Motive, Gesture and the
Analysis of Performance
Paper by John Rink, Neta Spiro and Nicolas Gold
Presented by Elaine Chew
QMUL: ELE021/ELED021/ELEM021
12 March 2012
Gestures
• music’s gestural properties are neither captured
by nor fully encoded within musical notation, but
instead require the agency of performance to
achieve their full realization.
• gestures created in and through performance
potentially have motivic functions.
• Such ‘motives’ are defined as expressive patterns
in timing, dynamics, articulation, timbre etc that
maintain their identity upon repetition.
Motives
• Definition: short musical idea, melodic,
harmonic, rhythmic or combination thereof.
• A motif is most commonly regarded as the
shortest subdivision of a theme/phrase that
still maintains its identity as an idea.
Structure and Performance
• Relationship between musical structure and
performance is complex and non-exclusive.
• One must acknowledge the origin and dynamic
nature of music structure.
• Performers create musical structures/shapes in
every performance.
• The dynamic structures underlying and genera
ted within performed music potentially operat
e at numerous hierarchical levels.
Goal
• Determine how the sounded music is made to
cohere; focus not the intent of the performer.
• Trap of traditional analyses: assembling data
and ignoring broader musical purpose/effect.
• Study couples objective analytical
methodology with (subjective) critical
assessment.
cevaplar.mynet.com/soru-cevap/mazurka-hangi-ulkenin-milli-dansidir/135666
Chopin’s Mazurkas
• Urbanized Mazurka tradition
• Traces of at
least three folk dances – oberek
(lively), mazur
(joyous) and kujawiak (plaintive)
• Modal (Lydian Fourth) elements,
tendency towards chromaticism
• Folk devices: drone fifths, ‘tight’
ornamentation, obsessive
repetition, 2nd/3rd beat accents
(stamping gesture in dance), waltzlike accompaniment
theuniversallanguageofmusicic.wordpress.com
Mazurka Op. 24 No. 2
• Composed 1833, published 1835
• Mazurkas not for dancing (letter
to family)
• Example: Arthur Rubinstein
– http://www.youtube.com/watch?v
=vzxlN_lDvv0
Mazurka Op.24 No.2
Mazurka Op.24 No.2
mazurinspired
RH melody
aching
melancholy
of kajuwiak
ebulient
mazurlike phase
Musical Process
• Process from note to note, bar to bar, phrase
to phrase, while also involving overarching
relationships between less proximate features
• Gravitational tendencies of sections:
processive or recessive, prospective or
retrospective
• How non-symmetrical middle section is
handled against symmetrical first part, and
non-symmetrical foreshortened reprise
Time
• Discrepancy between metronome markings:
crotchet=108/192
• Types of rubato (e.g. at bar 29)
– Structured temporal flexibility
– Freer, with irregular beat lengths
– At the level of form
• Synchrony / assynchrony between two hands
• Timing of ornamentation (on/before beat)
Beat Length in All 29 Performances
Self Organizing Maps
Clusters similar
timing/dynamic
patterns
T1 32%, T2 30%, T3 24%,
T4 14%
D1 32%, D2 30%, D3 24%,
D4 14%
almost
flat
expected
mazurka
pattern
phrase
final
lengthening
typical
triple
meter
Distribution of Timing Clusters
Distribution of Dynamic Clusters
Distribution of Timing Clusters
within each performance
Broad Patterns and Individual
Performances
• Broad comparisons reveal patterns across
large number of performances
• Detailed examination of individual
performance required for insights into
patterns distinctive to each performer
• SOM trained on individual performances to
reveal inter- and intra-performer patterns and
distributions
Chiu Timing Clusters
Least number of timing clusters, 3
~ perceived richness and interest
Chiu Dynamic Clusters
Magaloff Timing Clusters
Highest number of timing clusters, 18
few patterns return when material repeated
patterns form sub-groups
Magaloff Dynamic Clusters
Rubinstein Timing Clusters
Middling number of timing clusters, 8
considerable alignment between
repeated thematic material and
expressive pattern
Rubinstein Dynamic Clusters
Three questions
• Musical meaning and significance of analytical
findings?
• How do expressive patterns give musical
coherence?
• How to understand hierarchy of temporally
defined musical gestures?
Notes
• Number of cluster types not directly related to
perceived richness and interest
• Chiu (3) sounds mechanical
• Magaloff (18) sounds willful and unstable
• Rubinstein (8) balances rhythmic consistency
with rubato in melodic line
• Not presence or quantity of expressive
clusters, but what performers make of them
that counts
Rubinstein Beat Lengths
Broad tempos act as background to / foundation for more immediate temporal fluctuations
Rubinstein: Timing Clusters vs.
Structure of Piece
Hypermeasure = 4-bar unit
RT3 / RT7 feature agogic accents on first downbeat
Used in 23 or 30 hypermeasure starts
Temporal Shape of Rubinstein’s
Performance
regularity
This image helps us understand what we are listening to but possibly unable to hear.
Reference
• Rink, John, Neta Spiro, and Nicolas Gold
(2011). Motive, Gesture and the Analysis of
Performance. In New Perspectives on Music
and Gesture, Chapter 13: 267-292.