(un)Romantic / Improvising Interpretation
(2025)
author(s): Ingfrid Breie Nyhus, Live Maria Roggen
published in: Norwegian Academy of Music
The artistic research project "(un)Romantic / Improvising Interpretation" 2021-2024 was led by vocalist/composer Live Maria Roggen and pianist/composer Ingfrid Breie Nyhus at the Norwegian Academy of Music, funded by the Norwegian Artistic Research Programme.
The explorations have concerned creative interpretation and aesthetical language, through improvising together as a duo: What can an interpretation be or become? Where does a story live? What is Romantic and what is unRomantic? Where does the ‘new’ begin and where does the ‘old’ go?
The figure of Eugenia Osterberger, the forgotten Galician romantic composer
(2025)
author(s): Mariña Palacio Fernández
published in: KC Research Portal
Throughout our musical history, many female composers’ figures and legacies have always remained overshadowed in the male-dominated realm of 19th- and 20th-century music. Eugenia S. Osterberger (1852–1932) is one of them: a remarkable and overlooked Galician composer who blended Galician and Spanish traditional music with European academic styles. This research aims to shed light on Osterberger's life and work by performing her compositions with my instrument addressing the central question: “How can I share it engagingly with the audience?”. To carry out this project, the methodology involves a literature review of Eugenia’s context, story, and compositions; archive fieldwork to find the scores; the process of arranging and adapting her music for oboe or English horn; identification of Galician and Spanish folklore footprints and other styles in her pieces; and revision of tools for engaging audience. The culmination of this research will be to have all the essential tools to be able to create a performance that combines narration and music to bring Osterberger's legacy to life, making the audience enjoy and connect with my emotional engagement and with the composer. In addition, it is intended to make a new contribution to the repertoire for oboe and English horn and raise awareness of under-represented voices in music history, which may inspire others to rediscover forgotten composers.
Srrjei – sörj ej att din sköna tid förflutit
(2024)
author(s): Ingfrid Breie Nyhus, Live Maria Roggen
published in: VIS - Nordic Journal for Artistic Research
What is a narrative, when it moves through time and history, when it moves through bodies? The narrative is always in danger of dying, until it is picked up and given new movement into new contexts. Where does the new begin? Where does the old one go? Vocalist Live Maria Roggen and pianist Ingfrid Breie Nyhus have over several years investigated duo music that was once romantic music. Through time, body, forgetfulness, fallibility – and improvisation as a method – the music has merged with the whims, derailments and backtracks of the inner sound and the duo's body. Where does the narrative live in the next moment?
The use of the horn in the late orchestral works by Robert Schumann
(2023)
author(s): Márton Kóródi
published in: KC Research Portal
When I played a Schumann piece, Genoveva Overture, for the first time, I was wondering, because there were Ventilhorn and Waldhorn parts. I could not imagine what his idea was when he wrote for four horns, but still used two different kinds of the same instrument. Did he want to express something with this set-up? Beside this, I did not understand why he, and other romantic composers, use so much transposition when they had already a completely chromatic instrument.
As I started to get to know and play the natural horn, it was getting clearer what his intention could have been. Why he used an ‘ancient’ instrument, though he could compose for four chromatic horns. This made me even more interested, and I also got more questions and hypotheses about the topic, for what I wanted to find an answer.
In my research, I tried to get to know the use of the horn in the middle of the 19th century. I wanted to get familiar with the contemporaries’ imagination about the old and new instrument, and with the way how they used them. Then, with this knowledge, I analysed Schumann’s orchestral works, especially the horn parts, and tried to find out if the results are matching with the background research.
My aim was too, show the horn players, that the romantic horn playing is not only about the ‘holy’ valve horn, but something more complex and colourful.
Man's struggle for salvation: A programmatic interpretation of Franz Liszt's B minor Sonata
(2023)
author(s): Leone Monaco
published in: KC Research Portal
Research question: “What can be learned about the programmatic relationship between Franz Liszt’s B Minor Piano Sonata and its programs?”
My research started as an investigation of the traditional programmatic relationship between Franz Liszt B minor Piano Sonata and Goethe’s Faust, but it had an unexpected outcome: Liszt B minor Sonata can be programmatically connected to multiple programs at the same time. Through the study of symbols behind themes and harmonies used by the composer, connections with other compositions, and the composer’s notes and letters, my research explains why and how the Sonata is programmatically inspired by Goethe’s Faust, Milton’s Paradise Lost and the Bible not only in its structure, but also from a philosophical and spiritual point of view.
I propose to look at the Sonata in a different way, considering a more general and Christian “leading thought” which connects all its possible programs and permeates the whole work: Liszt’s Sonata tells the story of every man and his lifetime struggle against temptations and damnation to reach salvation. At the end, I give practical suggestions on the interpretation of specific passages of the Sonata based on the considered symbolic connections with its programs and composer’s notes.
The chosen format of presentation is the exposition, because it gives me the possibility not only to include explanatory pictures and score excerpts, but also to use my own recordings to explain better the symbolism of themes or harmonies in certain passages and to show the practical and interpretive outcomes of my research.
