PO’S PIANO PARTY; OR, AN ASSORTMENT OF ALTER-EGOS

Classical music is a peculiar art form, guided by two artistic drivers: the composer and the performer. The composer encodes a musical vision on the page through dots, lines, and words; the performer, who might be a single musician or an ensemble with its own internal hierarchies, interprets these signs to bring them to life. We could say the composer provides the bounds within which the performer creates sound. But the performer is not merely an envoy. While representing the score as faithfully as possible, we also expect their performance to be moving and personal. Most of the repertoire we hear today has been performed countless times, yet we still attend concerts when we could, more easily and economically, open a streaming service and listen to a near-perfect recording. We want to hear, see, and feel how the composer and performer merge in that moment of performance.

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