Telescopic Listening

Abstract

In contemporary music, the ethos of experimentation and new-ness is constantly confronted with a strong historical presence. The historical residue in the apparatus of production and dissemination can be found in the instrumentation, institutions and formats of performance. Certain periods in time, like that of post-war modernism tried to eviscerate that residue, other periods have seen a keen interest in evoking history, for a variety of reasons. I regard this friction, this constant negotiation, as a productive force in itself, fuelling artistic practice. My ongoing project Schubert Lounge probes notions of historicity in an explicit way, taking songs of Franz Schubert as a starting point for the investigation. The work challenges the idea of authenticity in musical performance through applying methodologies from one layer in time to materials from a different historical moment. In the project I try to create a multi-layered experience through a process of ‘telescopic listening’, as different modes of interpretation and creation is brought into conflict in a staged work for singers, ensemble and turntable with recorded sound. This exposition traces the developments in the project, its theoretical background, and discusses results – and questions – arising from its methods.