An Approach to Romantic cello playing in Brahms's time
(2020)
author(s): María Cadenas Rodríguez
published in: KC Research Portal
The revolution of sound recording at the beginning of the 20th century influenced classical performance practice, setting definitive interpretations and eradicating more personal approaches to music-making. Many fundamental expressive devices were lost over the years and thus Romantic musical performance was no longer understood in the same way. This is why my research tries to look backwards in time with the aim of exploring the main attributes of Brahms’s Romantic style in music for string instruments. My research aims to: (1) understand lost Romantic expressive devices and how they worked, and (2) explore ways of using them today. I first analysed primary and secondary literature to establish context. Then I examined historical edited cello scores by Brahms, using them to show the different fingerings and slurrings provided by the main cellists of the period, which give us a clear idea about the use of portamenti, for example. Finally I listened to cello and string quartet early recordings to hear sonic evidence of these techniques, before applying them in Brahms's chamber music for cello. The main outcome I found is that diverse and emotional approaches to music-making made the Romantic period unique. I hope these tools can encourage today’s cellists and string players in general to create new, more personal, freer and more creative approaches to playing Romantic repertoires.
Adrien-François Servais’s contribution to the evolution of the cello technique
(2016)
author(s): Aurore Montaulieu
published in: KC Research Portal
Student name and number: Aurore Montaulieu, 3048780
Main subject: Cello
Research supervisor: Dr. Anna Scott
Research Paper Title: How Adrien-François Servais (1807-1866) Improved the Cello Technique During the 19th Century
Research Question: With particular focus on his scores, how did Adrien-François Servais advance cello technique in the middle of the 19th century, and with what implications for modern performers?
Summary of Results: Widely considered to have been the 'Paganini of the Cello,' Adrien-François Servais (1807 - 1866) was one of the most famous cellists of the 19th century, and is best known today for his 6 Caprices Op. 11. Many modern performers however are unaware of Servais’s numerous and important contributions to the history of cello construction, playing style, and technique. After a brief overview of notable cellists (including Duport, Romberg, and Dotzauer) and playing techniques (including vibrato, portamento, and bow-holds) that coexisted at the beginning of the 19th century, this research paper goes on to examine Servais’s life and work as an independent concert artist. While Servais did not leave behind any methods or treatises, a close study of contemporaneous accounts of his playing style, technique, instrument preferences, concert programs, and his association with many of the leading composers of his day reveals his enduring contributions to the rise of the cello as a vehicle for the new Romantic virtuoso style. Most notable among these contributions were his standardization of the use of the endpin, his wide-ranging and successful career as a touring performer, and the invaluable impression he left on the younger generation of cellist-composers (including Davidov and Popper). It is however an in-depth analysis of his Fantaisie 'Souvenir de Saint-Pétersbourg' Op. 15 that ultimately reveals the most revolutionary and innovative aspects of his technique and playing style: from his fingering, shifting, and use of harmonics, to his bowing, phrasing, articulation, arpeggiation, use of thumb position, and extroverted approach - elements that have all gone on to form the basis of modern cello playing. During my presentation I intend to provide an overview of these findings, and to demonstrate evidence of Servais's technical and stylistic achievements as revealed by his Fantaisie Op. 15 on my own instrument.
Biography:
Aurore Montaulieu is a French cellist. Born in Cannes, she started her musical studies at the age of 4. In 2012, she graduated with her Bachelors degree from the Pôle Supérieur of Paris-Boulogne-Billancourt in Hélène Dautry’s class. Aurore is currently in the Orchestra Masters program at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague in Michel Strauss and Jan-Ype Nota’s class. She has had the opportunity to receive guidance from great musicians such as F. Helmerson, G. Hoffman, P. Wispelway and D. Geringas. In 2012, she joined the Orchestre de Paris’s Academy and is a member of the Gustav Mahler JugendOrchester since 2014. Aurore Montaulieu plays a Roberto Masini cello built for her in 2010.
The artistic research project "(un)Romantic / Improvising Interpretation" 2021-2024 was led by vocalist/composer Live Maria Roggen and pianist/composer Ingfrid Breie Nyhus at the Norwegian Academy of Music, funded by the Norwegian Artistic Research Programme. The explorations have concerned creative interpretation and aesthetical language, through improvising together as a duo: What can an interpretation be or become? Where does a story live? What is Romantic and what is unRomantic? Where does the ‘new’ begin and where does the ‘old’ go?open exposition comments (0)
What is a narrative, when it moves through time and history, when it moves through bodies? The narrative is always in danger of dying, until it is picked up and given new movement into new contexts. Where does the new begin? Where does the old one go? Vocalist Live Maria Roggen and pianist Ingfrid Breie Nyhus have over several years investigated duo music that was once romantic music. Through time, body, forgetfulness, fallibility – and improvisation as a method – the music has merged with the whims, derailments and backtracks of the inner sound and the duo's body. Where does the narrative live in the next moment?open exposition comments (0)