Elogio de Marsías: ensaios sobre interpretação musical

Abstract

What does it mean to be a musical interpreter? This question, foundation stone of the thesis the reader has before his eyes, unfolds itself in a series of subsequent questions which constitute the thesis in its subdivisions: when we conduct this process of assimilating a written work and presenting it in sound proper, do we produce something over what was already there? If we do so, what kind of thing is this musical work, that it may be identified to a representation of it, while representations may be considered different among themselves? On the other hand, if we consider the interpreter himself in light of the issue of representation, bearing in mind that the artist, since the Italian renaissance, has been tied to an idea of creation out of nothing (creatio ex nihilo), it might occur to ask: is the musical interpreter an artist after all? A question that, in this thesis, apart from being approached in relation to the issue of representation, is also considered in relation to the meanings of the term artist which point outwards of the interpretive technique itself; for the artist, also since the renaissance, may be perceived in a way that surpasses technical issues and draws attention to a certain disposition of the spirit. Lastly, we consider the musical interpreter as a social subject, defined according to the duties and ideals of action which are put to him by the discourse about his craft, with the aim of ascertaining, from a psychoanalytic perspective, the ways in which these imperatives constrain him and to what measure they may produce deleterious effects on these subjects.