Research Masterclass for Doctoral and Master's Students

Sponsored by the Cambridge Centre for Musical Performance Studies, Institute
of Musical Research, and Guildhall School of Music & Drama

 

3 to 5 pm, Monday 28 November 2016

Lecture Recital Room, Guildhall School of Music & Drama, Silk Street, London
EC2Y 8DT

 

A new series of 'Research Masterclasses' is being launched for music
postgraduates, especially those working in practice-based research and in
performance studies. The first event in the series will be held on Monday 28
November. The class will be led by Paulo de Assis (ERC Principal
Investigator, Orpheus Institute; Visiting Fellow, Cambridge Centre for
Musical Performance Studies) and will feature the work of two students:
Naomi Woo (University of Cambridge) and Louise Cournarie (Royal Academy of
Music). Their abstracts are given below. Each of them will give a
presentation of approximately 20 minutes, after which Dr de Assis will work
with them along the lines of a more conventional masterclass.

 

Music postgraduates at any institution are welcome to attend, but a place
(free of charge) must be requested in advance by writing to
[log in to unmask]

 

 

The next Research Masterclass will take place on Monday 27 February 2017 and
will be led by Professor Mieko Kanno (Sibelius Academy). Details will be
circulated in due course.

 

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

 

Impossibilities of and in performance: an exploration of John Cage's Etude
Australe VIII

Naomi Woo, University of Cambridge

 

Of his collection of Etudes Australes (1974), John Cage famously claimed:
'These are intentionally as difficult as I can make them, because I think
we're now surrounded by very serious problems in the society, and we think
that the situation is hopeless and that it's just impossible to do something
that will make everything turn out properly. So I think that this music,
which is almost impossible, gives an instance of the practicality of the
impossible.' Cage's reflection is geared towards the audience, and the
intended utopian effect that these works might have on their listeners.
Nonetheless, this effect itself is inherently dependent on the performer.
After all, possibility is a constraint that relies on the contingencies of a
particular performer's body. This project explores how the 'impossible'
manifests from the perspective of the pianist in Cage's Etude Australe VIII.
Is the piece impossible, and if so, how? While the impossibility might
easily be passed off as a nonsensical paradox (by performing an impossible
piece, it becomes possible), I suggest-following Eldritch Priest's
discussions of 'the aesthetics of failure'-that there is an aesthetic of the
impossible that exists outside of these paradoxical loops. Using
demonstrations at the piano, I will examine some of the specific challenges
that Cage poses for the performer. In particular, I will focus on
disjunctures between score and gesture, the coordination (and lack thereof)
between the hands, and on the role of indeterminacy and the kinds of
impossibility that each of these challenges suggest.

 

 

Baroque keyboard repertoire translated to the modern piano 

Louise Cournarie, Royal Academy of Music

 

Seventeenth- and eighteenth-century keyboard repertoire seems to have become
forbidden for modern pianists. When facing this music, pianists either
completely transform their playing in order to come closer to what they
think would be more appropriate, or choose not to play early music, leaving
this entire repertoire in the hands of harpsichordists. Only Bach and maybe
Scarlatti appear to escape this categorisation, probably due to well-known
recordings of this repertoire by pianists such as Gould or Horowitz, whose
performances became a kind of reference point. The few brave pianists
attempting to play works by Rameau, Duphly, Purcell or Handel on modern
instruments will certainly attract criticism and sometimes even the anger of
many people in the name of 'authenticity'. This concept appears to be
largely considered as the unique guarantor of the quality of a performance,
such that 'historically correct interpretations' are sometimes sought rather
than emotion and beauty.

 

But does the simple fact of performing this repertoire on a period
instrument guarantee authenticity? Is authenticity the unique goal when
playing this repertoire? And how could we convincingly perform this
repertoire on modern piano? These questions will be broached in my
presentation and the demonstrations accompanying it.