Romanticizing Brahms: Early Recordings and the [De]Construction of Brahmsian Identity
(last edited: 2023)
author(s): Anna Scott
connected to: Academy of Creative and Performing Arts
This exposition is in progress and its share status is: visible to all.
Despite most pianists' claims of historical deference and creative agency, their performances of Brahms's piano works are nothing like the early-recorded performances of the composer and his students: gaps that are mediated by understandings of Brahms's Classical canonic identity, the performance norms that protect that identity, and those norms' underlying aesthetic ideology of control. This predication of Brahmsian identity on restraint leaves the composer and his students in a precarious situation, as their recordings evidence an approach that is governed by the inhibitions typically associated with Romanticism. This volume, by Anna Scott, seeks to problematize understandings of Brahms's identity: by investigating the origins and vestiges of the aesthetic ideology of control; by analysing and copying the recordings of pianists in the composer's inner circle; and by applying these pianists' styles in ways that are just as disruptive to modern notions of Brahmsian identity as their early-recorded models. In so doing, a thoroughly Romantic performance style emerges that catalyses a fundamental shift in understanding as related to Brahms's identity; thereby opening up a new palette of expressive and technical resources, and both elucidating and narrowing persistent gaps between modern and early-recorded Brahms style, as well as between what performers believe, know, and ultimately do.
Experimental Systems in Music
(last edited: 2019)
author(s): Paulo de Assis
This exposition is in progress and its share status is: visible to all.
Hans-Jörg Rheinberger’s notion of “experimental systems” has been central to the work of MusicExperiment21 since the beginning of the project. While the wider epistemological consequences of such systems have been investigated within the project by Michael Schwab, this exposition — specifically made for the SAR conference in Helsinki, 2017 — explores their practical use for the design of artistic-research experiments, providing an overview on the context and rationale of MusicExperiment21's concrete use of experimental systems. The exposition is organised in five sections: "Modes of Research" situates MusicExperiment21 in terms of existing typologies of research and knowledge production; "Rheinberger’s Experimental Systems" offers a brief overview on the notion of experimental systems, making some terminological specifications in relation to their use for artistic research; "MusicExperiment21" presents the project as a “thought collective” and as an ensemble of experimental systems; "Epistemic Complexity in Music" briefly introduces an innovative understanding of musical entities as complex assemblages of innumerable material things, preparing the reader for the project’s specific use of the notion of experimental systems; and "Series of Experiments and Modules of Research" displays the diversity of research practices, especially achieved through the use of “series” of aesthetic-epistemic experiments, and of “modules” of research. Diverse materials for further reading, as well as hyperlinks to several case studies from MusicExperiment21 complement the text.
MusicExperiment21 Timeline
(last edited: 2018)
author(s): Paulo de Assis, Lucia D'Errico
This exposition is in progress and its share status is: visible to all.
A visual representation of the complete activities of MusicExperiment21 with hyperlinks to the most relevant events, performances, publications and meetings.