Translating Musical Performance by Elisabeth Laasonen Belgrano

This exposition is a collaborative translation study of two 17th century historical sources. The aim is to search for possible ways of translating acts, words, and musical meaning from the past into new acts, words, meaning and musical performances. The following questions will be addressed: What can we learn today about a performance from 17th century? What was the sound of a voice in the 17th century like? What was the relationship between a performer and her/his audience in the 17th century? To what extent did musical sources influence a musical performance in the 17th century? How can 17th century vocality be translated and performed in a contemporary performance (research) context? The historical sources used in this study are 1) "Le Glorie della Signora Anna Renzi romana", a collection of poetry composed in honor of one of the most successful singers in Venice around 1640, Anna Renzi romana; 2) a collection of some of the most popular Roman cantatas around 1640.

Bibliography

Mazzei, L. (2014) 'Beyond and easy sense: A diffractive analysis'.

Qualitative Inquiry, Vol. 20(6) 742–746 (http://utlo.ukzn.ac.za/Libraries/Documents/Mazzei_-_Beyond_an_Easy_Sense_-_A_Diffractive_3.sflb.ashx)

van der Tuin, I. (2016) 'Reading Diffractive Reading: Where and When does Diffraction Happen?' Disrupting the Humanities: Towards Posthumanities, The Journal of Electronic Publishing, Vol. 19, Issue 2, Fall 2016 (https://quod.lib.umich.edu/j/jep/3336451.0019.205?view=text;rgn=main)

At the begining there was a musical source. Then there was the gaze of an artistic researcher, a performance scholar, a drama scholar and a musicologist. This was the beginning of a ritual diffractive reading... a beginning of a curious discourse without a goal, other than finding new potental possibilities for understanding and building future alternative performance practices ... (in progress)

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