Composition as Performance in Wuorinen’s Grand Union
Recent work, particularly Nicholas Cook’s Beyond the Score: Music as Performance, sets score or compositional product against music as performed. In this presentation, I argue that Grand Union, composed by Charles Wuorinen, is an exemplar of composition as performance—that is, that the composition itself embodies performance in some rather direct ways. Along the way, I will show how traits characteristic of Wuorinen’s writing contribute to this composed performance. I will further bring aspects of the composition into dialogue with actual performance.
Academic Music @ UIowa 