The Phronetic Turn in Musical Performance: reconciling the Pharmakon of the Score with the Future of Social Enaction

The debate in contemporary musicology has long been polarized between a "textocentric" approach, focusing on the score as an autonomous object, and the perspective of Performance Studies, which emphasizes the ephemeral nature of the musical event (Cook, 2013). This paper proposes a "middle ground" through the integration of Aristotelian phronesis and Luigi Pareyson’s Theory of Formativity (1954/1988), redefining the musical score not as a static focus, but as a fundamental formative technology. Drawing on the Platonic-Derridean notion of the pharmakon (Derrida, 1972/1981), the score is analyzed as an ambivalent device: it preserves the composer's historical intentionality while simultaneously deferring its "living" presence through signs. This embodies the fundamental aporia between aesthetic Platonism (timeless value) and historical positivism (mere document). Consequently, the performer acts as a phronetic mediator whose ethical duty is to decipher this "ciphered trace" and bridge the gap between the composer's original context and the contemporary audience. By utilizing the framework of 4E Cognition (Noë, 2004) and Participatory Sense-making, the study argues that interpretative excellence lies in an "aesthetic presence" that embraces, rather than bypasses, historical alterity (Dahlhaus, 1983). The performer’s embodied and situated cognition becomes the very foundation for making "alien material" comprehensible. Ultimately, this approach transforms the score from a rigid script into a shared space of practical wisdom, reconciling the authority of the past with the vitality of the contemporary social encounter. This integrated approach transforms the performance into a shared exercise of practical wisdom between composer, performer, and audience. By respecting the score as a guiding "form" rather than a closed system, the performer enables the artwork to reveal its inexhaustible truth within a new historical and cultural context. Ultimately, this approach offers a viable path for music education and research, reconciling the authority of the past with the vitality of today's social and aesthetic experience.