with the same structural positions, in parts played very quickly, and not directly coinciding with any of the above. The paper explores the relation between these contexts and the roles of such repetitions in different performances of the same piece. (Click here for full text of this paper.)

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EXPRESSIVE GESTURE AND STYLE IN SCHUBERT SONG PERFORMANCE

Leech-Wilkinson, Daniel. 'Performance style in Elena Gerhardt's Schubert song recordings', Musicae Scientiae (forthcoming)

This final study from the CHARM Schubert project aims to examine personal style in one early recorded singer, Elena Gerhardt (1883-1961). The period style of Gerhardt’s generation of Lieder singers presents the problem of changing performance style and its relation to musical meaning with special clarity. The stark differences compared to modern performance on the one hand force us to confront the contingency of musicianship and on the other render performance style far easier to disassemble into its constituent elements. Gerhardt’s Schubert recordings, made right through her career, offer a good environment in which to develop suitable techniques of performance analysis. The article examines her manipulation of timbre, especially in relation to problems of register left over from an abbreviated studenthood, exacerbated by her prioritising emotional communication over technical perfection, and her use of timbral change for text illustration and for formal articulation. Also under the microscope are her ability to vary vibrato and tuning in response to text and form; her use of pitch scoops for text illustration and rhythmic articulation; her characteristic manner of portamento used rarely but when used (for texts with particular associations) used overwhelmingly; and her rubato, especially its interaction with portamento and loudness. All these elements are examined as constituents of her personal style.

Leech-Wilkinson, Daniel. 'Recordings and histories of performance style', in The Cambridge Companion to Recordings, ed. Nicholas Cook, Eric Clarke, Daniel Leech-Wilkinson and John Rink (Cambridge University Press, forthcoming)

Performance style is conceptualised here as a set of habits characteristic of individuals, periods, (once) nationalities, and potentially other kinds of groups. Habits consist of ways in which performers do not perform the score literally but adjust the notated details for expressive effect. An outline is offered of changing performance styles as documented by recordings of western classical music. A mechanism is then proposed by which style changes in unnoticeably small steps which accumulate into massive style changes over many decades. Drawing on theories of natural selection applied to cultural change, the chapter shows how teaching, learning, being examined, hired, reviewed, recorded, and other selective processes, lead some approaches to performance to be inherited and others not. Runaway sexual selection and optimal foraging principles, among other aspects of selection theory, have close correlates in the development of musical performance styles in relation to careers. Recordings are seen to function as one-to-many disseminators that can spread stylistic variants very quickly. On the one hand this can encourage homogenisation, but on the other it engineers rapid change. This in turn may have consequences for our understanding of performance style change before the invention of recording.

Leech-Wilkinson, Daniel. 'Musicology and performance', in Music’s Intellectual History: Founders, Followers and Fads, ed. Zdravko Blazekovic (New York: RILM, forthcoming)

The relationship between performance style change and writings on music is examined through two case studies. Recordings of modernist scores (Boulez and Schoenberg) between 1960 and 2000 show a major shift from a pointillistic to a melodic approach following on behind an identical change in compositional priorities in Boulez especially. Writing about the scores, away from matters of compostional technique towards an interest in effect, in turn follow the changes in performance. In the case of Schubert Lieder singing, writings on the songs follow on behind recordings, from naïve readings of text and music at face values (in both performances and commentaries) towards a search for psychological depth and hidden meaning, first in performance (Fischer-Dieskau most influentially) and later in writings (from Fischer-Dieskau to Lawrence Kramer). This process offers one respect in which recorded performance can be seen to interact with wider changes in music’s cultural context.

Leech-Wilkinson, Daniel. The Changing Sound of Music: Approaches to Studying Recorded Musical Performances (London: CHARM, 2009). [eBook]

This book aims to cover some of the major issues that students need to consider when using recordings to study performance. Chapter 1 examines the relationship between music and performance, chapter 2 that between music and recordings, and between musicology and recordings. Chapter 3 outlines the history of recording technologies and the limitations each technology places on what can be known of performance through recordings. The following three chapters outline histories of style-change in singing, violin playing and piano playing respectively, introducing techniques for studying performances along the way. Chapter 7 proposes a mechanism underlying style change in performance. Chapter 8 models musical performance style as a collection of expressive gestures in sound and offers ways of studying them in great detail. Chapter 9 concludes the book by looking at the interaction of disciplines required for the successful study of the relationship between performance and musical meaning. The text is linked to 54 sound examples, most drawn from the holdings of the King’s Sound Archive and transferred especially for the book, as well as software, data files, charts, tables, figures and plates. It is published online in order to permit students free access.

