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KMBB L4 Social Contexts of Keyboard Playing The‘human element’ in keyboard music: story so far L 1 Affiliation of human body and touch sensitive keyboard instruments L2 ‘Topics’ as part of a musical language rooted in this world, carrying affects and associations: rather than music as ‘pure’ and ‘absolute’ L3 Social contexts: the female amateur – music as an ‘accomplishment’; the professional composer – competition and reputation L4 What did it mean, socially, to play keyboard instruments in the 18th century? The question might seem odd – after all, isn’t playing keyboard instruments ‘about’ playing the music well? The answer is ‘yes’ but musical performance always carries social meanings – including implications for the social ‘identity’ of the player. Consider what is at stake, socially, in this scene of performance! http://youtu.be/cYT8KsJDzR4 Thinking Socially About Keyboard Playing Involves being aware of: 1. conventions of who played, what kinds of music, in what way, where, when, why (to what end) and who (if anyone) listened? 2. sources of information for those questions; 3. how our thinking (our historical moment, our intellectual frameworks, our values) might influence our answers. The ‘young lady at music’ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYe-BI66l1w What does this clip tell us about keyboard playing? Relatively Reliable Aspects of this Representation Ambiguous relationship to female agency Primarily amateur and private Links musical and physical beauty Summoning a husband (courtship) Musically ‘feminine’ character of repertoire Medium of sensibility – self-expressive; being carried away by feelings is dangerous Misleading Implications of the Clip Listened to, silently ‘Sir John was loud in his admiration at the end of every song, and as loud in his conversation with the others while every song lasted. Lady Middleton frequently called him to order, wondered how any one’s attention could be diverted from music for a moment, and asked Marianne to sing a particular song which Marianne had just finished’. Austen, S&S ch.7 Cont. Cinderella practice (the Dashwoods are newly impoverished): Musical accomplishment distinguished leisured women from the lower social orders – from servants. It was socially elevating. It testified to leisure, to education, and enhanced ‘polite society’. Conduct literature emphasised this (e.g. Meier, 1771, cited in Head 1999). As did J. Fr. Reichardt in the next slide: Misleading Implications of the Clip, cont. About personal beauty, always amateur, and a way of getting a husband (the ‘containment hypothesis’): ‘The young lady of the house [Josepha Barbara von Auernhammer] is hideously ugly! – her playing, however is enchanting ... She let me in on a plan that she keeps secret, namely that she wants to study hard for 2 or 3 more years and then go to Paris and make piano playing her profession.—She says: I am not beautiful, o contraire, I am ugly; and I don’t want to marry some petty clerk in the chancellery with a salary of 300 or 400 gulden ... I’d rather stay single and make a living off my talent’. Primary sources for understanding women’s keyboard playing • Music published specifically for ‘ladies’ • Iconography (paintings/drawings) • Conduct literature • Literary representations But once sources are identified, they still need to be ‘read’ (interpreted) and their meaning is not necessarily self-evident. What might we learn from the following two primary sources? J. Fr. Reichardt, ‘Songs for the fair sex’ (1775) ‘With due consideration for the sensitive eyes and small hands of the fair sex, I have written the middle voice that is worked into the texture, in small notes, so that you [the fair sex] may more easily distinguish the notes that are to be sung from those that are only for the clavier, and also so that you will be able to determine more readily which notes you can leave out, if the pretty little hand won’t stretch, and you would rather only play the vocal line [with the right hand]. This also applies to the small notes in the bass, so that you can find the real bass line more easily, because I was truly worried about envious [neidische], red, and squinting eyes. Gentlemen, on the other hand, often have hands that can reach three or four notes beyond the octave.’ (Preface) ‘Sovereign Feminine’: what does the illustration tell us? Sovereign Feminine argues against the ‘Containment Hypothesis’ (without denying it) In medicine, women sometimes deemed better suited to intellectual and artistic activity than men (finer nerves; greater sensibility) A notion of woman as the civilised and civilising centre of middle-class life, as well as repository of sympathy and morality lend significance to music Affinity of music and leisured women based on shared notions of purposeless beauty and virtue: emergence of an ‘aesthetic sphere’ Female keyboard playing a context for ‘subjectivity’ Connections between keyboard playing and becoming & being a composer: professional status; authority, authorship* Grounded in the fact of instruction of (male) composers at the keyboard (such that fingers became instruments of compositional thinking); evident in widespread practices of improvisation where ‘composing’ and ‘playing’ merged; male performers vied for leadership and pre-eminence through publication of treatises and music (esp. Op. 1 sonatas) and in ‘piano duels’. Composer Portraits Feature Keyboards: Mozart, aged 13-14, by Saverio dalla Rose (Venice)* The Modern Orpheus Sits at a Keyboard* Metaphors of the body as clavier had implications ... Haydn is quoted as saying: ‘“Usually musical ideas are pursuing me, to the point of torture ... If it’s an allegro that pursues me, my pulse keeps beating faster, I can get no sleep ... My imagination plays on me as if I were a clavier.” Haydn smiled, the blood rushed to his face, and he said, “I am really just a living clavier”’. Albert Christoph Dies, ‘Biographical Account of JH’ (1810).* Haydn’s Daily Schedule ‘At eight Haydn had his breakfast. Immediately afterwards Haydn sat down at the clavier and improvised until he found some idea to suit his purpose, which he immediately set down on paper. Thus originated the first sketches of his compositions. ... About four o’clock he returned to musical tasks. He then took the morning’s sketches and scored them, spending three to four hours thus’. Dies, Biographical Notes, 204. Improvising and Invention ‘Haydn always composed his works at the clavier. “I sat down, began to improvise, sad or happy according to my mood, serious or trifling. Once I had seized upon an idea, my whole endeavour was to develop and sustain it in keeping with the rules of art”.’* Georg August Griesinger, ‘Biographical Notes About JH’ (1810) in Gotwals, ed. and trans., Haydn: Two Contemporary Portraits, 61. Little Keyboard Book for W. F. Bach Begun January 1720 when WFB was 9 A didactic compilation in composition and/as keyboard performance moving from theoretical rudiments to preludes, small chorale preludes, dance movements, 2 and 3 part inventions A few items on KEATS: table of contents; clefs; ornaments; ‘applicatio’; preludes. Ornaments and Fingering What is the source of JSB’s table of ornaments?* What is distinctive about the fingering in the first piece, ‘applicatio’?** What else can we learn about the relationship between composing and keyboard playing from this piece?*** [audio] Composing preludes In the first of the ‘little preludes’, that in C major, what does Bach seem to be demonstrating to his son? [audio] And, in the following piece that records W. F. Bach’s attempts to write something similar, what goes wrong (at least in terms of Bach’s model)? A Problematic Dichotomy ‘Amateur – Female – Easy – Played for Pleasure Vs Professional – Male – Difficult – Played to teach/learn, demonstrate mastery, create art’ Problematic because it equates terms within each category while contrasting them in a hierarchical, value laden antithesis across the two categories. Often called ‘binary opposition’. The Keyboard Books for Anna Magdalena Bach (1722 and 1725) Take a look at the contents page and excerpts uploaded to KEATS – are they ‘easier’; are they different in kind to those of the book for WFB? Overall how does the book differ in purpose? Includes chorales; J. S. Bach indicated the titles of three works of devotional theology at the start of the first book (1722); a variety of hands, some childlike, appear, suggesting that AMB was also involved in the musical education of her children and step children; the aria of the Goldberg Variations appears here (the earliest source) in the hand of AMB.