Bach gave the title Das Wohltemperirte Clavier to a book of preludes and fugues in all 24 keys, major and minor, dated 1722, composed ‘for the profit and use of musical youth desirous of learning, and especially for the pastime of those already skilled in this study’. Some 20 years later, Bach compiled a second book of the same kind (24 pairs of preludes and fugues).
“There's nothing remarkable about it. All one has to do is hit the right key at the right time and the instrument plays itself.”
J. S. Bach
Research:
Çiğdem y Mirol, Servaas Verbergt and Carlo De Kock co-conduct this research on
The Well Tempered Clavier of Bach in the context of Çiğdem’s PhD reserach that expands towards the formulation of how she experiences the sounds and music through
synesthetic sense-making process which, in her case, is seeing the soundwaves and lightwaves.
While they all together choose the pieces to delve into from the 2 books of
The Well Tempered Clavier, the attention is given to Bach’s choice of composing some of the pieces which potentially reveal some visual aspects of music making and playing processes. “The Circle of Fifths” is to be employed by Servaas and Çiğdem as a reading method of all the pieces to know which pieces to work on. This is ultimately due to the fact that “well-temperament” is known to be “circulating temperament” in most of Bach’s music. Chosen pieces are to be played mostly by Carlo on harpsicord and occassionaly by Servaas on guitar. The
synethestic listening (thus seeing) of the chosen pieces will be employed as another reading method by Çiğdem while she writes thus fixes the visual expressions of the sounds from her perspective view of the world as well as creativity.
Performance:
Once the research is accomplished, the outcomes will be co-creatively shared with academic and non-academic audience at the Music Instruments Museum. The performance will be made up of sharing the necessary knowledge in theory and artistic expressions in practice. So, the audience both enjoys and makes sense of a unique reading and writing of some of the pieces from one of the most commonly known and appreciated collection of compositions.
Artist Researchers:
Çiğdem y Mirol /
@bookperformance;
Writer, painter, performance artist
PhD researcher in literature, arts and philosophy, UGENT
Researcher on Sounds/Music based on synesthesia and keyboards, MiM
Servaas Verbergt;
Guitarist, artist, researcher in music theory and history
Graduate from Koninklijk Conservatorium Brussel
Carlo De Kock;
Pianist, artist, student in bio-chemistry at UGENT
Gradute from Stedelijk Conservatorium Brugge
Languages:
Dutch, English
Time & Space:
Music Instruments Museum
Brussels
Invitation is to be fixed and published once the research is completed and approved by the supervisors from UGENT, KASK and MiM, by 2025.
©2024, Bookperformance