The score and the performer’s communication. Artistic freedom in a semiotic perspective

The performer’s freedom is a balance between individual freedom and stylistic and contextual awareness of possible artistic expressions. In classical music, the notation system has been cultivated throughout the centuries. The composer’s notation represents a significant loss of information that the musician must try to compensate. The traditional analysis of Music-Notation-Performance needs to have a say on Communication and Articulation to be relevant from a performer’s perspective. This makes epistemological aspects more important than the ontological ones that dominate textualism in Western music theory. Musical notation is a system of ontological elements with potential for meaning formation in a cultural context. A consequence of such a view is that the notation is not an ahistorical quantity or practice but that notation’s potential for knowledge transfer beyond here-and-now situations is linked to several elements and areas of knowledge that cannot be deduced from the notation itself.

A differentiation is made between notation symbols adjusting already given information in the notation and symbols that provide nuances to the musical expression and the character of the music (like poco pesante). Through specific examples, I linked these two categories of symbols to two processes of consciousness, namely Gestalt psychology’s concepts of formations and cognitive psychology’s concepts on the development of cognitive schemas. By considering notation as a communicative platform between composer and performer, sonorous music can be regarded as a musician’s articulated performing knowledge.