Interpretive choices in Beethoven

The Norwegian Academy of Music has the pleasure of inviting you to an international conference on the occasion of Bärenreiter’s publication of Beethoven’s Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 61, edited by Jonathan Del Mar with Detlef Hahn as responsible for the edited solo part. The programme will include a performance of the concerto – based on the new edition – by violin soloist Bjarne M. Jensen and the NAM Symphony Orchestra conducted by Andrew Manze.

Playing and editing involve a vast array of interpretive choices. No other composer, arguably, is more challenging in this respect than Ludwig van Beethoven. The music of Beethoven relates historically to a change of style (“classical” versus “romantic”), it has a unique and well-documented tradition of interpretation, and today it marks a source of tension between the historically informed performance (HIP) movement and mainstream interpretation. The topic of interpretive choices also relates to the question: for whom are we performing? For the composer, the imagined historical listener or the audience in our time?

The aim of the conference is to focus upon the different interpretive choices a contemporary musician has to make when he or she performs music from the early 19th century. The term “co-creative musician” may in this respect stimulate a reconsideration of the traditional roles of the musician and the researcher, but also of the status of the musical work of art and the performance.

General information:

Please indicate whether you are intending to come by sending an email to: beethovenconference@nmh.no

There is no conference fee and therefore participants must themselves pay for all meals.

How to reach the academy: NAM is situated at Majorstuen in Slemdalsveien 11. From the airport the fastest alternative is the Airport train to the Central station and change to the metro and take any westbound line to Majorstuen.

The nearest hotel is Hotel Gyldenløve

For more information, please contact:
beethovenconference@nmh.no

CONFERENCE PROGRAMME

1 December
Levin Hall

1345: Conference registration and coffee

1400: Conference opening by rector Eirik Birkeland & Welcome by Tor Espen Aspaas

1415: Jonathan Del Mar: Interpretive choices in Beethoven

1500: Round table discussion on the Bärenreiter edition of the Beethoven Violin concerto

with Jonathan Del Mar, Detlef Hahn, Douglas Woodfull-Harris, Andrew Manze.

1600: Break

1630:

Ludwig van Beethoven: 

Sonata for fortepiano and cello in G minor, Opus 5 No 2 (1796)
• Adagio sostenuto e espressivo – Allegro molto più tosto presto
• Rondo; Allegro
Kristin Fossheim, fortepiano and Bjørn Solum, cello
 

1700: Neal Peres Da Costa (Sydney Conservatorium of Music University of Sydney):

Expressive arpeggio playing in Beethoven’s Grande Sonate pathétique

Op. 13; evidence preserved in the edition of Cipriani Potter (1854)

1730: Leonardo Miucci (The Royal Conservatory of The Hague):

Beethoven’s piano sonatas: the editions by I. Moscheles.

2 December

Levin Hall

0945: Coffee

1000: Wolfgang Plagge (The Norwegian Academy of Music):

”Ludwig van Beethoven’s cadenzas to his own piano concertos

– what do they tell us in terms of form and context, and do they hint to improvisational habits?”

1100: Andrew Manze (The Norwegian Academy of Music):

“Monstrous avalanches”: thoughts on cadenzas and tempo in Beethoven’s violin concerto.

1130: Daniel Herscovitch (The University of Sydney):

Ornamentation in Beethoven: A New Perspective

1200: Christina Bratterud (The Norwegian Academy of Music):

"Moods in E-flat - Excerpts from Beethoven: Sonata op. 81a 'Les Adieux' and Schubert: Sonata D 557".

 1230: Break

1330: Ingemar Fridell (Malmö Academy of Music/Lund University):

Visual tools facilitating the interpretation of classical piano compositions

1430: Olaf Eggestad (The Norwegian Academy of Music):

Verging on what’s not there. Revisiting the musically sublime via incommensurability,

“Durchbruch” and liminality in Beethoven’s late style

1500: Break

1530: Open orchestral rehearsal in Lindeman Hall:

Full performance of Beethoven’s Violin Concerto, introduced and conducted by Andrew Manze. Bjarne Magnus Jensen, soloist with the NAM symphony orchestra.

1645: Thomas D. Svatos (Eastern Mediterranean University, North Cyprus):

“Bohuslav Martinů’s essay on Beethoven’s ‘Pastoral’ Symphony”

1715: Conclusions and new perspectives by Erlend Hovland

1730: 

Ludwig van Beethoven: 

Sonate caractéristique: Les adieux, l'absence et le retour, op. 81a. Dem Erzherzog Rudolph gewidmet (1809/10)
• Das Lebewohl (Les adieux): Adagio – Allegro
• Abwesenheit (L'absence): Andante espressivo, In gehender Bewegung, doch mit viel Ausdruck
• Das Wiedersehen (Le retour): Vivacissimamente, Im lebhaftesten Zeitmaße
Christina Sofie Bratterud, fortepiano

Sonata for fortepiano and cello in C major, Opus 102 No 1 (1815)
• Andante – Allegro vivace
• Adagio – Tempo d’Andante – Allegro vivace
Kristin Fossheim, fortepiano and Bjørn Solum, cello