Exploring plurality of interpretation through annotations in the long 19th century: musician's perspectives and the FAAM project.
(2024)
author(s): Nicholas Cornia
published in: Research Catalogue
The quest of reconciling scholarship and interpretative freedom has always been present in the early music movement discourse, since its 19th century foundations. Confronted with a plurality of performance practices, the performer of Early Music is forced to make interpretative choices, based on musicological research of the sources and their personal taste.
The critical analysis of the sources related to a musical work is often a time-consuming and cumbersome task, usually provided by critical editions made by musicologists. Such editions primarily focus on the composer's agency, neglecting the contribution of a complex network of professions, ranging from editors, conductors, amateur and professional performers and collectors.
The FAAM, Flemish Archive for Annotated Music, is an interdisciplinary project at the Royal Conservatoire Antwerp that wishes to explore the possibilities of annotation analysis on music scores for historically informed musicians.
Annotations are a valuable source of information to recollect the decision-making process of musicians of the past. Especially when original musical recordings are not available, the marks provided by these performers of the past are the most intimate and informative connections between modern and ancient musicians.
Contrary to a purely scholarly historically informed practice approach, based on the controversial concept of authenticity, we wish to allow the modern performers to reconcile their practice with the one of their predecessors in a process of dialectic emulation, where artistic process is improved through the past but does not stagnate in it.
The Limits of Traverso; Exploring the sound possibilities of traverso through contemporary music
(2020)
author(s): Dorota Matejova
published in: KC Research Portal
In ‘early music’ performance today ΄sound΄ does not get as much attention as other expressive devices, even though the sound was an inseparable part of expression in music performance in 18th century.
This research attempts to explore the traverso and its expressive sound possibilities when placed in the field of contemporary music. The tonal capabilities of the traverso will be viewed from the perspectives of both 18th century sources and modern-day ΄early΄ and ΄classical music practice΄. The research considers what have sometimes been seen as the instrument´s “limitations” and "imperfections", asking how they could be positively exploited in contemporary music. At the same time, so-called ‘extended techniques ’for the modern flute are explored on the baroque flute, by a study and performance of two contemporary compositions for traverso solo. At the end, I will be looking at how this untraditional perception of traverso sound could open up our expressive imagination in performance of the traditional 18th century traverso repertoire.
The research hopes to bring some new inspirations for traverso players as well as other ΄early music΄ performers, and to clarify the distinctive role of sound as an expressive device in early instruments. It also hopes to inspire composers to write more contemporary acoustic music using the specific sonority of this instrument. The presentation will be given in the form of performance-lecture.
16th-Century Keyboard Tablature as Performance Notation
(2020)
author(s): Christina Kwon
published in: KC Research Portal
As a harpsichordist and HIP performer, I was so fascinated with 16th-century keyboard tablature notation on my first encounter some years ago. Since then, I have been inspired to explore playing from original notation as part of my HIP training. This research is a big part of this artistic endeavor, addressing 16th-century keyboard tablature notation from Spanish and German sources and finding answers for what it is, why it was invented, why it is not in practice today, and how one may bring it back to practice. At the beginning stages of this exploration, I noticed that keyboard tablature was not really in practice as performance notation in the current HIP dialogue. I wanted to investigate why and, through this thesis, present it as a relevant, stimulating topic. This research presents historical and theoretical analysis of this notation and the results of an extensive systematic experiment-survey I devised and conducted with 32 non-musicians and musicians of all levels. Personally, the contents of this thesis have greatly deepened my understanding of historical performance of keyboard music in the 16th century and enriched my experience as an Early Music performer.
Mouvance. Approaches to re-enacting medieval music
(2020)
author(s): Jostein Gundersen, Ruben Sverre Gjertsen, Alwynne Pritchard
connected to: SAR Conference 2020
published in: VIS - Nordic Journal for Artistic Research
This exposition presents three approaches to re-enactment of medieval musical ideas, as explored through the artistic research project Wheels within Wheels. New approaches to interactions between performers and composers. The research project took place at the University of Bergen, Faculty of Art, Music and Design, Grieg Academy – Department of Music, from 2015 to 2018 under the auspices of the Norwegian Artistic Research Programme. The project led to three concerts and a sound installation. This exposition presents documentation of the results and gives an account of the research materials, tools and work methods, as well as discussing ethical and aesthetical dimensions of the working processes and the results.
Sense and Sensibility, performing music by Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach
(last edited: 2017)
author(s): Ingrid Eriksen Hagen
connected to: Faculty of Fine Art, Music and Design, University of Bergen
This exposition is in progress and its share status is: visible to all.
For Norwegian version, see the exposition "Fornuft og kjensle - å framføre musikk av Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach"
Engaging in the complex and expressive music of Bach; on the clavichord, which is as intense and nuanced as it is delicate and soft in volume; aspiring to a musical empathy in which the performer and the listener jointly experience the true content and emotion of the music – spurs a craving for closeness and intimacy.
But how close can we get? How close do we want to get?
Close enough to hear the instrument. Close enough to understand what the music is telling us – to follow all the wonderful diversions – in close up. Deepest sincerity. Tender caresses. The rush of joy. The thought that could not be – could… be… – …
But then the floor creaks. Someone turns round. I can’t hear it. Why is she playing so faintly? I don’t understand it. All those notes. So full on the whole time! So, who was that guy anyway – he lived a long time ago, right?
These are the reflections in Ingrid E. Hagen’s research fellowship project. Based on my personal encounters with the music of Emanuel Bach (1714-1788) and his concepts of musical empathy, I worked on public mediation of his music, mainly on the clavichord. I have explored the tension that exists between intimacy and distance – and have experimented with different means of achieving that intimacy, and registered the resulting resistance to these experiments.
I have reached out to people outside of the conventional concert setting, on a quest for the intimate interaction in the interests of empathic, shared experience of the music. I have performed Bach's music in the open air, at museums, for people who were not expecting to experience live music. I have investigated relationships between music and language; structural, stylistic and contextualising. Both in order to improve my own understanding and artistic empathy with the subject matter, and to investigate the ways in which different means of communicating and their use in musical mediation can influence experiences in various ways.
Through this process, I became aware of the great extent to which different concert formats or other modes of presentation influence what audiences listen to in the music, and what they gain from it.
I have worked intensively on a selection of Bach's keyboard music, and recorded the CD für Kenner und Liebhaber. Together with the final concert in November 2016, the CD represented the artistic results of my research fellowship.
My artistic method has been a reflexive process in which questions are addressed in experiments, articulated in a dialogue with the study material, be it musical, literary or artistic experience, in a constant quest for intimacy; for getting closer. I organised this non-linear approach in the form of 'tracks', which allowed me to address multiple questions in parallel and as they intersected along the way.
My research fellowship was undertaken at the Grieg Academy, Institute of Music, under the Norwegian Artistic Research Programme and was funded by the University of Bergen.
My supervisors were Professor Torleif Torgersen of the Grieg Academy, and Professor Maria Bania of the University College of Theatre and Music, University of Gothenburg, Sweden.
This exposition presents three approaches to re-enactment of medieval musical ideas, as explored through the artistic research project Wheels within Wheels. New approaches to interactions between performers and composers. The research project took place at the University of Bergen, Faculty of Art, Music and Design, Grieg Academy – Department of Music, from 2015 to 2018 under the auspices of the Norwegian Artistic Research Programme. The project led to three concerts and a sound installation. This exposition presents documentation of the results and gives an account of the research materials, tools and work methods, as well as discussing ethical and aesthetical dimensions of the working processes and the results.open exposition comments (0)