Why We Love Performing Classical Music

I am an amateur pianist, and I love performing classical music. Reflecting on my willingness to follow the score written by the composers, I found it bizarre: I follow the score to such an extreme extent that I am willing to take the risk of ruining a public performance. Sometimes, the instructions on the score ask something that seems to be unnecessary for producing a certain acoustic effect; the same acoustic effect can be easily achieved by a different and much easier approach. Still, I strictly follow the score.

I am not alone. The pianist Malcolm Bilson once discussed how to play the opening of Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 32 in C minor, op. 111, which has a very dangerous leap in the left hand that can be played much more easily with two hands. Bilson thinks pianists should play it only with the left hand:

I say go out on the stage and be plenty nervous because it’s dangerous, and because that’s what Beethoven wrote. He wrote something that is potentially dangerous, and you can mess it up, and that’s part of the excitement. Beethoven doesn’t write a thing like that for a string quartet. He writes it for a piano because on the piano it’s difficult. To me, the leap is the subject matter. As Philipp Emanuel Bach would say, “the notes are almost secondary.”

“Do whatever Beethoven wrote on the score” sounds like treating Beethoven as a god of music. But clearly, Beethoven isn’t. As Peter Kivy argues, there is no reason for us to believe that the composer’s arrangement is necessarily the best one, nor do we have reasons to believe that the composer necessarily knows better than the performers. I think that Kivy is right on this point: In terms of achieving a better acoustic effect or a more successful performance with high aesthetic value, there is no reason for me to follow Beethoven’s instruction on the score.

Then why do (at least some) pianists do whatever they can to fulfill what’s written on op.111, if not for treating Beethoven as a god of music?

Could it be the case that, without following the score of op. 111, the pianist is not performing op. 111? As Stephen Davies proposes, the performer should follow the score because otherwise, they are not playing this piece at all. However, this answer is obscure about what counts as “this piece.” After all, it is not clear how violating a finger mark counts as not performing that piece.

Could it be the case that pianists simply commit themselves to whatever the composer has written on the score? Well, it could be my case, since Beethoven has more musical expertise than I do. But for other professional musicians, having that commitment for no reason is close to having an “irrational zeal,” as Kivy once accused them of being. Why would a professional pianist commit themselves to deferring to a composer?

It seems that we have run out of all possible reasons to follow the score: Following the composer’s instruction on the score does not lead to a better performance, does not constitute performing that piece, and does not justify an irrational zeal to commit to the composer’s intention. Then I ask myself: If I play Beethoven’s op. 111, would I play with two hands for that dangerous leap? Doing so, I may achieve a better, more secure performance of op. 111.

But I won’t, because there is something left out there on the score: the sense of danger, excitement, the risk of messing it up. Feeling these things does not necessarily have to be pleasant for either me or my audience: I can be so anxious that my audience may hear something terribly bad, and I can be so anxious that I vomit before going on the stage. But I would still follow the score to feel those things while I am performing. If I am not completely irrational, there must be some rationale for me to bring myself to that experience—the one that I won’t unlock unless I follow the score. But what is my rationale? And why is this experience attractive?

I started playing the piano at four, just like many children in China at that time, where learning an instrument was considered essential nourishment for a growing brain. My parents, who had grown up in an era when feeding stomachs was the priority, spent the equivalent of a house on a stand-up piano.

Learning an instrument was not easy for a young child, so there were many tiger moms and tiger dads. But in my case, my parents remained normal human parents because I fell in love with the piano quickly—not just with the sense of achievement of overcoming intellectual and physical challenges but with something beyond the achievement, something I craved.

My reward for hours of staying on the bench to overcome a difficult technique and of staying in front of the desk studying scores is when I can finally sing and swing freely with melody while I am playing the piano, which brings an intense and strange feeling. This feeling is good, unique, and addictive—obtaining it is the reason I stay on the bench for hours, honing boring techniques and delving into the composer’s inner world through their biographical information. And when I finally get the chance to share the music with others, I also experience the moment of “us” and the sense of togetherness with my audience.

My heart loves playing the piano because of this feeling. It is like a sense of drowning in a flood of pure emotions or sensations. These emotions or sensations are partially familiar and partially alien: They are both “mine” and “not mine.” I find myself experiencing something that is hardly identified as my own feelings, since they are brought by following the score, but at the same time, I know that I am the one who has it through experiencing it.

Despite my love for playing the piano, I don’t become a pianist (in a very close possible world, I do). Instead, I become a philosopher fascinated with the phenomenon of moral normativity: why and how we are gripped by moral reasons and moral rules.

On a plane to a classical music festival, I read Robbie Kubala’s wonderful paper on aesthetic normativity, and I was drawn by the section on why classical musicians follow the score—why and how they are gripped by the score-following rule. According to Kubala’s view, along with Guy Rohrbaugh’s, the reason for musicians to follow the score is that they are engaging in the aesthetic practice of classical music performance. Participating in a practice means that participants ought to comply with the rules that are internal to that practice. For instance, chess players need to follow the chess rules because they are participating in chess games. Outside of a game of chess, the normative requirement to follow the chess rule is not conceivable. The normative force of chess rules is grounded in the practice of chess games. Similarly, the normative force of following the score is grounded in the very practice of classical music performance. Because the score-following rule is constitutive of classical music performance, every detail on the score matters to classical musicians.

But that does not sound like what I feel. Following the score is a rule for me because I am participating in the classical music performance, but when I am deliberating about whether or not to play op. 111’s opening with two hands, I am not deliberating about what is required by the practice of classical music performance. The score seems to play a double role here—it does belong to the rule set of this practice, which constitutes the practice, but beyond that, it also brings a substantive benefit—the special feeling I described earlier. To unlock that experience, I follow the score to an extreme extent. In a paper, I theorize this experience as Genuine Performing Experience. I argue that the genuine performing experience that people chase in classical performance is very similar to the experience of interpersonal interaction.

Just think about the way we interact with someone we’re trying to understand—we listen with care, let what they actually said constrain what counts as an appropriate reply, and resist the temptation to rewrite the hard parts into something safer just because we can or prefer to. Interpreting the score is similar to that. Then we turn around and do something extra: We stage that interaction for the audience. That’s why score-following can have genuine normative force even when it doesn’t maximize sonic value—it’s what makes this experience authentic to that interaction. (See Kubala and Rohrbaugh’s response to my view.)

That is my reason for following the score. I follow not because I am a rule follower or I worship the composers. For me, following the score is about revealing the unique power of art to connect us not just to the minds of others but also to brand new possibilities within our own minds. Following the score enables us to access another inner life, helps us understand ourselves better, explores our ability to experience a point of view beyond our own, and bonds us with other minds.

Figuring out the rationale behind the score-following rule helps me understand why I love classical music performance: Following the score is the necessary way to unlock a valuable and special performing experience, in which I break the boundary between different minds and within my own mind.

That’s also why so many of us keep performing classical music: the score isn’t merely a constraint but also the portal to have that experience. So, when a pianist is on stage wrestling with the beginning of op. 111, it might be about way more than just technique. It might be an act of profound empathy, an attempt to reach across time, to have a real conversation with another soul and, in doing that, to discover something new and incredible within themselves.

I believe that is why we love performing classical music and why we follow the score.