Leech-Wilkinson, Daniel. 'Sound and meaning in recordings of Schubert's "Die junge Nonne"', Musicae Scientiae 11/2 (2007), 209-236

Musicology’s growing interest in performance brings it closer to musical science through a shared interest in the relationship between musical sounds and emotional states. However, the fact that musical performance styles change over time implies that understandings of musical compositions change too. And this has implications for studies of music perception. While the mechanisms by which musical sounds suggest meaning are likely to be biologically grounded, what musical sounds signify in specific performance contexts today may not always be what they signified in the past, nor what they will signify in the future. Studies of music perception need to take account of performance style change and its potential to inflect conclusions with cultural assumptions. The recorded performance history of Schubert’s ‘Die junge Nonne’ offers examples of significant change in style, as well as a range of radically contrasting views of what the song’s text may mean. By examining details of performances, and interpreting them in the light of work on music perception, it is possible to gain a clearer understanding of how signs of emotional state are deployed in performance by singers. At the same time, in the absence of strong evidence as to how individual performances were understood in the past, we have to recognise that we can only speak with any confidence for our own time.

Leech-Wilkinson, Daniel. 'Expressive gesture in Schubert singing on record', Nordisk Estetisk Tidskrift [Nordic Journal of Aesthetics] 33 (2006), 50-70

Evidence from 100 years of recorded musical performance undermines many of the old certainties about music's identity. Performance style translates into sound manners of emotional communication that change over time, and with changes in performance come changes in musical meaning. A detailed understanding of this process lies beyond musicology and music philosophy as currently practised. Similarly, while music psychology has shown effectively how performance expression is achieved through irregularities in timing, loudness and frequency, it has not yet taken on board the fact that these habits of irregularity change over time, with possibly consequent changes in listener response. Through recordings, therefore, we seem to see a large-scale shift in the way that a perceptual system in the mind is engaged in making sense of incoming data. Functionally the data remains the same B the importance of certain notes continues to be signalled B but the way those functions are signalled changes. Examples from recordings of Schubert songs by Elena Gerhardt, Kathleen Battle, Arleen Auger and Janet Baker are used to explore the components of performance style and the ways in which they draw on sounds from life (including speech) in order to bring meaning to music. The ways in which this modelling of sounds from life changes over time now requires much more focused study.

Leech-Wilkinson, Daniel. 'Portamento and musical meaning', Journal of Musicological Research 25 (2006), 233-61

Portamento was a significant expressive device among performers for at least two hundred years; yet, for the past sixty it has made musicians uncomfortable. More than a change of fashion, this suggests responses formed at a relatively deep psychological level. Drawing on work in developmental psychology, and reading in the light of it performances of art music lullabies, it is suggested that portamento draws on innate emotional responses to human sound, as well as on our earliest memories of secure, loving communication, in order to bring to performances a sense of comfort, sincerity, and deep emotion. The decline of portamento after the First World War and its sudden disappearance after the Second is traced to a new emphasis—influenced by psychoanalysis and reflected in writings on music—on darker meanings in music, which can be understood in the light of the reinterpretation of human motives and behavior forced on a wider public by the Second War. Portamento, because of its association (however unconscious) with naive trust and love, became embarrassingly inappropriate. This hypothesis also sheds light on the deepening of vibrato after the War, new objectivity and authenticity in Bach, the rise of music analysis, and the performances and writings of the avant-garde.

Timmers, Renee. 'Vocal expression in recorded performances of Schubert songs', Musicae Scientiae 11/2 (2007), 237-268

In an exploratory study, the relation between vocal expression and the structure and emotion of music was investigated in performances of three Schubert songs. Measurements were made of variations in tempo, dynamics and pitch from recordings of famous singers. All singers showed highly systematic relationships between these measured variations and emotional and structural characteristics of music. Strongest relationships included relationships with emotional activity and valence. The relationships with emotional activity were consistent over singers and musical pieces, but the relationships with emotional valence depended on musical piece. Clear changes in performing style over the 20th century were observed, including diminishing rubato, an increase followed by a decrease of the use of pitch glides, and a widening and slowing of vibrato. These systematic changes over time only concerned the style of performance and not the strategies to express structural and emotional aspects of music.

