Can we Conserve Music?

Can music be preserved at all? Why, in the first place, do we want to capture something as ephemeral as music? What exactly can be conserved and how? What makes the music? Is it the score? Is it the sonic result of its realization? Is it the process that leads to it? And how do these parameters relate to each other? What problems and challenges arise, and what solutions have been tried? To explain these various problems, we shall discuss them by taking examples from very different genres of music. For traditional music, such as a Beethoven sonata or a symphony and their interpretations, we shall also discuss the problem of different versions. One excursus here is devoted to self-playing pianos as a very special way of recording interpretations, another to the case of bootlegging (making secret, private recordings of operas, for example). The problem is different in the case of an improvisation concert by Keith Jarrett or by a free improvisation trio, in which any repetition of a unique event is considered a paradox. Finally, music concepts such as John Cage’s silent piece 4’33”, on the other hand, require different answers. There are nevertheless parallels, especially with improvisation.