Major events that changed the instrumentalists’ performance

This article proposes to identify aesthetic currents and key events that affected music instrumentalists over the last 100 years - approximately - as well as to characterize new outcomes in music performance. The aesthetical, technical, and compositional evolution of music influenced and changed the traditional conception of the performance – that of a musician taking to the stage using only his instrument, performing an interpretation of a musical score, in a unidirectional relationship with the audience – to a multidisciplinary concept. This generalised evolution, brought new demands to the instrumentalists, who had to adapt and improve, practically autonomously. The increase of multidisciplinarity, fostered creativity, which in turn gave rise to new techniques, both in interpretation and in musical writing. In order to focus the article, it will be centred on traditional musical instruments players, and excludes instrumental music of oral and/or improvised tradition, as well as vocal interpreters.