Serenade (recorded by the Accordes! ensemble)
- Submitting institution
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University of Oxford
- Unit of assessment
- 33 - Music, Drama, Dance, Performing Arts, Film and Screen Studies
- Output identifier
- 15414
- Type
- I - Performance
- Venue(s)
- SJE Arts
- Open access status
- -
- Month of first performance
- September
- Year of first performance
- 2019
- URL
-
-
- Supplementary information
-
-
- Request cross-referral to
- -
- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
- -
- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- No
- Number of additional authors
-
0
- Research group(s)
-
-
- Proposed double-weighted
- No
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- No
- Additional information
- The recording represents the major practice-based outcome of a research project ‘Expressive Asynchrony in the Late Nineteenth-Century Orchestra’, which grew out of Holden’s AHRC-funded project Transforming 19th-Century Historically Informed Practice (TCHIP). It is the first of this kind to combine historical and archival research, practice-based experimentation and extensive empirical documentation to explore the aesthetic qualities and communicative functions of two types of expressive asynchrony: (1) the non-alignment of a melody with an accompaniment, which has already been investigated in chamber music with piano; (2), more significantly, the deliberate non-alignment of a single line played unanimously within a section. Before the advent of constant vibrato in orchestral string playing, the second type was used to create a bloom on the string section sound in expressive passages before the advent of constant vibrato.
In order to understand the complex relation between timbre and (a)synchrony in 19th-century performance practices, the project implemented the insights of TCHIP’s historical research, including the use of bespoke strings in original gauges, commissioned and manufactured specifically for the project. Holden formed an international ensemble of leading professional HIP experts in order to create a forum for high-level execution and critical engagement in this experiment, which challenged the performers’ expectations and training. Capturing individual timing data from each performer was enabled through a newly designed array of contact microphones and bespoke analysis software (Ponchione-Bailey & Clarke 2020). Player experiences from rehearsal through to final performances and recording (30 August-12 September 2019) were captured through stimulated recall methods and a 20-minute documentary (https://c19hip.web.ox.ac.uk/accordes). Recording techniques were reconfigured during the sessions in response to technical constraints to making edits during passages of asynchrony. Consequently the recording was produced in sections that were unusually large for a modern commercial release. The disc is the only period-instrument recordings of this repertoire currently available.
- Author contribution statement
- -
- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
- -
