Why Follow the Score? Aesthetic Normativity in Performing Classical Music and the Genuine Performing Experience

Abstract In a letter to Czerny about teaching his nephew to play the fortepiano, Beethoven indicates that mistakes on notes are ‘minor mistakes’. At the same time, problems like ignoring dynamic marks are ‘much more serious’ (Gerig 2007: 95). What could ground his insistence on following the dynamic marks on the score? The normativity of the score-following rule as an aesthetic rule is at stake here. In this paper, I raise concerns about the 'Practice-Based view', which, as I shall argue, grounds the score-following rule in the same way as the rules of chess are grounded. As an alternative approach, I propose that the 'Genuine Performing Experience' grounds the normativity of the score-following rule. My proposal not only offers a novel explanation of the normativity of the rule but also explains the meaningfulness of score compliance in classical music performance by highlighting its unique significance among other human practices.