Table of Contents
The Performance Practice of Electroacoustic Music: a practice-based exchange between musicology and practice
Project presentation
Introduction
60 years after the birth of electroacoustic music, questions concerning performance practice are becoming increasingly relevant. Many composers who traditionally have been the foremost interpreters of their own music are now at old age or no longer alive. The same can be said of other important witnesses to history such as instrumentalists, conductors, technicians, studio assistants and musicians concerned with performance and sound projection. Younger generations of musicians and researchers are now becoming involved with this repertoire. For any of them, but particularly for performers, the question of how to perform a piece taking into account its specific artistic, historic and technical genesis becomes critical, considering that the technical means available nowadays are completely different from historical conditions. The disappearance of old technologies and the availability of new ones present challenges while opening up new possibilities. Different attitudes and experiences of today’s audiences must be taken into account as well. As in (instrumental) performance practice of older music, those questions lead into an area marked by the tension between historical performance practice and modern reception. The preservation of knowledge about the genesis of electroacoustic works, the original performance conditions and the development of a performance tradition is an essential prerequisite for developing an adequately informed interpretation practice. In order to gather the evidence necessary for developing adequate interpretation criteria for specific works, thorough philological investigations of different sources like sketches, scores, diagrams, photographs, films, letters and audio documents must be undertaken. The study of audio material like base recordings, working materials reflecting different compositional stages, preliminary mixes, different versions and historical performances must be done in hearing in analogy to the composition process in the studio. Hypotheses on issues like versions, number of channels, spatial configuration of sound sources and the audience’s position, channel distribution, kind and properties of technical means, dynamics and spatialization of projected audio, amplification of instruments, etc. must then be validated in a dialogue with experienced performers and historical witnesses under spatial and technical conditions corresponding to real performances. The possibility to experiment with different sound projection devices and configurations according to artistic intentions and spatial conditions is a prerequisite. Accordingly, the project aims to establish a research methodology for performance practice of electroacoustic music where musicologists and performers enter into a practice-based dialogue. Such a dialogue between theory and practice serves a double purpose: to deliver a model for research methodology and to yield concrete results with respect to compositions that can be considered exemplary study subjects in terms of the problems they present to performers. Providing methods of study and practice-validated evidence that allow performers to formulate their own interpretation criteria, the overarching objective of the project is thus to contribute to the realization of artistically adequate performances of electroacoustic works. The collaboration with the Paul Sacher Stiftung and the continuing collaboration with a select group of universities, archives, publishers, musicologists and performers constitutes a unique network allowing to integrate precious knowledge and experience and provides the basis for a broad impact.
Works studied
György Ligeti
Workshops