Timmers, Renee. 'Communication of (e)motion through performance: two case studies', Orbis Musicae 14 (2007), 116-140. [special issue on performance]

This paper examines the role of the communication of activity in the communication of emotion in music performance. The starting point is the hypothesis that performers are especially well able to communicate levels of activity and that communication of emotions is to a considerable extent based on this communication. Two case studies are reported that confirm that the ability of performers to communicate the activity of an emotional interpretation of a musical passage is stronger than the ability to communicate the valence of an emotional interpretation. In the first case study, the performers expressed discrete categories of emotions, but the two low activity emotions were strongly associated and happiness was not always reliably communicated. In the second case study, the communication of activity was much stronger than the communication of valence. The question is raised whether emotion in music performance exists without perception of activity and whether communication of emotion is sometimes rather communication of motion.

Timmers, Renee. ‘Perception of music performance on historical and modern commercial recordings’, Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 122 (5) (2007), 2872-80

Performing styles as well as recording styles have changed considerably within the 20th century. To what extent do the age of a recording, the unfamiliarity with performing style, and the quality of a reproduction of a recording systematically influence how we perceive performances on record? Four exploratory experiments were run to formulate an answer to this question. Each experiment examined a different aspect of the perception of performance, including judgments of quality, perceived emotion, and dynamics. Fragments from 'Die junge Nonne' sung by famous singers from the start, middle, and second half of the 20th century were presented in a noisy and clean version to musically trained participants. The results show independence of perception of emotional activity from recording date, strong dependence of perceived quality and emotional impact on recording date, and only limited effects of reproduction quality. Standards have clearly changed, which influence judgments of quality and age. Additionally, changes restrict the communication between early recorded performers and modern listeners to some extent as shown by systematically smaller variations in communicated dynamics and emotional valence for older recordings.

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STYLE, PERFORMANCE, AND MEANING IN CHOPIN'S MAZURKAS

Cook, Nicholas. 'The ghost in the machine: towards a musicology of recordings', Musicae Scientiae (forthcoming)

This article introduces the other contributions to this second issue of Musicae Scientiae devoted to the work of the AHRC Research Centre for the HIstory and Analysis of Recorded Music (CHARM), and sets them into the larger context of musicological research into recorded musical performance. There is consideration of musicology's historically odd relationship to performance, including the historically informed performance musuc and what is referred to as the 'page-to-stage' approach of recent music theory: CHARM's analytical projects focussed on aspects overlooked by the score-based approach, on the potential for bottom-up methods, and on the nature of performance style and the extent to which it can be meaningfully analysed by empirical methods. Another strand of CHARM's research investigated the extent to which the commercial practices of the record industry help to shape twentieth-century performance. The author includes brief accounts of his own projects with CHARM so as to provide an overview of the Centre's work as a whole.

Cook, Nicholas. 'Off the record: performance, history, and musical logic', in Music and the Mind: Investigating the Functions and Processes of Music, ed. Irène Deliege (Oxford: Oxford University Press, forthcoming). German translation in Musik.Theorien der Gegenwart, ed. Clemens Gadenstätter and Christian Utz (Saarbrücken: PFAU-Verlag, forthcoming)

Empirical approaches to the study of recorded performance, originally developed by psychologists and subsequently adopted by music theorists, are opening up new areas of historical study. Both psychology and music theory, however, are oriented towards general principles rather historical contingencies; an example is Schenkerian performance pedagogy, which applies insights drawn from the work of Heinrich Schenker (1868-1935) to present-day performance. But today's performance style is quite different from that with which Schenker was familiar. Comparison of Schenker's 1925 article on Schubert's Impromptu Op. 90 No. 3 (which includes prescriptions for performance as well as a structural analysis) with a 1905 piano roll by Eugen d'Albert, a pianist Schenker particularly admired, suggests a 'rhetorical' approach fundamentally opposed to the structurally oriented approaches advocated by Schenkerian pedagogy today. It also evidences a striking disconnect between the modernist theoretical approach set out in Schenker's 1925 article and his decidedly pre-modern sense of how music should go in performance.

