Musical Improvisation in the Age of Beethoven and ‘Open’ Forms

Island of San Giorgio Maggiore, Venice
plus Nov, 2829 2014

A follow-up to the conferences Improvised Music in Europe: 1966-1976 (November 2012) and Con la mente e con le mani: Improvisation from ‘cantare super librum’ to partimenti (November 2013), this event is the third in a series of dates on the role of musical improvisation in various historical periods.

The focus of this conference, coordinated by Gianmario Borio and Angela Carone, is on four areas: the views of critics, composers and theoreticians, forming indispensable material for an understanding of the intertwining of improvisation, performance and composition; compositional forms expressly derived from improvisation (bagatelles, divertimenti, preludes, capricci, fantasias and improvvisi); traces of improvisation practices and forms that require a precise structure (sonata, rondo, theme and variations); and improvisation in the world of singing and opera.

The participants at the conference are Torsten Mario Augenstein, Pieter Bergé, Scott Burnham, William Caplin, Angela Carone, Catherine Coppola, Giorgio Pagannone, Giorgio Sanguinetti, Elaine Sisman, Jan Philipp Sprick, Rohan Stewart-MacDonald and Marco Targa, moderated by Gianmario Borio, Hans-Joachim Hinrichsen, Susanna Pasticci and Rudolf Rasch. A concert by Davide Amodio (violin) and John Irving (fortepiano) of music from the repertoire considered in the conference will offer a further opportunity to reflect on the role of improvisation in the age of Beethoven.

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