Page 135 - Composing Processes and Artistic Agency

124 Musicological perspectives on composing

relating to his pieces in any way because he considered them a part of the
actual compositions. With his scholarly questions, McAdams was thus able to
latch successfully onto his practice.
To date, the most convincing results in researching the process of compo-
sing have undoubtedly been published by Nicolas Donin, who has conducted
several studies in the milieu of the Institut de Recherche et Coordination
Acoustique/Musique. Two of these particularly deserve to be mentioned:

a) His analysis of Philippe Leroux’s “Voi(Rex)” (Donin 2009) is based on all
written and digital sources, a discussion of these materials, and eleven
extended interviews that aimed not only at reconstructing the process of
composing, but also addressed, for instance, anticipatory thinking
within certain processes, or plans and expectations, none of which usually
even appear in conventional studies. Thus, Donin was able to work out in
detail the extremely convoluted compositional paths of progress. This
renders some of the progressions that traditional analyses deem crucial
rather less so. It also provides ammunition for understanding the final
product.
b) Using a simulation, Donin and Féron (2012) together with the composer
Stefano Gervasoni attempted to re-enact and reflect on the entire process
of composing the first movement of his “Gramigna”. Initially, the only
material basis available for the piece had been the three-page original
manuscript. By interacting with its creator, Donin and Féron were able to
lay bare thought processes that were not legible in the score and to
convincingly show certain musical developments that would not have
surfaced in a conventional analysis. The research perspective and simulation
used for Gervasoni’s “Gramigna”, however, is probably only feasible
within limits: the piece in question is a recent and extremely short work,
composed in one day.

In addition, Donin and Féron raised the important question of whether such
analyses – which are not only elaborate, but may also target pieces that are
only known to a relatively small number of people – can even be justified. At
the very least, they pointed out, this contravened the standard practice of only
considering the works of canonised composers as worthy of analysis.

4.2 The components of composing practices and their interrelations:
present-day observations
This section will address the observation of concrete composing processes and
decisions. It will be based primarily on the case studies conducted as part of
our research project. Since a minute review of all composition processes
would require further time-consuming analyses in collaboration with the
composers, this section will instead explore specific issues using the insights
we have gained as examples. This project has gone beyond the usual written