Performing Knowledge: Twentieth-Century Music in Analysis and Performance

How do musical analysis and performance relate? In a unique collaborative approach to this question, theorist-pianist Daphne Leong partners with internationally renowned performers to interpret twentieth-century repertoire. Imaginative explorations of music by Ravel, Schoenberg, Bartók, Schnittke, Milhaud, Messiaen, Babbitt, Carter, and Morris illuminate focal issues such as the role of embodiment, the affordances of a score, the cultural understanding of notation, the use of metaphor, and--to round out the viewpoints of theorist and performers with those of composer and listeners--the role of structure in audience reception.

Each exploration engages deeply with musical structure, redefined to encompass the creative activity of composers, performers, analysts, and listeners. Performances, demonstrations, and interviews online complement the book’s written text; practical application and pedagogical guidance round out theoretical and analytical content.

The collaborations themselves demonstrate different dimensions of knowledge at the intersection of analysis and performance, and illustrate Leong’s theory of the things and people that facilitate cross-disciplinary collaboration in music. They also exemplify the antagonisms and synergies that emerge when theorists and performers meet. Both flexibly and rigorously conceived, Performing Knowledge is a brave crossing of disciplinary divides between scholarship and practice, a work of analysis shaped by the voices of performers.

Daphne Leong is Associate Professor of Music Theory at the University of Colorado Boulder. Her research interests include rhythm, analysis and performance, and the music of 20th- and 21st-century composers. Her publications appear in journals such as Journal of Music Theory, Perspectives of NewMusic, and Music Theory Online, as well as in edited collections on Bart�k, Ravel, and the pedagogy of music theory. She is an active pianist and chamber musician, whose repertoire ranges from Bach to premieres of current music.