Metaphor and musical performance: The case study “A bell against the time”

Abstract

This article tackles issues of Metaphor for piano and ensemble performance of the piece A bell against the time. Based on Lakoff and Johnson’s statement that metaphor unites reason and imagination and the requirement of a compelling and coherent performance construction, this paper presents a performance analysis and constitutes a case study on those assumptions. The bond between reason and imagination, for the pianist as for the to the ensemble, is unremitted and established through the reasoning and practice of several sections. The performer’s semiotics orientation, based on his own inner truth and constructed by the interrelation of meanings crossover, is determined by a main focus on the poetic sentence generative for this musical work. Due to the close cooperation with composer, the depth knowledge of his ideas and the circumstantial sharing of cultural patrimony between intervenients, one demonstrates the collaboration with composer as a prime factor of performer’s metaphorical construction. However, a guideline provided by Cook’s views is adopted, which defends the primacy of the performer’s imagery upon the work compositional assumptions.