Cook, Nicholas. 'Bridging the unbridgeable? Empirical musicology and interdisciplinary performance studies', in New Perspectives on Peformance Studies: Music across the Disciplines, ed. Nicholas Cook and Richard Pettengill (Ann Arbor: Michigan University Press, forthcoming)

At first sight, nothing could be further apart than interdisciplinary performance studies, which emphases the generation of meaning in real time, and the empirical and computational analysis of recorded performances that is occupying an increasingly high profile in musicology: the latter could be criticised for applying the traditional discipline's text-oriented approach to recordings rather than rethinking music as performance. In this chapter I claim that, appropriately applied, empirical methods can elucidate aspects highly pertinent to the performative generation of musical meaning, illustrating my argument by reference to video recordings of Chopin's Mazurka Op. 63 No. 3 by Grigory Sokolov and others. I conclude that the approach of interdisciplinary performance studies helps to clarify what performances mean, while more empirical approaches help to clarify how performances mean what they mean—and that with as complex a phenomenon as performance, we need every interpretive weapon at our disposal.

Cook, Nicholas. 'Objective expression: phrase arching in recordings of Chopin's Mazurkas', in Reactions to the Record: Perspectives on Historical Performance, ed. George Barth and Kumaran Arul (forthcoming). Abridged version: 'Squaring the circle: phrase arching in recordings of Chopin's mazurkas', Musica Humana (forthcoming)

Classical pianists tend to get faster and louder as they play into a musical phrase, and slower and softer as they emerge from it: this phenomenon of phrase arching has been seen by both music theorists and psychologists as central to expressive performance. But has it always been so, or is phrase arching a strictly historical phenomenon? Based on recordings of Chopin's Mazurkas Op. 63, no. 3 and using analytical approaches developed at CHARM, this study indicates that the modern style of phrase arching, with tempo and dynamics strongly coordinated with one another and with composed phrasing, developed only after the Second World War, and attempts to understand it in light of the larger culture within which it developed.

Cook, Nicholas. 'Beyond reproduction: semiotic perspectives on musical performance', Zeitschrift für Semiotik, special issue 'Zeichen jenseits von Bezeichnung. Musiksemiotische Konzepte' (forthcoming)

The traditional musicological conception of performance is as the reproduction of pre-existing texts. This makes no allowance for the extent to which meaning emerges from the very act of performance, and from the interactions between the various participants in performance events. A broadly semiotic approach focuses attention on such issues, and in this article I illustrate such an approach in terms of the communicative function of the mazurka 'script' and the role of performance gesture in conditioning musical meaning. I argue that instead of thinking in terms of the reproduction of works, it is better to borrow Jeff Pressing's term 'referent', and think in terms of performances referencing scores, traditions, and other pre-existing entities. This allows conceptualisation of performances that range from the Werktreue ideology or tribute bands to parody or burlesque. Discourses of the relationship between works and performances are mirrored by those between performances and recordings. Consideration of the latter helps to clarify features shared by both performances and their referents: creativity, collaboration, and semiosis.

Cook, Nicholas. 'Methods for analysing recordings', in The Cambridge Companion to Recorded Music, ed. Nicholas Cook, Eric Clarke, Daniel Leech-Wilkinson and John Rink (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, forthcoming)

Important work on the analysis of recorded music has been carried out using no more than a CD player, score, and pencil. But modern tchnology provides more convenient and sophisticated environments for such research, allowing flexible navigation and a range of visualisations. It also makes it possible to compare large numbers of recordings in order to focus on aspects of style, in contrast to the traditional focus on a few 'representative' examples. This chapter surveys a range of approaches drawn primarily from empirical musicology and MIR (Music Information Retrieval), assessing the strengths and weaknesses of each. It also counteracts some of the arguments that have been put forward againt empirical approaches in general, emphasising the relationship between analysis and perceptual experience, the different purposes for which people study recordings, and the desirability of working as large and varied an analytical toolkit as possible.

