Eric Craven : Entangled States
- Submitting institution
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Royal Holloway and Bedford New College
- Unit of assessment
- 33 - Music, Drama, Dance, Performing Arts, Film and Screen Studies
- Output identifier
- 31399986
- Type
- I - Performance
- Venue(s)
- Online
- Open access status
- -
- Month of first performance
- July
- Year of first performance
- 2018
- URL
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- Supplementary information
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- Request cross-referral to
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- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
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- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- No
- Number of additional authors
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0
- Research group(s)
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-
- Proposed double-weighted
- No
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- No
- Additional information
- This 2018 CD release is the premiere recording of ‘Entangled States’, a set of 48 pieces in nonprescriptive notation devised by composer Eric Craven. The notation gives increasing levels of freedom to the performer, ranging from low-order pieces (which specify pitches and rhythms), through middle-order (comprising short motivic cells to be organised by the performer at will) to high-order (where the composer supplies merest suggestions of pitch which the performer can alter, re-order or disregard).
Dullea’s realisations of ‘Entangled States’ explore how the composer-performer relationship might be reconfigured across Craven’s three orders of notation. The research process investigated how a player responds to the visual cues in the notation, in ways shaped by tacit knowledge such as the pianist’s own musical experience, their repertory as a solo and chamber musician, and their embodied knowledge of the physicality of the keyboard. Pre-determined choices by the performer can only go as far as general structure, mood, texture, motivic material, character, soundworld and possible sense of duration. In her realisations Dullea investigated the balance between pre-determined decisions (which may be changed at any second) and a free-flowing approach (arguably dependent on unconscious cognition). Dullea also determined the order of the pieces in the recording, supplying paired realisations of the twelve middle- and high-order scores, thereby establishing intertextual allusions across the set of 48 pieces. These performances give new insights into the composer-performer relationship. They also challenge notions of improvisation, by exploring the symbiotic creativity that arises in the relationship between a composer’s minimal notation and a pianist’s experience, understanding, and skill in the moment of performance.
The submission consists of the recording (for assessment). Additional information about the research context and research process is supplied by Dullea’s annotated copy of Craven’s scores, and her essay on the pianist’s role in realising Craven’s notation.
- Author contribution statement
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- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
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