"Improvise - Interpret"

Beethoven's "Fantasia", the original version of The Flying Dutchman, Alfred Wälchli, the double bass clarinet and Peter Cornelius as a music theorist - these are the themes of the five projects that will be presented on Sat/Sun October 12/13 and 19/20, 2013. Symposium participants are invited to discuss the results. Concerts on individual topics are also on the program.

The project "Beethoven's 'Fantasy'" deals with the very lively culture of improvisation and pianistic "fantasizing" around 1800. Theoretical sources as well as practical examples will be discussed, and three concerts will feature very different styles of (partially) improvised music. Students can familiarize themselves with various improvisation methods in a workshop.
Richard Wagner's opera The Flying Dutchman for historically informed interpretation practice is the aim of another project. A practical reconstruction of the performance conditions at the time is planned for November of this year. The symposium will provide a theoretical framework for this.
Based on the fragmentary and singular literary work of the writer and composer Alfred Wächli this project is dedicated to new possibilities for the analysis, edition and creation of multi-perspective literature.
Using state-of-the-art methods, the previously anything but perfect corpus of the Double bass clarinet acoustically optimized and equipped with an electromechanical flap control. A functional model of the improved instrument, including its history, can now be presented.
On the basis of sources from the estate of Peter Cornelius (1824-1874), material on music theory of the mid-19th century is presented and placed in the aesthetic context of the time. In addition to Cornelius, this provides insights into the music of Liszt, Wagner, Bruckner and R. Strauss.

Program overview 
Further information: Research focus on interpretation