Cook, Nicholas. 'Changing the musical object: approaches to performance analysis', in Music's Intellectual History: Founders, Followers and Fads, ed. Zdravko Blazekovic (New York: RILM, forthcoming)

For almost everybody, music means performed music, whether live or recorded. Yet the traditional way of thinking about music—at least in academia—has been as if it were an obscure branch of literature, as if its meaning was all there in the score, just waiting to be reproduced in performance. This speculative chapter outlines what a musicology of performance (rather than of scores) might look like, illustrating a range of possible approaches that range of empirical measurement to ethnography and cultural analysis, and arguing for the need to adopt as wide as possible a range of methods.

Cook, Nicholas. 'Beyond the Notes', Nature 453 (25 June 2008), 1186-7

This short article, commissioned for a series of articles on music and science, surveys some of the intersections between empirical musicology and performance, asking to what extent it is possible to gain useful understanding of complex cultural behaviours by means of quantitative methods.

Cook, Nicholas. 'Performance analysis and Chopin's mazurkas', Musicae Scientiae 11/2 (2007), 183-207; also published in Chopin in Paris: The 1830s (Warsaw: Narodowy Instytut Fryderyka Chopina, 2009), 119-39

Reporting on work carried out in conjunction with Andrew Earis and Craig Sapp, this paper introduces recently developed approaches to the analysis of recorded music, illustrating them in terms of selected Chopin mazurkas. Topics covered include the stylistic characterisation and aesthetic values of Paderewski's playing of Op. 17 No. 4, contrasted with performances from the last quarter of the twentieth century, as well as relationships between different pianists' interpretations of Op. 68 No. 3. A possible performance genealogy of performances of the latter is proposed, in which recordings by Rubinstein and Cortot play a key role, while clustering based on Pearson correlation of tempo data yields relationships supported in one instance by documented teacher/pupil relationships. Representing the early outcomes of a more extended research project, these findings are encouraging in that it appears possible to draw meaningful conclusions from the consideration only of tempo data. The current phase of the project is also working with rhythmic and dynamic data, which should significantly enhance the potential for objective modelling of musically meaningful relationships.

Cook, Nicholas and Craig Sapp. 'Une pure coïncidence? Joyce Hatto et les Mazurkas de Chopin', trans. Jean-François Cornu, L'étincelle: Le journal de la création à l'IRCAM 3 (2008), 19-21

Originally published to coincide with the exposure of the so called 'Hatto Hoax', this article adopts a computational approach to demonstrate that the the Concert Artists/Fidelio box set of Chopin's Mazurkas ascribed to Hatto was in fact a lightly modified and mislabelled reissue of Eugene Indjic's recording, originally released on the Claves label in 1988. [Full text of English version here]

Earis, Andrew. 'An algorithm to extract expressive timing and dynamics from piano recordings', Musicae Scientiae 11/2 (2007), 155-82

Measurable features of expressive musical performance include timing, dynamics, articulation and pedaling. This paper concerns the measurement of expressive timing and dynamics in acoustic recordings of piano music with reference to a digitized musical score of the work being performed. A multi-stage semi-automated expression extraction process is described. Initial synchronisation of score and recording is achieved using a simple manual beat tapping system. The continuous wavelet transform (CWT) is then employed, with a Morlet wavelet, to measure the beat tapped times more precisely, and any errors are then corrected manually. The different analysis parameters are described in detail. Precise note and chord onset times and dynamics of the performance are then calculated using the CWT. Sample results of the analysis of expression in keyboard music by Bach and Chopin are given.

Sapp, Craig. 'Performance authenticity: a case study of the Concert Artist label', paper presented at the ARSC Conference 2008, Stanford

In 2007, over 60 out of 100 compact discs released by the English pianist Joyce Hatto were identified as forgeries taken from other commercial recordings made by other pianists. The first identification of the plagiarism was made in a comparative study between performances of Chopin mazurkas being conducted at the Centre for the History and Analysis of Recorded Music at Royal Holloway, University of London. In this paper the authenticity of two more pianists distributed on the same record label, Concert Artist, is discussed. The source of the mazurka recordings from one of these pianists distributed on the Concert Artist label has long been questioned, while analysis of the mazurka recordings of a third pianist on the Concert Artist label has recently uncovered additional plagiarised performances from other commercial recordings. The paper presents the analytical techniques used to uncover this performance copying, as well as how outlining how the method can be extended to verify the identity of a performer in an unattributed or disputed recording. [Full text (audio) here]

Sapp, Craig. 'Hybrid numeric/rank similarity metrics for musical performance analysis', paper presented at ISMIR 2008, Philadelphia

