Dissertation on Llobet honored
Cla Mathieu, a graduate of Bern University of the Arts, receives the prize for the best dissertation of the last two semesters from the Faculty of Philology and History at the University of Bern.
Cla Mathieu completed the doctoral program Studies in the Arts with his dissertation "Reimagining the Guitar: The Performance Style of Miguel Llobet, 1878-1938". The former HKB student was awarded the prize for the best degree, which is endowed with CHF 10,000. The dissertation was supervised by Cristina Urchueguía (University of Bern) and Kai Köpp (HKB). Mathieu previously completed a Master's degree in Music Performance with Elena Casoli at the HKB.
The starting point of the dissertation is the microphone recordings made in the 1920s by Llobet, who, as the leading exponent of his instrument as a soloist and teacher (including as a teacher of Andrés Segovia), exerted a decisive influence on the development of the instrument in the 20th century. Conceptually, the study is based on the concept of "expressivity" - a central term of late Romantic musical thought - and examines its concrete implications for Llobet's instrumental practice and his environment.
