ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book provides an overview and theoretical perspectives on musical performance and discusses the relation between sound and sign is analysed from the perspective of some scholars who are also performers and focuses on musical gesture. It outlines radical ways of performing in the field of art music: in opera, where the singing is complemented by gesture on stage, even beyond those indicated by the libretto, as often occurs in radical staging; and in experimental music of the 1960s and 1970s with its extended techniques. Social interactions radically diverge, however, according to cultural areas, peculiarities of musical genres and practices, locations or environments intended for performance, audience typologies, forms of participation and communication, participatory or presentational context and the functions that music can take on in different contexts.