This paper describes a numerical method for examining similarities among tempo and loudness features extracted from recordings of the same musical work and evaluates its effectiveness compared to Pearson correlation. Starting with correlation at multiple timescales, other concepts such as a performance 'noise-floor' are used to generate measurements which are more refined than correlation alone. The measurements are evaluated and compared to plain correlation in their ability to identify performances of the same Chopin mazurka played by the same pianist out of a collection of recordings by various pianists. [Full text available here]

Sapp, Craig. 'Comparative analysis of multiple musical performances', Proceedings of the International Conference on Music Information Retrieval (ISMIR) 2007 (Vienna, Austria), 497-500

A technique for comparing numerous performances of an identical selection of music is described. The basic methodology is to split a one-dimensional sequence into all possible sequential sub-sequences, perform some operation on these sequences, and then display a summary of the results as a two-dimensional plot; the horizontal axis being time and the vertical axis being sub-sequence length (longer lengths on top by convention). Most types of timewise data extracted from performances can be compared with this technique, although the current focus is on beat-level information for tempo and dynamics as well as commixtures of the two. The primary operation used on each sub-sequence is correlation between a reference performance and analogous segments of other performances, then selecting the best correlated performances for the summary display. The result is a useful navigational aid for coping with large numbers of performances of the same piece of music and for searching for possible influence between performances.

Volioti, Georgia. 'Playing with tradition: weighing up similarity and the buoyancy of the game', Musicae Scientiae (forthcoming)

This is an exploration of some of the common assumptions and beliefs surrounding the concept of ‘tradition’ in performance. The paper presents an exploratory study which interrogates the use of style analysis for determining whether tradition can be detected effectively within a specific cultural-historical context; it seeks to highlight the distinction between ‘tradition’ as objective reality, which can be captured and quantified through stylistic likeness in performance, and tradition as an intersubjective practice which might elude empirical measurement and could even resist conceptualisation. Using a comparative case-study of recordings, it shows that a quantitative index of stylistic relatedness may not always capture the plausibility of tradition. Instead, other approaches are proposed for understanding the operation of tradition and elucidating more fully the involvement of social actors.

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THE RECORDING BUSINESS AND PERFORMANCE, 1925-32

Morgan, Nicholas. '"A new pleasure": listening to National Gramophonic Society records, 1924-1931', Musicae Scientiae (forthcoming)

This article draws on research into the National Gramophonic Society (NGS), a British record label of the 1920s which specialized in chamber music. Existing accounts of the early development of the record industry concentrate on the production and marketing of recordings; reception of recordings has also been addressed but on very broad scales, chiefly in the field of popular music, and mainly using the words of prominent critics and well-known, published sources. Because it operated by subscription, the NGS can be used, in the manner of a historical microscope, to sharpen this focus considerably and so identify individual consumers of recorded ‘classical’ music during this period and study their backgrounds, motivation, tastes and listening habits.

Patmore, David. 'The Columbia Graphophone Company, 1923-1931: commercial competition, cultural plurality and beyond' Musicae Scientiae (forthcoming)

Although the Columbia brand name has a long and distinguished history as a record label, it only reflected the work of an independent commercial organisation in the United Kingdom between 1923 and 1931. At all other times it was part of a larger body. This article considers the work and achievements of the Columbia Graphophone Company during this short period, and assesses its influence, particularly in relation to the classical music repertoire and the performers who committed their interpretations to disc. The commercial and cultural impact of the merger of this company in 1931 with its rival, the Gramophone Company, to form Electric and Musical Industries Ltd (EMI), is then considered, together with the longer-term influence of the American media industrialist, David Sarnoff, the chief executive officer of RCA-Victor and a board member of the Gramophone Company and of EMI at this time.

Patmore, David. 'Albert Coates – a forgotten master’, Three Oranges: the Journal of the Serge Prokofiev Foundation (forthcoming)

This article examines the life of the distinguished musician Albert Coates, a colleague and supporter of Serge Prokofiev throughout his life, and specifically in relation to his recording career. Different sections consider his life, his general style as a conductor, his recording career, the repertoire in which he specialised on record, and the reasons for the cessation of his relationship with Electric and Musical Industries Limited (EMI). The article concludes with a discussion of the wider issues affecting the later reputation of musicians who flourished during the 1920s.

