For an Audience

de Paul Thom

For an Audience is a philosophical examination of the criteria for identifying, evaluating, and appreciating music, drama, and dance-art forms that necessitate performance for their full realization. Unlike his contemporaries, Paul Thom concentrates on an analytical approach to evaluating performance art. Separating this abstract entity - performance art - into its various elements enables Thom to study its nature and determine essential features and their relationships. Throughout the book, he debates traditional thought in numerous areas of the performing arts. He argues, for example, against the invisibility of the performer - the vehicle of representation in performance - then critiques Diderot's Paradox of Performance, calling it "the most extreme formulation of the traditional valorization" and declaring that such thinking must be abandoned. Several lines of reasoning are discussed and developed regarding music: Music must be understood in relation to actions rather than sounds, and improvisation is not always the performance of a musical work. Furthermore, Thom considers questions of incompleteness and authenticity in relation to the score, the score's function, and the sense in which musical performances are interpreted or are open to interpretation. Thom discusses the impact of music, drama, and dance performances on audiences, and evaluates their expectations, reception, and interpretations. He contends that audiences play an active role as interpreters, without becoming performers themselves. This audience interpretation is the final ingredient in the blending and interrelating of the performers, the performance, and the audience.