Hindemith’s Musical Enigmas Through the Eyes of Bach
(2023)
author(s): Kaat Schraepen
published in: KC Research Portal
Taking the audience on a journey is always an important goal of mine while performing. My research was created not only to add to my knowledge but more importantly to my performance and my connection to the audience. Throughout my research I uncover the enigma of Bach as an inspiration for Hindemith. What connects these two composers living 200 years apart? How do we connect the ‘new and modern’ to the ‘old and familiar’? Is Hindemith in fact 'Bach with a modern twist'? By discovering the similarities and differences between Bach’s 6th Cello Suite and Hindemith’s Solo Sonata Op.25 No.1, through background research and putting their structure and harmony in relation to each other, a new world of interpreting both composers opened up to me. The research makes my performance more involved but also allows me to take the listener by the hand, guiding them through this more ‘modern’ music by Hindemith and his contemporaries such as Max Reger, by accompanying his music with Bach, and accompanying the music with short metaphorical stories highlighting the composers' similarities as well as different approaches. Engaging the audience, allowing them to open their ears and view the music in a new light.
Zum Spielen und zum Tantzen
(2016)
author(s): Tormod Dalen
connected to: Norwegian Artistic Research Programme
published in: Journal for Artistic Research
This exposition presents the artistic research project 'Zum Spielen und zum Tantzen: A Kinaesthetic Exploration of the Bach Cello Suites through Studies in Baroque Choreography’, undertaken at the Norwegian Academy of Music between 2009 and 2012. I offer a historical background, discuss the method used, and present the artistic results in the form of video and audio files.
The dance titles of J. S. Bach's cello suites, derived from French court dance, clearly meant more to the composer than just abstract references. In Bach's time, dance practice permeated social life, and an intimate knowledge of fashionable dance forms was indispensable for a musician. The movements and gestures of these dances inevitably had a profound influence on performance style.
I have investigated how the practice of Baroque dance could influence my interpretation of the Bach suites. Learning the essentials of this style and its original choreographies and frequently accompanying dancing, I also explored the dance aspect of the cello suites by way of experiments with historical tempos as well as melodic and rhythmic reductions of the musical material.
Through this project, I hope to make a worthy contribution to the development of performance practice studies, offering a recontextualisation of Bach’s work that emphasises the close links between the expressive gestures of music and dance. The results have both artistic and pedagogic potential as tools to discover essential aspects of dance character in Baroque music.