STOCKHOLM Sixteenth Nordic Musicological Congress 7-10 August 2012 Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden
Assi Karttunen & Päivi Järviö: “Rhetorical actio in the body of the baroque music performer –Embodied figures in a recitative by Michel Pignolet de Montéclair.”

Abstract


Assi Karttunen & Päivi Järviö: Rhetorical actio in the body of the baroque music performer –Embodied figures in a recitative by Michel Pignolet de Montéclair.

Discussions on rhetoric, having by and large concentrated on the composition of musical speech, have rarely addressed the area of rhetorical actio. In our artistic research project focused on French baroque vocal music from the 17th and 18th centuries we are exploring performing practices of the past in order to understand the embodiment of performing practices of the present. Thus our approach could be called embodied study of historical performing practices.

The methods of study include doing detailed work on fragments of music, experimenting with different practice methods, recording our work, studying it closely, doing workshops with other musicians and students, attempting to verbalize the experience of working on this repertoire etc. The artistic and pedagogical work will be supported by the study of relevant source material describing elements of rhetorical actio (gesture, voice, position, movement). The theoretical frame of reference for our study is phenomenology focusing on the singular, live experience of a human being. As a sideline, we will address the ongoing discussion on Early Music performance.

Research of this kind means discussing and calling into question some key areas of Early music performance such as the performer’s relationship to musical notation, to the historical sources on performing practices and, most importantly, to the present-day performance of music from the past. The phenomena of rhetorical actio are partly notated and verbalized in the sources, partly understandable only by embodied processes: by doing, by singing, by playing and by performing. Without the embodied level of music making, however, there is no need to pay attention to the level of rhetorical actio.

As an example of the embodied study of rhetoric, we will demonstrate some notated and unnotatated features of musical-rhetorical elements in Michel Pignolet de Montéclair ́s (1667–1737) récitatif “Déjà Sirinx parcouroit” including figures of representation, interruption and silence, as well as figures of dissonance and displacement. In our demonstration we verbalize invisible, tacit modes of reading the score and of using historical source material as well as articulate the embodied relationship to music of the musician. Through this we will show how embodied rhetoric reveals and exposes new kinds of ways of approaching notation and music.

Literature:

Butt, John 2002. Playing with History. The Historical Approach to Musical Performance. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Proposal for a paper presentation
Assi Karttunen & Päivi Järviö: Rhetorical actio in the body of the baroque music performer –Embodied figures of silence in a recitative by Michel Pignolet de Montéclair.


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