Rhetorical and Romantic affective strategies in musical performance
Short description
This project involves artistic researchers in music, musicians, and researchers in musicology and literature. In the project, we explore music’s affective potential, and the possibilities of affective participation of both players and listeners in a musical performance. We investigate the artistic opportunities created through re-enacting the affective practices and aesthetic mindsets that once went with musical performances in, on the one hand, the 18th-century sensibility culture and, on the other, the aesthetics of the Early Romantic period. We study how attitudes and behaviors from a certain aesthetic culture can affect our experience of music of that culture. Of particular interest is the dynamic transformations induced and enhanced by the sounding music and the affective interactions between all participants in the performance.
Members
- Prof. PhD Maria Bania, Academy of Music and Drama, University of Gothenburg
- PhD Tilman Skowroneck, Academy of Music and Drama, University of Gothenburg
- Prof. PhD Paul Goring, Department of Language and Literature Faculty of Humanities, NTU
- Rastko Roknic, free-lance musician
- Ellie Nimeroski, docartes
- Prof. PhD Matthew Pritchard, University of Leeds
- Prof. em. PhD Randi Margrete Selvik, NTNU
- Karin Berggren, Göteborg Opera
- Magnus Pehrsson, Göteborg Opera
- Frida Bromander, free-lance musician
Articles
- Maria Bania, "The term Affektenlehre (doctrine of the affections) and the Swedish word affekt in discussions about 17th-century and early 18th-century music." in Svensk tidskrift för musikforskning, 2021-01-01
- Bania & Skowroneck, “Affective practices in mid-18th-century German music-making: reflections on C. P. E. Bach’s advice to performers.” In Early Music
- Tilman Skowroneck, Maria Bania, "Re-enacting an eighteenth-century method for reinforcing musical expression" IMPAR Online Journal for artistic research – 2023
Book
BECOMING BEETHOVEN Re-Enacting Aesthetic Ideas and Mindsets From an Early Romantic Discourse of Musical Performance
Summary
This book explores French and German early Romantic music aesthetics from the perspective of the performer, including ways to re-enact ideas and mindsets from these aesthetics. It shows how musical performances were attributed with the potential to create an experience of synthesis between the real and the ideal, the material and the spiritual, as well as a unification or sympathy between the performers, listeners, composers, the sounding music and musical instruments. The book includes two video recordings of re-enactments of chamber music by Schubert and Beethoven in which the listeners’ real-time thoughts and feelings are visualized.
Video
A performance of music by Beethoven and Schubert took place at Jonsered Manor in September 2021 as part of the research project Rhetorical and Romantic affective strategies in musical performance. The aim was to reenact the early 19th century aesthetics of a musical performance, to explore how artistic practice and aesthetic attitudes of the period might interact, and how aesthetic mindsets might influence the artistic experience. The project is funded by the Swedish Research Council and led by Maria Bania from the Academy of Music and Drama, University of Gothenburg.
The music performed in these videos are two movements from string trios from the early 19th century: Franz Schubert's String Trio in B flat major, D.581 and Ludwig van Beethoven's Trio Op. 9 No. 1 in G major. The musicians are Karin Berggren, violin, Magnus Pehrsson, viola and Frida Bromander, cello, all active in the Gothenburg Opera Orchestra. Filming and editing was done by Kristoffer Sandberg and the sound was recorded by Erik Sikkema. The opening photograph is taken by Håkan Berg.
The performance was preceded by extensive preparations to be able to apply ideas and thoughts from the early 19th century discourse on musical performance in both playing and listening. The musicians as well as the 7 listeners who participated practiced at using aesthetic approaches, images and metaphors that are described in various texts from the period.
The lines that are added as subtitles in the videos are excerpts from the listeners' and performers' documented thoughts from the performance itself. They can be seen as personal, free thoughts, or as an unspoken conversation between the people in the room.