ABSTRACT
The history of dissonance—as well as its corollary, consonance—can be thought of as a long improvisation full of different voices, shifting definitions, and changing attitudes. A detailed history of the concept of dissonance is well beyond the scope of this short essay, 1 which instead theorises dissonance in relation to musical improvisation, focusing in particular on one performance of improvised music that was widely perceived to be highly dissonant. But first, I will provide a brief gloss on the concept of dissonance itself.
