Conference Agenda
The Online Program of events for the 2026 AMS Annual Meeting appears below. This program is subject to change. The final program will be published in early November.
Use the "Filter by Track or Type of Session" or "Filter by Session Topic" dropdown to limit results by type. Some of the sessions are also color-coded: purple indicates performances, grey indicates paper forums, and orange indicates sessions which have been organized by one of the regional associations of IMS (ARLAC or IMSEA). (Sessions which are both IMS sessions and performances are only colored orange.)
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Please note that all times are shown in the time zone of the conference. The current conference time is: 1st Sept 2026, 02:57:47am EDT
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Daily Overview |
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Mozart and Compositional Process Session Chair: Catherine Coppola | |
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Mozart and the modest paradox of improvisation The University of Western Ontario, The term improvisation has attracted rival definitions in the critical and analytical literature. Although some theories confine improvisation to specific musical genres (as when Rousseau says that the fantaisie ceases to exist upon being written down), most cast improvisation across a wider field, with the main debate turning on the role of convention in the practice (e.g., Dahlhaus, Richard Kramer, and Treitler). In Schenkerianism, for example, writing “aus dem Stegreif” allows composers to resist producing pieces that sound conventional, or like “patchwork.” In studies in music cognition, in contrast, convention is integral to improvisation (and composition). The discipline’s comparisons of galant pieces to mainstream jazz or to realized commedia dell’arte scenarios (cf. Baragwanath, Gjerdingen, and Sanguinetti) indicate that much invention takes place before pen is put to paper—the topoi and schemata, along with the form. Here, improvisation means applying a rule. This paper tests these positions against some musical examples. Although most come from Mozart, the first ones turn to the Miles Davis Quintet from the early ‘60s. These sessions show an interest in form not as ready-made, but as itself a site for creative engagement. In Davis, improvisation is a way to “free one from the constraints of memory,” as Matthew Aucoin says about composition more widely. This more committed activity—improvisation as form-creating spontaneity—prevails with Mozart, too. Although his concertos might seem the genre most receptive to schematic writing, some of his sketches show otherwise. In passage-work in K. 466 and K. 503, for example, Mozart’s first inspiration evidently did not sound spontaneous enough to him. Upon reflection, it seemed overly formulaic, and he had to work (a little bit) to bend the formula to meet the needs of the piece at hand. Here, improvisation means, more liberally, inventing a rule. A paradox thus besets improvisation, although of the modest rather than earth-shaking variety. For conceiving improvisation as spontaneity with purpose (as Cavell does, glossing Kant) appears paradoxical only when the musical score is taken exclusively as a place where meanings get coolly fixed, instead of also as a place that fuels the fires of invention. | |