Ernest Ansermet on Music and Its Performance

The Swiss conductor E. Ansermet was also both a musical practitioner and an original thinker: so, his reflections are those of a professional performer and not theoretical. The only one way for the melody to become meaningful is to be experienced as a “path.” The importance of intentionality for the act of musical expression. “Simple structures” as a first stage of musical experience. Music is an image which its performance, and only its performance, communicates to the listener. However, if the musician understands the object of music as technique, the technique becomes independent and has meaning in itself (both E. Ansermet and the author criticise the tendency to fetishise instrumentality).