Diaz-Latorre Xavier. The French lute and its sound.
Playing and rediscovering the early music repertoire up to the late eighteenth century raises many questions and problems. One of the main challenges is the search for and shaping of the sound of the instrument. In illustrations of lutenists from the seventeenth century, one can observe a particular posture of the hands that one rarely, if ever, sees on stage today. This research aims to investigate the possible sound of the lute from a historically informed practice through an in-depth iconographic analysis, with a particular focus on paintings of French lutenists in the seventeenth century, and from the study of various related descriptions from lute books and treatises.
By applying all the parameters we can extract from the various primary sources, a specific sound of the instrument will be formed, paving the way for further research on this topic. This research aims to be a practical approach to the performance practice of this music on the eleven-course lute, and will be documented in the form of 3 CDs of music by Vieux Gaultier, Charles Mouton, and Gallot d’Angers.
Huszca Joanna. The eloquent virtuoso: The early seventeenth-century violin repertoire and its influence on the later development of the instrument’s idiom.
What would be the concept of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century violin virtuosity? Does our current understanding of virtuosity connect to this concept or rather to the nineteenth-century idea of effortless speed? This project takes these questions as the starting point for an investigation into the (perhaps) lost aspect of meaningful virtuosity that serves the dramatic dimension of a composition rather than acting as an entertaining form of entertainment.
In this regard, the researcher focuses on some of the first Italian violin virtuosos, who were not only appreciated instrumentalists but also distinguished pedagogues who bequeathed important educationally edited score collections. Through their talented students, a pedagogical legacy was created that continued until the end of the eighteenth century and exerted a musical influence far beyond Europe. In this way, some technical and rhetorical tools continued to work for later generations of violinists, even to the present day.
It is therefore essential to identify them and to make their music more available to a wider audience and musicians from disciplines other than HIPP. The contributions of the relevant Italian violin virtuosos will be included in addition to current historical violin lesson curricula. This will allow for a more complete and thorough exploration of the early violin repertoire, avoiding the exclusive study of Baroque or Classical “standard works” such as those by J.S. Bach or W.A. Mozart.
Verdegem Stefaan. Historical reed instruments
Verdegem's research focuses on historical wind instruments, in particular the double reeds; see the research projects below and the complete publication list.
1. Donizetti and the Concertino for English horn.
Gaetano Donizetti’s Concertino for English horn (1816) is probably the most important nineteenth century concerto for this specific instrument, and certainly the most performed. Fifty years after Robert Meylan’s edition (Litolff / Peters) based on the autograph score located in the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, the source material needed to be reconsidered, resulting in a new critical edition of this piece. Not only is this piece to be performed in another key, moreover, the parts material for the première of 19 June 1817 at the Liceo Filarmonico in Bologna shows many corrections and variations, and this gives interesting insights in the performance practice of that era, including written out cadenzas, likely by the soloist and dedicatee Giovanni Catolfi.
2. Fourteen Leipzig oboes from the time of J.S. Bach (in collaboration with Marcel Ponseele).
Since the early music revival of the last century musicians have been looking for appropriate period instruments— being either originals or copies. Contradictory to the principles of Historically Informed Performance Practice, preference is often given to all-round woodwind instruments playing at c. 415Hz, in order to cover the whole baroque repertoire. Although Johann Sebastian Bach is currently about the most performed baroque composer, until today most baroque oboists worldwide play his music on a copy of an English Stanesby oboe. Copies made after Leipzig oboes from the 1710–40s were not entirely successful so far, for various reasons. An examination of the surviving Leipzig oboes from the Bach era, resulting in a comparative study of measurement data brought new insights about woodwind making in this city in the second quarter of the eighteenth century, and will hopefully culminate in a good copy of a Bach oboe, which has the required qualities for today’s concert and recording purposes.
3. A Rare Jacques Albert Bass Oboe
Jacques Albert (1849–1918) could be considered as the most important Belgian oboe maker of the 19th and early 20th centuries, due to the fact that, not only was he the son of a reputed Brussels woodwind instrument maker, Eugène Albert, but also a graduate oboist at the Brussels Royal Conservatoire. The bass oboe from the Conservatoire collection likely is a unique instrument, possibly a prototype that never had any follow-up. It might have been used for the Brussels premiere of Richard Strauss' Salome in 1906, and for the creation of Raymond Moulaert’s Quatuor (1907) for oboe, oboe d’amore, English horn and bass oboe (or Heckelphone), possibly the first chamber music piece ever scoring bass oboe specifically.
Zafra Javier. (TBC)
(TBC)
Historically & Culturally Informed Performance Practices
The central focus of the research group Historically & Culturally Informed Performance Practices is the aural (and, when relevant, also visual) reality of the performance of West European historical music within its original cultural context, and the relevance thereof for present-day performances.
HIP/CIP research topics will cover typical elements of historical performance technique and style such as: instrumental / vocal techniques; acting / staging techniques; ornamentation & improvisation; tuning / temperament & pitch; tempo / metre; articulation / bowing; rhetoric / agogic; instrumentation, and ensemble disposition.
Equally acceptable, however, are topics of a more interdisciplinary character such as: the development of instrument making; aspects of music notation, theory, and composition; historical pronunciation; acoustics of historical venues; the relation performer-audience, etc.