ABSTRACT
Chopin’s performances have been scrutinized by scholars from many angles: the programs are documented, the improvisations catalogued and the reactions of critics analyzed. His students and acquaintances have meticulously reconstructed aspects of his performing technique and pedagogy – pedallings, fingerings, tone production, ornamentation and rubato – and these aesthetic ideals have been set into historical perspective. There are considerable methodological difficulties in the attempt to read Chopin’s performances as a sort of ritual performing significant cultural work. Chopin’s performance, then, is a material and bodily practice, yet strives to put materiality and corporeality under erasure. This phenomenon is not unique to Chopin. In the field of performance, to conclude, Chopin’s playing stood out for its apparent circumvention of the physical and semiotic mediations of performativity.
