Blog 7 - Formalism (by O'Brian Davis)

Kathleen Higgins was right in her approach that the performance is imperative to our musical experience., contradicting the Platonist's perspective of musical formalism. Musical formalism believes that the score, noting else, is the most important in music - ignoring the performers contribution, highlighting that the performer adds imperfection to the 'perfect' score. Higgins believes that this is not the case, she believes that the score and performance are of equal importance. She also highlights that when the two are present music can greatly influence one's musical experience, bringing people together. I believe that the performer can influence the composer's intent, whether this is a positive influence depends on the response from the audience. It is important to note that the composer's intent, even if they are the performer, may not be what the audience perceives. John Cage highlighted that, the audience sometimes would have a different response from what he intended.  One should not get entangled with the relative purity of music but with the response that it evokes.