Reinterpreting Historical Interfaces

Abstract

This paper presents the findings of a creative research project that involves rebuilding Henri Herz’s 1836 dactylion — a device that Herz created in order to help aspiring virtuosi to improve their finger interdependence and to magnify their keyboard strength. Following archival research at the Musée de la musique, where the object is currently housed, I present my reconstruction of this one-of-a-kind pianistic item together with data following my two-month practice with it on nineteenth-century keyboards from Cornell’s Center for Historical Keyboards, including two Pleyels, a Graf, as well as a Steinway.

The first part of the paper details the original object’s history as well as the process of replicating this nineteenth-century oddity that captures an idiosyncratic interface-relation between hands and keys, and that actively showcases the disciplinary microcosm of Romantic virtuosity. I take a media archaeological approach in understanding the meaning of this “prosthetic” pianistic object in history, especially its persisting presence in both original and reconstructed form today, by asking questions such as: how does its purported promotion of finger interdependence define one Romantic understanding of the pianistic body, specifically, the hand as a whole vs. the individual fingers? How does the object’s main aim — to discipline fingers — speak about the role of instruments, which is to shape both bodies and sound, and what does this particular object suggest about the mediality of nineteenth-century pianistic virtuosity and its reliance on emerging technologies? And finally, what does a project such as reconstructing a unique instrument of musical discipline mean from an ecomusicological perspective, as well as from a historically informed one? Is — and should — a markedly historic interface-relation between instrument, prosthesis, and body (be) recoverable? The second part of the paper details my experience practicing exercises and works from nineteenth-century virtuosi of different schools at the time such as Herz, Wieck, Kalkbrenner, Thalberg, Liszt, Tausig, and Chopin for two months, and presenting data that draws some theoretical conclusions about the dactylion’s transformative potential (or failure) to shape modern fingers that play old keyboards. I end by discussing what other projects such as this might suggest about “new” organology studies.

Biography

Theodora is a PhD candidate in Musicology at Cornell University and a pianist. Her recent work includes co-curating the exhibition “Sounding Fashion” at Cornell, whose rationale was that “fashion resonates,” as well as finishing her dissertation, which traces the Romantic intersection between metaphysics and materiality via five case studies of nineteenth-entry pianism and their synthesis of music, literature, and fashion. The forthcoming dissertation website includes recordings, videos, and other media that present virtuosic repertoire and reconstructions of objects such as Herz’s 1836 dactylion and a dress Clara Schumann wore. As a pianist, Theodora has performed internationally and won numerous awards including Third Prize at the the 12th International Liszt Competition, and within musicology, she has presented at conferences such as AMS 2020, and has organized the conference-festival “Performing Clara Schumann” at Cornell in 2019. Outside of the nineteenth century, her interdisciplinary research interests extend to German and French literature, pop studies, and ancient astrology. 

Abstract

What does it mean to say that certain music is “idiomatic” for a particular instrument? This project approaches the question with respect to the BMG (banjo, mandolin, guitar) family of plucked-string instruments, which took shape in America in the early twentieth century. The project involves performing Bach’s twelve solo string suites on a combination of mandolin, mandola, mandocello, steel-string guitar, banjo, and pedal steel guitar over a series of six concerts between fall 2021 and spring 2023. Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach said that his father “understood to perfection the possibilities of all stringed instruments,” and Anna Magdalena’s manuscript of the cello suites includes multiple tunings as well as one indication for five rather than four strings. What is the theoretical potential of voicing this music, which is in some ways unidiomatic for violin/cello and has an extensive precedent for reinterpretation, with the BMG family?

In this paper, I report on the process of translating the Bach violin and cello suites for, and playing them with, BMG instruments. The presentation will include analysis of recorded and notated musical examples, as well as some live demonstration on mandola. The work sheds light on the translatability and “idiomaticity” (De Souza 2017) of Bach’s music, which in addition to synthesis (Carlos 1968), lends itself to revoicings among sung, bowed, and plucked means of musical production. I give particular attention to the pedal steel guitar, one example of which was built specifically for the project as a method of exploring gestural components of continuous polyphonic motion. A historically neglected member of the BMG family, the slide guitar is notable for how its idiomatic possibilities have changed alongside its development into the contemporary pedal steel. Ultimately, the work referenced in this paper points toward a theory in which, more than providing maps of spatial positions, musical instruments partner with their performers to create lexicons of movement.

Biography

Joti Rockwell is an Associate Professor of Music at Pomona College. He is a multi-instrumentalist and active performer of roots music, rock, bluegrass, and classical concert music. He has recorded professionally and toured extensively across the United States, playing guitar, keyboard, theremin, mandolin, pedal steel, and related stringed instruments. He has taught courses on music theory, American popular music, music and mathematics, and rhythm, and he is a previous recipient of Pomona College’s Wig Distinguished Professor Award for Excellence in Teaching. His scholarly work has centered around music theory and American roots music, and his writing has appeared in publications including Journal of Music Theory, Ethnomusicology, Popular Music, and Analytical Approaches to World Music. He also performs in and coordinates Pomona College’s Balinese gamelan ensemble, Giri Kusuma.