Research Catalogue

an international database for artistic research

• 3. Internal publication Research published in this issue are only for internal circulation within the Royal Conservatoire, The Hague.
• 2. Royal Conservatoire Investigations Royal Conservatoire Investigations
• 1. Master Research Projects All research in KC

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  Comparisons of Perspective in the Empfindsamer Stil: How the music of Carl Philipp Emmanuel Bach represents a microcosm of an emerging cultural initiative (2014) author(s): Kristen Huebner published in: KC Research Portal
  Name: Kristen Huebner Main Subject: Traverso Research Coaches: Inês de Avena Braga and Jacques Ogg Title of Research: Comparisons of Perspective in the Empfindsamer Stil: How the music of Carl Philipp Emmanuel Bach represents a microcosm of an emerging cultural initiative Research Question: What are the musical tools available to musicians which can be used to unlock the complex understanding of the Empfindsamer Stil? Research Process: My research process has been the result of years working and performing the 1788 Quartets for Keyboard, Flute and Viola by Carl Philipp Emmanuel Bach. Besides a deep musical analysis of these three works, the main body of my research has dealt with the developing style which is commonly associated with this music, that of Empfindsamkeit or Empfindsamer Stil. The English translation equating to “sensitive style” is often associated with the Sturm und Drang, a highly influential literary movement of the 1770s. After reading much of the actual literature of the Sturm und Drang, including Johann Wolfgang Goethe’s Die Leiden des jungen Werthers, I set out to draw a distinction between the terms Empfindsamkeit and Sturm und Drang. Carl Philipp Emmanuel Bach’s ersuch ber die ahre rt das lavier u spielen provided the springboard for my musical analysis of the Quartets and a subsequent categorization of three distinct musical characteristics used to describe the music of the Empfindsamkeit. Summary of Results: Having its origins in literature, the Sturm und Drang aimed to represent an artistic struggle showing the depths and extremes of the human experience, working most often in contradiction with the mainstream Enlightenment ideology of the time, which was founded and based on man’s ability to reason. Breaking away from this restrictive model, the Sturm und Drang influence crept further into cross-disciplines of poetry, theater and painting, yet striking deepest in the most ambiguous and indefinable of arenas, music. The Quartets of Carl Philipp Emmanuel Bach surprised and demanded a more explicit and contemplative attitude in order to perform with any real consciousness or effect. In addition to shifting roles in instrumentation with the keyboard asserting dominance over the supporting flute and viola, I have explored rhythmic manipulation and surprise, in addition to dynamic juxtaposition. Perhaps most taxing for the performer of these Quartets is the abruptness with which one must make changes in mood and character; drastic intervallic leaps, modulation to strange keys and an intentional disruption of the rhythmic pulse all contribute to a sense of impulsiveness, the suggestion of something that cannot be predicted and should be performed with an equal amount of surprise. The presentation will take the form of an informative demonstration combining live musical examples with visual representations of paintings and portraits of key figures in a PowerPoint presentation.
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  A Musicians’ View on Cooperating with Composers: The influence of composers on the performance practice (2014) author(s): Martin van Hees published in: KC Research Portal
  Name: Martin van Hees Main Subject: Guitar Research Coach: Patrick van Deurzen Title of Research: A Musicians’ view on cooperating with composers Research Question: What is the influence of a composer on the performance practice of a performer when playing the composers’ composition? Research Process: An introduction and short analysis of five compositions will be presented in the research process. A meeting with the composer will take place and issues regarding musical ideas and technical difficulties will be discussed. Before meeting the composer a thorough analysis regarding the way of performing the composition will be made. All the important decisions, musically and technically will be mentioned. A sound recording of the composition will be made in this stage. During the meeting with the composer the composition will be played, recorded and reviewed. There will be an interview held with questions regarding the composition and with questions regarding the opinion of the composer concerning the performance practice. After meeting the composer, an analysis of the interview will be made. A reconsideration of the interpretation of the composition will be made. The composition will be recorded again. A comprehensive analysis of the cooperation will be made and a conclusion will be drawn. Summary of Results: Throughout the research I discovered that it is helpful to play the composers composition in advance to them, before actually performing it. When a performer has sincere affection with a certain composition it is worth to share this affection with its creator. A performer has to be aware that a composition is a changeable piece of art, so a composer can always change the performer his opinion on the piece, even if the performer disagrees, both parties should come to a common solution. As regarding the changes that are made before and after the meeting with the composer, they are audible on the sound recordings at https://soundcloud.com/martinvanhees
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• Fontegara as researcher (2014) author(s): Nuno Atalia published in: KC Research Portal
  Name: Nuno Galego Marques Atalaia Rodrigues Main Subject: Recorder Research Coaches: Paul Scheepers and Rebecca Stewart Title of Research: Ganassi as researcher, Practice based research and new horizons for HIP Research Question: What changes when I start reading treatises of the past as the result of a practice based research not unlike my own? Research process: The following questions have guided my research and relationship with the XVII century recorder treatise La Fontegara: Was Ganassi an artistic researcher? Can his 1535 treatise, La Fontegara, be thought of as the result of sixteenth century practice based research? What will change in our relationship to documents of the past once we look at them as analogous to our own artistic concerns? What could this understanding of artistic research as a trans-historic event mean for Early Music in particular? My research and thesis leads me to a close reading of Ganassi’s recorder and diminution treatise La Fontegara, trying to go beyond the text and its possible literal meanings and tracing the lost instrumental practice of diminution. With this first treatise of its kind, Ganassi inaugurates an age of instrumental literacy, which has irrevocably shaped our perception of musical practice. By linking the document to its biographical, social, theoretical and practical roots I try to