Complex transmission in a literate music tradition: a case study

How is it possible to arrive at musical sound from a written document? Is it possible by reading only? Usually a clear distinction is made between oral and written traditions in music. However, written music traditions cannot work by transmission through writing alone. Oral transmission is always part of it. In this article the complexity of transmission in a written music tradition is sounded out, using a case from late twentieth-century ‘new music’ as a starting point. Apart from written and oral transmission, the role of energetic transmission is assessed, and discrepancies between various forms of transmission are discussed.