The artistic duality of the composer-performer

Abstract

The work of art lives only in the interpretations that are made of it, a fact that have greater dimension in the case of music and other performing arts; besides that, these interpretations are infinites before a multitude of personalities. The interpretation supposedly requires faithfulness to the musical work, but the work also inevitably leaves a margin of freedom for the interpreter's view. Composition and musical performance imply interaction with a physical reality that imposes limitations, in which the personalities of the artists will make different decisions to overcome the obstacles, revealing a style that will show the spirit of the person in the work. We consider that in the special situation of the composer-performer, that is, the composer who write a piece that he himself performs, the artist goes through a dialogue with the matter more than once, dealing with physical reality, first during the composition and later in the performance, thus communicating the work and its way of understanding the work at the same time. In this case there are not two personalities intervening in the same work, but a single person in different situations and time lapses, interacting with the form in different aspects, representing a little-known challenge, which we analyze in this article.