I was quite surprised that in our various discussions about what makes music performance creative, we never talked about "conveying an idea." To me, this is absolutely central to any musical performance, "classical" or otherwise. The audience leaves a great, creative performance with a sense of having been "moved" or "affected." I would venture to say that this impression left on the listener is a result of the performer's deliberate efforts to communicate an idea through her music.
William Westney, pianist, lecturer, and author of The Perfect Wrong Note, gave a master class at Millsaps this past fall semester. After each performance, he turned to the audience and asked us "So, what was she/he trying to say to us?" In other words, did the artist do a good job of conveying a sentiment to the listener? Was the sentiment conveyed the sentiment intended to be conveyed? Did the artist perhaps feel as if she were coming across one way but being interpreted by her audience in a different way? For Westney, then, what was central to being a musician was first the recognition of an idea, a story, or a feeling in the music that one plays and then a conscious effort to make that feeling known using a variety of musical techniques.
I feel as if I can be extremely creative with many of the pieces that I am playing right now. Schumann's Davidsbundlertanze is a set of 18 character pieces that depict a Polterabend, or a pre-wedding party. It's immensely fun to explore and discover different means of "sounding drunk" on the piano for no.5, and it's challenging to determine how to best convey the schizophrenic battle of Schumann's two alteregos in no.1. In imagining scenarios that correspond to pieces, the emotions can be more real and easier to communicate to the audience.
All of this seems creative. But I'm not sure how this kind of creativity fits into C's model, because it is not an element that can be objectively monitored or evaluated. However, the emotional affect of a piece is something that truly exists; ask any concertgoer, whether that concert take place in Carnegie Hall or in some sketchy dive of a bar.
the point you make in this post about conveying an idea is one that also occured to me while discussing performative creativity. I think part of performance is conveying and idea of message to your audience. It is part of the reason you have chosen to express yourself in this field. You are driven to find a way to express yourself that is not able to be done through the convential terms of math or writing. The reason people go to see performances is to be part of the experience and the way that it effects them. So I believe there is a large creative aspect to this performance art because you as the artist can choose the manner of expressing yourself and even if you are playing by the rules, they can be bent to convey your feelings.
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