Patmore, David. 'Selling sounds', in The Cambridge Companion to Recorded Music, ed. Nicholas Cook, Eric Clarke, Daniel Leech-Wilkinson, and John Rink (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, forthcoming)

The distinguished economic and social historian, Cyril Ehrlich, writing in 1998, suggested that the history of the record industry could be divided into five phases. Each of these has been driven by new sound recording technologies. They are: the recording horn and the cylinder (1877 – c.1907); the acoustic disc (c.1907 – c.1925); the microphone and electrical recording (c.1925 – c.1948); tape recording and the vinyl long-playing record (c.1948 – c.1983); and digital sound and the compact disc (c.1983 – c.1998). To the last phase may now be added the computer file, such as the mp3 format (c.1998 – ). This chapter examines each of these periods. It outlines the dominant technologies of each phase, their commercial exploitation and related artistic developments, principally in the fields of musical repertoire.

Patmore, David. The Columbia Graphophone Company, 1925-1931 (Sheffield: Department of Music, University of Sheffield, forthcoming) [CD-ROM]

A survey, designed to accompany the article ‘The Columbia Graphophone Company, 1923-1931: commercial competition, cultural plurality and beyond’ (forthcoming in Musicae Scientiae), of some of the most significant of the Columbia Graphophone Company’s recordings, made when the company was autonomous between 1925 and 1931. As one of the company’s most important legacies was the introduction into the gramophone record catalogue of complete works, these are favoured over short individual items, as are significant conductors, whose different interpretations Columbia proactively sought to promote.

Patmore, David. Piero Coppola: Autobiography, Biography, Discography, Sound Recordings (Sheffield: Department of Music, University of Sheffield, 2008) [CD-ROM]

This CD-ROM is intended as a research resource for the study of the life and work of the conductor Piero Coppola. It consists of four elements: (i) Coppola’s autobiography Dix-sept ans de musique à Paris, 1922-1939. This is a scan of the reprint of the original Lausanne edition of 1944, published by Slatkine Resources, Paris and Geneva, in 1982. (ii) The biography of Coppola by William A. Holmes, published in Le Grand Baton, the Journal of The Sir Thomas Beecham Society, Volume 10, Numbers 3 and 4 (double issue), September – December 1973, pages 1-47. (iii) The discography of Coppola’s recordings, prepared by William A. Holmes and contained in the same issue of Le Grand Baton. (iv) Sound files of a selection of Coppola’s recordings, consisting of approximately eighteen hours of music in total.

Patmore, David. 'John Culshaw and the recording as a work of art', Journal of the Association of Recorded Sound Collections 39/1 (2008), 20-40

This article examines the ideas and work of the record producer John Culshaw. It seeks to demonstrate that Culshaw had a clear set of ideas as to how recordings for the gramophone could approximate to being considered as works of art, as opposed to being simply a sound record of a moment in time. Following a brief outline of Culshaw’s life, his ideas as to the components of a successful recording are discussed. The development of these ideas is outlined against the background of the making of those recordings through which his ideas and their development were actually articulated. The possibility of these recordings being considered as works of arts is then addressed, after which consideration is given to the possible reasons for the abandonment of Culshaw’s ideas.

Patmore, David and Eric Clarke. 'Making and hearing virtual worlds: John Culshaw and the art of record production’, Musicae Scientiae 11 (2007), 269-93

A recording represents a paradoxical perceptual source: we can either attend to the sound of the medium, or to the virtual world conveyed by it, and the work of a record producer can be understood as either a process of capturing performances or one of creating virtual worlds. This article demonstrates that the record producer John Culshaw had clear ideas about how recordings might approach the condition of a work of art, rather than being simply the trace of a moment in time. Culshaw's fundamental aesthetic and technical approach is described and illustrated with reference to a number of key recordings. Taking the relationship between sound recording and film as a starting point, and making use of the concept of subject-position, the tension between Culshaw’s radical approach to the listener and traditional approach to the authority of the score is explored. Possible reasons are proposed for the abandonment of his ideas, and for the absence of a Culshaw legacy (apart from the recordings themselves). The article ends with a brief discussion of the current paradigm for the recording of classical music, which seeks in various ways to reproduce ‘the live experience’ in 'the finest seat in the house'.

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