sketch out the possible influences and projects (both political and artistic), which took part in making this work possible, helping to understand the trans-historic significance of research in defining a place for the artist within broader society. Also, I take the chance to reflect how this critical intimacy I establish with the work changes the very core of my identity as a recorder player by shaping my practice as a dialogue with a distant and mostly silent past. Summary of Results: The goal of this research is to stress the importance of research in the arts in redefining the role of the musician within society and of opening up a new wave of debate with which to vitalize the historically informed performance movement. Ganassi’s La Fontegara is a document that holds a far greater importance than that of a simple recorder tutor, which positioned it as the first document in the project of emancipation of instrumentalists and their music. Furthermore, the document should be seen as a vital part of the XVII century propaganda project of diffusing the myth of Venice through its use of speculative music tropes such as the theory of proportions. FInally, I wish to rethink our present relationship to these documents as performers. They were not musical cookbooks but rather crystallizations of a continuous struggle between the performer’s knowledge and his need to describe it. To read La Fontegara, is to go beyond the treatise and speculate on the oral practice from which it stems.
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  how musicians use their brains (2014) author(s): Enno Voorhorst published in: KC Research Portal
  When our modern brain developed 100,000 year ago, it perfectly suited the circumstances of that time. Therefore, we remember some things very easily like faces, tastes, routes and also music as a part of the social interaction. Music is an essential feature of the human existence and that is why when we hear a song we like, we will most likely recognize it easily the next day. This is why commercials use images, logos and rhyming texts together with jingles. The information stays in our minds easily, and more completely when it is repeated often. I will refer to this as the natural memorization path. Memory athletes are able to learn the order of cards in 30 decks within an hour. What they use is the natural memorization path. Simply put, they take a route in their own house, and place images on this route. After learning this they walk along this route and find all the images in the right order. This system is called the Loci-system and was used already by the Greeks. Musicians can also use the natural memorization path because music also settles easily in our mind. Hearing a song even once is often enough to have it settle in our brains. For musicians, this is a very practical tool for memorization but first some work has to be done. I will go into this later. We can learn more easily, more quickly and, above all, with much more enjoyment. The work that has to be done is developing a solid and immediate translation from the music in our mind to the instrument. For this solfeggio, harmony and analysis are essential tools. Finally, I will provide some practical tips for a high-functioning brain to learn and to memorize music.
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• To understand staff notation aurally (2014) author(s): Suzanne Konings published in: KC Research Portal
  Name: Suzanne Konings Main subject: Master of Music Theory Research coach: Lázsló Nemes Title of research: What's in a name? The relation between pitch notation, note names and sight singing in different forms of pitch notation and in different ways of approaching pitch notation Research questions: Are absolute note names necessary in sight singing, when reading pitch notation on the stave relatively? Mental process: one sees ‘do’ (a name that indicates a function) and thinks ‘F’ (indicating a pitch). Are relative note names necessary in sight singing, when reading pitch notation on the stave ‘absolute’? Mental process: one sees ‘F’ (a name that indicates a pitch) and thinks ‘do’ (indicating a function). Abstract: Sight singing is a part of almost every music theory curriculum in conservatoires. But one might ask oneself why lessons in sight singing are needed for students who can already read music notation? The answer usually is: to develop the aural imagination in relation to music notation. The way students have learned to read music notation in the first place did not develop this skill well enough then? Experiences in teaching made me think that we need functional note names (unique sound names) to be able to aurally understand pitch in staff notation, and that the absolute note names (unique pitch names) may be an instrumentally useful, but less effective step ‘in between’ in aural imagination. From existing literature and recorded tests with students performing special designed scores I hoped to learn more about connecting the inner hearing world to music notation in the most effective way. Biography Suzanne Konings studied music theory and musicology and has been the head of the music theory department in the Royal Conservatoire The Hague since 2004. From 2009 she has been specialising in teaching music according to the Kodály concept. Together with colleagues in and outside the conservatoire she is organising training programmes for teachers and musicians in elementary schools, music schools and higher music education. She teaches musicianship classes for students in the Royal Conservatoire and the National Youth Choir of the Netherlands.
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• Searching for the Top Range in Early Nineteenth Century Bassoon Repertoire from Sweden: Issues of Material and/or Technique?' (2014) author(s): Donna Agrell published in: KC Research Portal
  It is not uncommon to find a range of three full octaves in late eighteenth century and early nineteenth century bassoon repertoire, but passages ascending above b-flat' or c' were relatively rare. Composers active in Stockholm at the beginning of the nineteenth century such as Bernhard Crusell, Eduoard Dupuy, Franz Berwald and Eduard Brendler wrote pieces encompassing a range of Bb – to e-flat'', inspired by the Preumayr brothers, in particular the youngest, Frans Preumayr, who was an internationally known soloist and principal bassoonist in the Swedish Royal Orchestra from 1811–1835. In conjunction with my current PhD research in the docARTES program at Leiden University and the Royal Conservatoire in the Hague, dealing with early nineteenth century bassoon repertoire in Sweden, one of my goals was to discover the means of reaching these top notes and integrating them into a fluid technique which would enable historical bassoonists to perform this extraordinary repertoire composed for the virtuoso Preumayr. I wondered if the keys to the high register might be found in a special reed type, or a physical technique involving, for example, jaw position? Was Frans Preumayr's ability dependent on a particular model of bassoon? Or could other factors be involved that I hadn't yet considered?
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