VPMA93H3 Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: Ferruccio Busoni, Musical Notation, Europe 1
Document Summary
Every notation is, in itself, the transcription of an abstract idea. (transcription: the first level of transcription that brings the idea from a composer"s head onto paper. It is a way of communicating music between the composer and the audience). The instant the pen seizes it, the idea loses its original form. The very intention to write down the idea, compels a choice of measure and key. The form, and the musical agency, which the composer must decide upon, still more closely define the way and the limits. Again, the performance of a work is also a transcription, and still, whatever liberties it may take, it can never annihilate the original. For the musical art-work exists, before its tones resound and after they die away, complete and intact. It exists both within and outside of time, and through its nature we can obtain a definite conception of the otherwise intangible notion of the ideality of time.
