Interpretation

In this book, Gerhard Mantel looks into the question which means and tools a performer should have in order to make a musical text into the intellectual and emotional experience intended by the composer. As is generally known, the 'actual music' does not exist in the printed work. But which are the aesthetic and creative criteria for how the performer can, or has to, treat the musical text in order to interpret it and explain it to the listener?

The musical imagination, the inner anticipation of the musical effect, is a vital condition for an interpretation. In addition, it is important to know, however, whereupon this effect is based and how it can be achieved.

Based on decades of concert and teaching experience, the author leads the reader to a unity of knowledge, planning, intuition and emotion and thus to an 'interpretation technique' which is indispensable to an inspired interpretation and can be achieved by every musician in his/her very personal form.