WHILE numerous studies of emotion and empathy in music from the standpoint of the listener have appeared of late, ones that explore how performers construct empathic performances have been fewer, and ones that do so with pedagogical guidance seem rare indeed. Erin Heisel has provided a valuable resource from her perspective as a skilled performer and music analyst. In my reply, I shall take two of her reflections, about the example of the masterclass and about the nature of empathy in vocal performance, in somewhat different directions, but I want to register at the outset my admiration for her challenging contribution.

Manon in the Masterclass

What lessons should we draw from the lifeless performance of the Gavotte from Manon? On the one hand, I agree with Heisel that the student's one-dimensional approach to the character contributed to an unsatisfying musical experience; on the other, I am less sure of the diagnosis that a lack of emotional identification is the main culprit. Heisel does draw from the situation some important reflections on what it means to portray characters that one might hardly emulate in real life. And yet, one is struck by the conflict between the student's emphatic pronouncement that the character was a "whore" and the virtually flat affect of her performance. Is it possible that where the student needed guidance was not in how to find something—anything—sympathetic in her character, but rather in how to channel her evidently passionate disapproval in a constructive direction? 1

In this instance, the singer might be advised to take into account the range of her character's own feelings towards her behavior. A Manon who reflects bitterly on her inability to resist "the tempter's voice" at the end of Act II, a Manon who sings in full penitent mode to her hapless beloved, des Grieux, just before her death, "Ah! would that I could now atone with all my blood for but one of the griefs you have endured through me!": this is a thoughtful Manon, capable of realizing that her persona in Act III betrays something deep inside her, one whose joy in that moment may well not be unalloyed—and one who in the end might adopt for herself some nuanced version of the student's harsh judgment.

I am not advocating a particular interpretation; I mean only to suggest a possibility within the reach of the masterclass participant. What I am describing is still in some sense an empathetic performance, only one that primarily makes use of cognitive empathy, described by Bloom (2014) as "the more coldblooded process of assessing what other people are thinking, their plans, what they believe," or more simply as "perspective taking" (Preston & de Waal, 2002), rather than emotional empathy, an empathy of identification (within the "boundaries" that Heisel carefully sets out). More generally, it seems to me that arguments parallel to Bloom's against emotional empathy as a guide to moral action can be constructed against emotional empathy as a guide to musical performance: for example, just as an empathy of identification can be biased in favor of those who are most like ourselves, so too can empathy in preparing a performance lead us to highlight the things about a character that are most like us, creating a potentially distorted or incoherent view of that character. 2 Reflecting on this and other parallels, a singer might approach empathic identification more cautiously, even and especially when that comes easily for a given role.

Many Empathies

That said, the perspective of the performer and the audience may be quite different; where the performer might interrogate her empathic identification with a given character, an audience member might instead take considerable pleasure in imagining just such an identification with the singer, the persona she projects, or both—although the capacity of an audience to imagine can go beyond even the presence of a particular representational content on stage (Walton, 1994). 3 As one of several components that make up empathy for vocal performance, Heisel identifies "audience experience"; perhaps "audience interaction" would be a better fit, since "audience experience" runs the risk of making it seem that the same kind of empathic process is involved, that there is a seamless join connecting a performer's attitude towards a character with an audience's reception of that character. 4

Further, despite the comprehensiveness of her definition, I miss the sense of a specifically musical component to her picture of empathy, one that might be shared by instrumental performance as well. It is clear when she encourages students to explore the question: "What sorts of things does the music tell us about a character that the text and story do not?" that such musical (or better music-analytical) considerations remain of vital importance, something well on display in her earlier study of songs by David Del Tredici (Heisel, 2013). I mention this not so much to point out a deficiency, but rather because it might suggest that instrumental performers have nothing to learn from her approach, a claim with which I am sure she would disagree. In fact, Robinson and Hatten (2012) already suggest ways in which aspects of vocal performance might be instructive more generally; they note that "it is probably largely because song is typically an expression of emotion in a persona that the idea arose that non-vocal music could also be such an expression" (p. 78), and later that "the (topical) adoption of vocal genres in instrumental music is one way in which a purely instrumental work can appropriate the expressive power of a persona" (p. 90).

The relationship between vocal and instrumental performance is of course never so intimate as it is in the art song repertory; here, beyond the basic conditions of performance, where presumably vocalist and pianist should be in some personal sympathy with each other, there are interesting cases of empathic mismatch. For instance, in an analysis of Schubert's song "Ihr Bild," from the song cycle Schwanengesang, Lewin (2006) entertains an interpretation in which the short piano epilogue seems to challenge the singer's state of denial: "After 'I cannot believe that I have lost you,' the piano clearly states: 'But you have lost her'" (p. 138). Lewin then goes on to consider how the singer should act during this epilogue, based on whether or not the singer "hears" the final verdict of the pianist. If the verdict is heard, the singer may well act as though shattered by the lack of empathy the accompanist displays; alternatively, the singer might feel little empathy with his or her own persona, and feel that the critique articulated in the accompaniment, as grim as it is, is a more honest assessment, or indeed remain blissfully ignorant of the pianist's trenchant remarks. These all represent different kinds of identification or non-identification between the conflicting personas of the singer and pianist; yet, whatever their emotional-empathic allegiances, it would seem advisable for the two performers to adopt a common cognitive-empathic interpretation in order to project a coherent drama.

Performers and Preferences in Conflict

I conclude by returning once more to the masterclass to explore another direction of inquiry it suggested to me: namely, how can one convincingly perform a work in which one is not emotionally invested—which one perhaps dislikes, in part or whole? 6 What indeed is the process of learning such a work? This is not merely a theoretical worry; there might be any number of contexts in which one might encounter such a situation—including high-pressure situations like auditions or masterclasses. And of course, it is certainly not the case that one always comes to like—or perseveres in liking—something that one is bound to perform for whatever reason. The process of journaling that Heisel describes might prove to be especially useful in this instance, to help students work their way through the experience with an empathy of understanding, if not one of identification.