{"id":371,"date":"2009-10-26T06:26:42","date_gmt":"2009-10-26T06:26:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/pianomorphosis\/wp\/2009\/10\/recenter\/"},"modified":"2018-01-14T17:46:03","modified_gmt":"2018-01-14T22:46:03","slug":"recenter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/pianomorphosis\/2009\/10\/recenter.html","title":{"rendered":"Recenter"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The &#8220;reception&#8221; of a piece of music becomes part of its identity. Our performances, recordings, reviews, reactions, lawsuits, teaching, reflection, arrangements, remixes, appropriation &#8212; all of that <em>is<\/em> the piece, along with the text we started from. Famous music acquires a larger and larger, and more multiply-determined identity. Eventually, there are so many components that none of us can affect the whole very much.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n<span class=\"mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image\" style=\"display: inline;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"jettyAJ.jpg\" src=\"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/pianomorphosis\/jettyAJ.jpg\" width=\"315\" height=\"242\" class=\"mt-image-left\" style=\"float: left; margin: 0 20px 10px 0;\" \/><\/span>When I give the first performance of new music (I&#8217;m playing a new piano piece by <a href=\"http:\/\/nicomuhly.com\/\">Nico Muhly<\/a> in May), my performance functions to begin staking out an identity for that music in public. Actors are said to &#8220;create&#8221; new roles. Immediately things begin to shift as my playing is heard, as I play again, or record. Nothing ever gets taken back.\n<\/p>\n<p>\nWith canonic music, no matter how significant we believe our insights or approach to be, we don&#8217;t make much of a difference. The music is large &#8212; like a person who has lived a long time and for whom a few minutes represent only a small, small fraction of a life. In contrast, a few more minutes in a child&#8217;s life significantly increase the whole.\n<\/p>\n<p>\nScripted music does continue to change, as it&#8217;s played. Its identity is recentered, at an increasingly slow rate. How radically we depart from what has been done before in performing may be part of how far this recentering goes.\n<\/p>\n<p>\nDoes this explain Mannerism? As a style, or a particular piece of art becomes more and more familiar, an artist&#8217;s assertion of personal voice (an attempt to recenter the piece, or school) may result in extremes. It is not exactly a wish to shock that drives Beethoven or <a href=\"http:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:Girolamo_Francesco_Maria_Mazzola_-_Madonna_with_the_Long_Neck.jpg\">Parmigianino<\/a> &#8212; but the desire to be heard.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The &#8220;reception&#8221; of a piece of music becomes part of its identity. Our performances, recordings, reviews, reactions, lawsuits, teaching, reflection, arrangements, remixes, appropriation &#8212; all of that is the piece, along with the text we started from. Famous music acquires a larger and larger, and more multiply-determined identity. Eventually, there are so many components that [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1210,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[47,341,241,244,339,340,33,1320,200,32,337,338],"class_list":{"0":"post-371","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uncategorized","8":"tag-beethoven","9":"tag-beethoven-is-a-mannerist","10":"tag-canon","11":"tag-canonic-repertory","12":"tag-mannerism","13":"tag-mannerist","14":"tag-muhly","15":"tag-new-music","16":"tag-nico","17":"tag-nico-muhly","18":"tag-reception","19":"tag-rezeption","20":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/pianomorphosis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/pianomorphosis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/pianomorphosis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/pianomorphosis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/pianomorphosis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=371"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/pianomorphosis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4636,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/pianomorphosis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371\/revisions\/4636"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/pianomorphosis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1210"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/pianomorphosis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=371"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/pianomorphosis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=371"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/pianomorphosis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=371"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}