Powers of Divergence

Beyond resemblance: creative divergence in music performance

What does it mean to produce resemblance in the performance of written music? Starting from how this question is commonly answered by the practice of interpretation in Western notated art music, this book proposes a move beyond commonly accepted codes, conventions and territories of music performance. Appropriating reflections from post-structural philosophy, visual arts and semiotics, and crucially based upon an artistic research project with a strong creative and practical component, it proposes a new approach to music performance. The approach is based on divergence, on the difference produced by intensifying the chasm between the symbolic aspect of music notation and the irreducible materiality of performance. Instead of regarding performance as reiteration, reconstruction and reproduction of past musical works, Powers of Divergence emphasises its potential for the emergence of the new and for the problematisation of the limits of musical semiotics.

Ebook available in Open Access.
This publication is GPRC-labeled (Guaranteed Peer-Reviewed Content).

Erratum: Table of contents
In the table of contents of the printed books the description of Book I, Book II and Book III is incorrect. This information is correct in the table of contents below and in the PDF version of the book.

Preface
Acknowledgments Specific Terminology Introduction
BOOK I Description of the Practice The Problem of Resemblance Beyond Improvisation A Series of Anamorphic Glances On Methodology Phonographic Writing The Phantasmic Image of the Musical Work The Vectors of the Body The Musical Work as a “Manifold” A Peripheral Instrument Modes of Exposition BOOK II Derivatives Derivative I: On Three Different (Musical) Eyes Derivative II: The Phonocentric Vision of Music Derivative III: An Eye That Sees Itself Derivative IV: The Joyous Power of Simulacra Derivative V: How to Defy Perspective through Perspective Derivative VI: Automaton Derivative VII: How to Produce a Phantasm? Part I: Gian Lorenzo Bernini Derivative VIII: How to Produce a Phantasm? Part II: Francis Bacon Derivative IX: How to Produce a Phantasm? Part III: Salvatore Sciarrino Derivative X: How to Produce a Phantasm? Part IV: Carmelo Bene BOOK III Five Glances upon the Unspeakable Body Appendix 1: Techniques of Minoration Appendix 2: List of Musical Examples Closing Remarks References Biographical Note

Lucia D'Errico

Lucia D’Errico is a musician and artistic researcher. She is research fellow at the Orpheus Institute Ghent.