Valuating experimentation in the learning process
The research project focuses on piano sonatas written by composers working mainly after 1945, and more specifically on those by Berio, Boulez, Carter, Rautavaara and Sciarrino. At first sight, the performance of these contemporary scores does not present particular interpretative problems. Music notation is often very precise and the conventions for translating signs into sound are those generally taught at conservatoires. However, even when all composers' indications are meticulously followed, many matters underdetermined by the score have to be settled: performers continuously need to imagine and experiment infinite performance solutions. If this quest happened randomly, it could lead to indecisiveness. Therefore, it may be useful to find criteria which clarify the options
Drawing on this particular aspect of his doctoral research, that is the quest for criteria leading performer's experiments, Alessandro Cervino will inquiry within the Orpheus Research Centre of Music into the ways by which a performer can experiment through practice and into the potentiality of experimentation as a fundamental tool for conceiving an interpretation of a composition.
