Interpretative and Compositional Connotations from a Musicological Perspective

Abstract

Musicology, viewed as a general science regarding all the defining elements of music, can approach compositions using hermeneutical methods, both through a critical view on the interpretation, the stage performance of the creative act, and through the subsequent musicological writings, becoming a “meta-interpretation” that requires a thorough exegesis. The couplet hermeneutics-interpretation together with that of compositional concept versus stage production are the ones underlying our research, while hermeneutics is the very art of performing that penetrates the most cryptic elements present in the musical act, viewed from the perspective of the triad creation-interpretation-reception. In an attempt to emphasize the ways in which the composer suggests to the performer certain indications for stage performance, through writing, agogics, dynamics and special sound effects, we intend to study, from the standpoint of the musicologist, the piece 5 tablouri cu umbre(le) 1 by Constantin Rîpă. Built on a structure of five tableaux, the work comprises fifteen songs on poems by five contemporary Cluj poets and outlines a new concept of musical performance, which aims to experiment in composing music with the idea of the primordial nature of the poetic text, which is associated with elements of motion and gestures of the interpreters and is based on an arbitrary compositional concept, a defining technique that can be found in a great part of the choral creation of this composer.