Beethoven recordings reviewed: a systematic method for mapping the content of music performance criticism.
Critical reviews offer rich data that can be used to investigate how musical experiences are conceptualized by expert listeners. However, these data also present significant challenges in terms of organization, analysis, and interpretation. This study presents a new systematic method for examining written responses to music, tested on a substantial corpus of music criticism. One hundred critical reviews of Beethoven's piano sonata recordings, published in the Gramophone between August 1934 and July 2010, were selected using in-depth data reduction (qualitative/quantitative approach). The texts were then examined using thematic analysis in order to generate a visual descriptive model of expert critical review. This model reveals how the concept of evaluation permeates critical review. It also distinguishes between two types of descriptors. The first characterizes the performance in terms of specific actions or features of the musical sound (musical parameters, technique, and energy); the second appeals to higher-order properties (artistic style, character and emotion, musical structure, communicativeness) or assumed performer qualities (understanding, intentionality, spontaneity, sensibility, control, and care). The new model provides a methodological guide and conceptual basis for future studies of critical review in any genre.
School of Music, Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts Lucerne, Switzerland ; Centre for Performance Science, Royal College of Music London, UK.
Elena
E
Alessandri
School of Music, Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts Lucerne, Switzerland ; Department of Music, University of Sheffield Sheffield, UK ; School of Advanced Study, University of London London, UK.
Victoria J
VJ
Williamson
Department of Research and Development, Conservatory of Southern Switzerland Lugano, Switzerland.
Hubert
H
Eiholzer
Centre for Performance Science, Royal College of Music London, UK.
Aaron
A
Williamon
Beethoven; aesthetic judgment; music criticism; performance; recordings