This article considers Roger Smalley's conception of notation from the point of view of the relationship between playing and writing. It argues that notation was one of the ways in which Smalley understood music history as a history of the relationship between composers and performers. Smalley's version of music history included several turning points, the most significant of which came with Karlheinz Stockhausen's music, which changed the relationship between performers and composers. This changing relationship brought new challenges to the notation of music, which mediates between different roles. The article focuses on different forms of notation, and the flexibility of notation, which Smalley nevertheless incorporates into a coherent picture of postwar music; and positions Smalley as one of the key figures of the changing relationships that new forms of notation mediate. The article concludes with close observations about one of the scores that Smalley annotated most heavily, David Lumsdaine's Kelly Ground (1966). These observations build on the research of Emily Payne and Floris Schuiling, who have established the value of performers' annotations in writing about the agency of musicians and the adaptability of notation.
Michael Hooper (Thu,) studied this question.