Dictionary of Music - Birding America

308 performance practicewhich usually were performed only once for anaudience of observer-participants. Unlike these, performanceart clearly separates audience and artist.The first notable performance artists worked as soloperformers. One of the most successful, LaurieAnderson (1947– ), an accomplished sculptor andphotographer as well as a classical violinist by training,created a work called United States (1978–83)in four hour-long sections that include songs,accompanying instruments, taped sound, lighting,and slide and film projections. Another notable performanceartist, Meredith Monk (1943– ), originallyprimarily a dancer and choreographer, alsocomposed, directed, designed, and made films topresent in mixed media performances. By the early1980s the predominantly solo works of performanceart were giving way to more complex collaborativeefforts bordering on music theater or opera andinvolving numerous creators and performers. Aswith much avant-garde music of this period, the distinctionsbetween performance art, theater, opera,and other genres became more and more blurred.See also MIXED MEDIA; MUSIC THEATER.performance practice The manner of performinga musical work as it would have been at the timeof its composition. The term nearly always refers tomusic of the past. Over the centuries musical conventions,instruments, tempos, tuning, and numerousother details have changed drastically. Moreover,musical scores cannot define all thecharacteristics of a performance. Consequentlyattempts to produce a historically accurate performancemust rely on whatever information is available,in other compositions of the period, contemporarywritings, and the like. Similar problems arisewith non-Western music, which in many casesrelies entirely on an oral tradition. Presumably theavailability of modern recording equipment willgreatly simplify this task for future generations performingthe music of our time. See also PERIODINSTRUMENTS.Pergolesi (per gô lā′zē), Giovanni (jô vän′ē),1710–1736. An Italian composer who is rememberedchiefly for a single work, La Serva padrona(“The Maid as Mistress”), which is considered thefirst important comic opera (see under OPERA). Duringhis short life Pergolesi wrote a number of otheroperas, both serious and comic, as well as choral andinstrumental music.Peri (per′ē), Jacopo (ja′cô pô), 1561–1633. AnItalian composer who is remembered for writingwhat was probably the first opera, Dafne (1597),which has been lost, followed by Euridice (1600).Peri was one of the group of Florentine noblemenand artists known as the CAMERATA. (See OPERA.)period In music up to about 1900, a portion of amelody, made up of two or more phrases (that is, agroup of eight, twelve, or sixteen measures) andending with a cadence (see PHRASE). It has beendefined as a “complete” musical thought, comparableto a sentence in prose. In twentieth-centurymusic, some composers have applied the idea ofsuch divisions not only to melody but to rhythm(groups of beats) and other elements of music.period instruments A term applied to historicmusical instruments or modern reproductions ofthem, used for performing the music of earlier periods(Renaissance, baroque, early classical, etc.).Until the mid-twentieth century, music from about1700 on was routinely performed on modern instruments.Since then there has been increasing interestin more closely reproducing the original sound ofsuch music, by using the instruments of the composer’stime.Perotin (pe rô taN′). Also, Latin, Perotinus (per ô′tin əs; per ō tī′nəs). A French composer of the latetwelfth and early thirteenth centuries who was thesecond great master of the school of Notre Dame, inParis, where he succeeded Leonin. He was notedparticularly for his clausulae, in which he used threeand even four voice-parts (see CLAUSULA). He alsowas among the first to follow the RHYTHMIC MODESin all the voice-parts. See also ARS ANTIQUA.PerotinusSee PEROTIN.perpetuum mobile (per pet′ oo — əm mō′bi le)Latin: “perpetual motion.” Also, Italian, moto per-