"The etymological affiliations of "perform" lie with the old French perfournir, "to furnish or supply." And performers, indeed, furnish music, bring it to consciousness, in a profound sense bring it into being," (Plantinga 279). As an aural art, music only "lives" when it is heard. It has as many incarnations as performers and performances, each one distinctly different. A responsible performer must intimately understand each piece he will perform, not only the notes on the page, but its historical background. Several things must be understood before one can perform a piece successfully. First, a performer must analyze the piece, determine its form and harmonic structure. Second, the performer must understand the historical context of the piece. While performers debate the necessity of recreating an historically accurate performance, most agree that understanding a composers intentions for a piece aids in its performance. When these elements are combined with the performers own musical voice, a truly inspiring performance can result.
A performer must analyze a piece before performing it. Besides aiding in memorization, the analysis will give the performer direction. By identifying the form and harmonic structure of a piece, a performer can find those moments of tension and release. For instance, at the end of the cadenza in Beethoven's Piano Concerto in c minor, Op. 37 on finds an interesting moment of tension. Cadenzas from the period generally ended on a dominant seventh chord before returning to the home key in the coda. This cadenza, however, uses the customary trill at the end of the cadenza to modulate to f minor, the sub-dominant chord of c minor; then it moves to the final cadence in c minor. By delaying the return to the home key, Beethoven increased the tension already created by the exceptionally long cadenza. Pieces are full of such moment and a performer must find all of them and discover how to best express each of them.
