ABSTRACT
Musical performance in the Western classical tradition is generally considered to be a creative activity (Clarke, 1995; Gabrielsson, 1999; Neuhaus, 1973; Persson, 2001). At the same time, performances are prepared and practised to the point that the motor skills involved become automatic. Nuances of timing, trajectory, speed, and force become highly stereotyped and are repeated with minimal variation from one performance to the next (Seashore, 1938; Shaffer, 1984; Shaffer, Clarke, & Todd, 1985). There seems to be a contradiction here. How can a performance be both creative and highly automatic at the same time? Pablo Casals tells us that, after the many hours of hard work needed to prepare a new work for performance are over, “The work of preparation ruled by discipline should finally disappear, so that the elegance and freshness . . . strike us as being spontaneous” (Corredor, 1957, p. 204). How does the performer do this? How can a highly automated performance be spontaneous; or is spontaneity simply an illusion created by a skilled performer?
