Research
Research

Research

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Call for Donations: Book Publication

Dear friends and colleagues! I have started a crowdfunding campaign to fund the publication of my new book at Georg Olms Verlag—a hybrid volume that compiles my recent research on Eastern European music and music theory, prospectively titled Tönende Architekturen des Ostens. It will include nine chapters focusing on Russian and Soviet composers and theorists, such as Sergei Taneyev, Alexander Scriabin, Sergei Rachmaninov, Nikolai Medtner, Igor Stravinsky, and Dmitri Shostakovich. More details can be found on the campaign page. If you would like to support this independent publication that will be realised outside any academic affiliation or series, please consider a decent contribution to the printing expenses, and also share this post in your networks and environments. Your help will be much appreciated!

» Follow this link to the crowdfunding

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Presentation on Caroline Shaw in Barcelona

I will have the pleasure of presenting a paper at this year’s European Music Analysis Conference, taking place during next week, 7–10 September, at Escola Superior de Música de Catalunya in Barcelona. My presentation is titled »Dots, Ovals, and Planes: Harmonic Strategies in Caroline Shaw’s Music for Strings and Vocal Ensembles«, and is scheduled for Wednesday, 9 September, 7 pm. In it, I will be examining pieces such as Entr’acte, Punctum, and Partita for Eight Voices with regard to characteristic chord progressions, sequential structures, and harmonic schemata. The music of the US-American performer and composer has been fascinating me since several years, and I am looking forward to the opportunity of speaking about it in front of an international expert audience. I will present the paper again in German language at the annual conference of the Gesellschaft für Musiktheorie at Halle (Saale) in October.

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Prevention of abuse of power in German musicology

During the last 15 months I have been involved in a working group for the prevention of abuse of power in German-language musicology. At this year’s conference of the Gesellschaft für Musikforschung, we presented a preliminary report of our activities, including a large survey on the relevance of the topic in German music studies that clearly showed the need to take measures of prevention and intervention. My deepest respect and gratitude goes to Ina Knoth, who meticulously compiled most of the report, and to my dear colleagues Cornelia Bartsch, Beate Kraus, and Paolina Aquilino from our highly engaged team. If interested, please find the report and evaluation of the survey here.

Also, we succeeded in recruiting and electing a group of ombudspersons that will appear as trustful representatives of the GfM for potential cases of all kinds of abuse of power. I am glad that Christoph Flamm, Manuel Gervink, Ariane Jeßulat, Sabine Meine, and Josephine Pritz have agreed to take this responsible task. Thanks go also to the GfM board who have carefully accompanied and supported this endeavour.

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Seminar on Piano Sonatas

I am currently teaching a musicology seminar at Robert Schumann Hochschule Düsseldorf, focusing on piano sonatas of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. While the works are considered in their particular aesthetical and genre-historical contexts, the primary approach is analytic, and we are examining the various conceptions of musical form and cyclic construction as seen in the music.

The start of the semester has been auspicious, with student presentations on works by Franz Liszt and Joachim Raff, besides sonatas by Josef Rheinberger, Edvard Grieg, Ethel Smyth, and Felix Draeseke. As the journey continues, we will delve into music by Peter Tchaikovsky, Mykola Lysenko, Leoš Janáček, Cécile Chaminade, Alexander Scriabin, Zara Levina, Béla Bartók, Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Viktor Ullmann, and others. Moreover, we will have two guest appearances by pianists Kyra Steckeweh and Severin von Eckardstein who will introduce and perform sonatas by Dora Pejačević and Nikolai Medtner. I am looking forward!

 

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Delving into Stravinsky

I am currently preparing a contribution for a Stravinsky volume that kind of absorbs me. The chapter will focus on analytical examinations of Old Igor’s music, confronting historical writings (starting with Messiaen’s and Boulez’s analyses of the Sacre) with contemporary approaches. Beyond the ubiquitous Taruskin, Kholopov, Straus, Horlacher, et alii: is there anything notable or indispensable in Stravinsky studies that you think I should care about and include in my survey? Any leads and opinions are much appreciated.