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.
'Curious Arts No. 6'
(last edited: 2017)
author(s): Jim Harold, Susan Brind
This exposition is in progress and its share status is: visible to all.
'Curious Arts No. 6' (a collaborative artist book work) Published by CCA, Glasgow, 2013.
ISBN: 978-0-9576732-1-2
The book work, 'Curious Arts – No. 6', results from a period of residency and research in the private library at Hospitalfield House in Arbroath on the North-East coast of Scotland. The original owners of the house, Patrick and Elizabeth Allan-Fraser, were both dedicated to the ideals of art and nature and, following their deaths in the late nineteenth century, the House has been run as a trust dedicated to developments in the visual arts, literature and music in Scotland and internationally.
Given the owners’ original ideals, the House, its library and the ensuing years of residencies hosted by the Trust, have secured Hospitalfield as a part of Scotland and the UK’s cultural heritage: it is a hidden gem. Brind & Harold engaged with the House and its collections over a 6-year period. While the intention of this book is, in part, focused by the ethos of the Allan-Fraser’s, the House, its library and collections, 'Curious Arts – No. 6' is a visual and textual analysis of the qualities of the place, particularly those of the eclectic holdings of the library, that focuses on the ideals associated with nature and landscape. The archive comes alive as soon as one asks the question: how might this historical knowledge inform our contemporary understandings of the natural world? To help answer this Brind & Harold commissioned a human geographer, Dr. Nina Morris (Edinburgh University), and the academic and curator, Dr. Francis McKee (CCA, Glasgow) to join their researches into the House and its holdings. The resulting 52 page publication includes their responses as texts, as well as a visual essay by the artists, and includes an introduction by Lucy Byatt, Director of Hospitalfield House.
Published by CCA, Glasgow, 'Curious Arts No. 6' has been produced with substantial financial support from The Royal Society of Edinburgh, along with funding from the Glasgow School of Art’s Research Development Fund, with the intention that it be freely gifted to Scottish public libraries and libraries within institutions of higher education in the UK, and selected art libraries internationally. Whilst we live in an age where the internet is proliferating as one means of knowledge storage and dissemination, private and public libraries remain invaluable as models of knowledge-gathering systems and as archives vital to our deeper understanding of the world. By gifting copies of 'Curious Arts No. 6' to libraries, Brind & Harold hope to symbolically connect the knowledge held in a small private library in Arbroath with libraries and readers elsewhere.
Curious Arts – No. 6
(last edited: 2017)
author(s): Susan Brind, Jim Harold
This exposition is in progress and its share status is: visible to all.
'Curious Arts No. 6' (a collaborative artist book work) Published by CCA, Glasgow, 2013.
ISBN: 978-0-9576732-1-2
The book work, 'Curious Arts – No. 6', results from a period of residency and research in the private library at Hospitalfield House in Arbroath on the North-East coast of Scotland. The original owners of the house, Patrick and Elizabeth Allan-Fraser, were both dedicated to the ideals of art and nature and, following their deaths in the late nineteenth century, the House has been run as a trust dedicated to developments in the visual arts, literature and music in Scotland and internationally.
Given the owners’ original ideals, the House, its library and the ensuing years of residencies hosted by the Trust, have secured Hospitalfield as a part of Scotland and the UK’s cultural heritage: it is a hidden gem. Brind & Harold engaged with the House and its collections over a 6-year period. While the intention of this book is, in part, focused by the ethos of the Allan-Fraser’s, the House, its library and collections, 'Curious Arts – No. 6' is a visual and textual analysis of the qualities of the place, particularly those of the eclectic holdings of the library, that focuses on the ideals associated with nature and landscape. The archive comes alive as soon as one asks the question: how might this historical knowledge inform our contemporary understandings of the natural world? To help answer this Brind & Harold commissioned a human geographer, Dr. Nina Morris (Edinburgh University), and the academic and curator, Dr. Francis McKee (CCA, Glasgow) to join their researches into the House and its holdings. The resulting 52 page publication includes their responses as texts, as well as a visual essay by the artists, and includes an introduction by Lucy Byatt, Director of Hospitalfield House.
Published by CCA, Glasgow, 'Curious Arts No. 6' has been produced with substantial financial support from The Royal Society of Edinburgh, along with funding from the Glasgow School of Art’s Research Development Fund, with the intention that it be freely gifted to Scottish public libraries and libraries within institutions of higher education in the UK, and selected art libraries internationally. Whilst we live in an age where the internet is proliferating as one means of knowledge storage and dissemination, private and public libraries remain invaluable as models of knowledge-gathering systems and as archives vital to our deeper understanding of the world. By gifting copies of 'Curious Arts No. 6' to libraries, Brind & Harold hope to symbolically connect the knowledge held in a small private library in Arbroath with libraries and readers elsewhere.