Seventeenth International Conference on the Arts in Society

Abstract

The pianist Ivo Pogorelich (b.1958) has been draped in controversy since the very inception of his professional career, which exploded onto the scene when Martha Argerich polemically resigned from the 1980 Chopin International Piano Competition in protest of Pogorelich’s elimination in the semi-final round. From then until now, a steadily growing chorus of criticism (from professional critics and laymen alike) has bemoaned that Pogorelich’s interpretations extend beyond the limits of artistic integrity and tumble into the realm of willfully-bizarre indulgence, narcissism, and eccentricity. Despite his undoubtedly unorthodox interpretations, it is argued that his performances are representative of a genuine attempt at a quintessentially modernist approach to the deconstruction of music—an approach that deconstructs not only the cultural conventions underlying the limits of interpretive flexibility but, more importantly, the cognitive boundaries and phenomenological dynamics that underpin any experience that we intuitively understand to be, and label as, “music.” When examined within the context of particular approaches in the psychological and neural sciences, philosophy, literary theory, and the visual arts, the ‘strangeness’ that is projected by Pogorelich’s performances can be properly understood as exploring the dialectic function of musical interpretation. As such, Pogorelich can be seen as pertaining to a larger tradition of critical questioning—comprising various modes of discourse—that probes the nature and limits of knowledge and meaning. In this way, Pogorelich is a manifestation of a larger mode of inquiry and the particular nature of his musical engagement represents a contribution of profound relevance in the history of Western music.