Creative resistance as a performance tool

This article explores the idea of ‘resistance’ in the performance of Western art music, with resistance defined as the kind of creative energy that confronting obstruction can bring. Borrowing terminology from Richard Sennett’s The Craftsman, the discussion considers how resistance can be both found and made, and explores its role – using evidence from a documented collaboration – in the dynamic process of invention that emerges at the borders between players, composers, instruments and materials. This process is then investigated in case studies involving music by Fauré, Liszt and Brahms, where resistance becomes a tool in the active remaking intrinsic to composer/performer-generated works.