Performance practice, interpretation and improvisation (vocal, instrumental, movement)
This domain tests decisions a performer makes: tuning, ornamentation, tempo, instrumentation and improvisation, and the reasoning behind historically informed choices.
Historically informed practice
- Pitch: Baroque A ≈ 415 Hz, Classical ≈ 430 Hz, modern A = 440 Hz.
- Instruments: gut strings, valveless horns and natural trumpets, period bows, harpsichord rather than piano continuo.
- Evidence: treatises - Quantz (Versuch, 1752), C. P. E. Bach, Leopold Mozart - plus surviving instruments and scores.
- Ornamentation: appoggiaturas, trills (often beginning on the upper auxiliary), cadenzas, written-out ornamentation in French suites; notes inégales in the French style.
- Continuo realisation: build chords from the figured bass, keep voice-leading smooth, double the bass sparingly.
- Tempo and affect: tempo follows the character implied by metre, key and genre rather than a fixed metronome mark.
Interpretation
Choices of tempo, rubato, articulation, dynamics, edition (urtext versus practical) and balance; vibrato used as colour rather than constant default in early repertoire.
Improvisation
- Jazz: head, then solos over the chord changes (ii–V–I motion, blues scale), trading fours, call-and-response with the rhythm section.
- Flamenco: falsetas, jaleos, and strict compás; improvisation happens inside the palo's pattern.
- Balearic: cant redoblat and glosa - improvised verses on a fixed melodic frame.
- Movement: contact improvisation (Paxton, from 1972), Cunningham's chance procedures, structured improvisation scores.
Worked example
You must perform a Baroque slow movement convincingly. Decisions and reasoning: take the affect from the movement's metre and key; keep pitch at A = 415 with gut strings; realise the continuo from the figures with smooth voice-leading; ornament the repeat and cadence, beginning trills on the upper note; apply notes inégales if the style is French; reserve vibrato as an expressive ornament.
Traps that cost marks
- Applying modern continuous vibrato and A = 440 to Baroque repertoire without comment.
- Beginning Baroque trills on the main note by default.
- Treating jazz improvisation as playing the melody again rather than improvising on changes.
- Calling any tempo fluctuation "rubato": rubato requires compensating durations, not a drifting pulse.