Output details

"Mozart Concerto in A major K 414"

The researcher/performer’s recording of Mozart’s original chamber-music version of the A major piano concerto, K 414, presents the result of a project concerning the application to concerto repertoire performance of extemporisation. The first goal was to devise a process through which today’s musicians could experience an aspect of performance that, until the early twentieth century, was recognised as a vital skill of the profession. A second research imperative sought to discover how classical extemporisation affects musical communication between performers and listeners.

Whilst there have been examples in recent years of musicians such as Bilson and Levin using extemporisation, these experiments have not moved beyond the soloist to involve all members of the ensemble. The current research is therefore unique in requiring all players to accept the risks, responsibilities and creativity of extemporisation. The logic is simple: if all the melodic, harmonic, contrapuntal and developmental parameters are shared across all instruments, can extemporisation sensibly be restricted to one voice? To do so would assert that internal communication should not inform the ensemble’s collaborative performance.

The research process demanded extended periods of experimental extemporisation based on structural reductions of the work. These allowed a shared understanding of the direction of the work to emerge, a foundation upon which the performers were then confident to welcome the individual and collective risks and opportunities of extemporisation.

The research culminated in a performance of the concerto followed by an open discussion focussing on the communication between the performers and audience. The performers reported that during their extemporisations they were aware of their own heightened levels of listening and communication. The audience confirmed this view, whilst the researcher recognised that this anecdotal feedback required a more challenging quantitative examination. His article "The improvisatory approach to classical music performance: an empirical investigation into its characteristics and impact" also a REF output, provides the empirical investigation of the subject.