Thomas Irvine

Complex hand dexterity: a review of biomechanical methods for measuring musical performance

Complex hand dexterity is fundamental to our interactions with the physical, social, and cultural environment. Dexterity can be an expression of creativity and precision in a range of activities, including musical performance. Little is understood about complex hand dexterity or how virtuoso expertise is acquired, due to the versatility of movement combinations available to complete any given task. This has historically limited progress of the field because of difficulties in measuring movements of the hand. Recent developments in methods of motion capture and analysis mean it is now possible to explore the intricate movements of the hand and fingers. These methods allow us insights into the neurophysiological mechanisms underpinning complex hand dexterity and motor learning. They also allow investigation into the key factors that contribute to injury, recovery and functional compensation. The application of such analytical techniques within musical performance provides a multidisciplinary framework for purposeful investigation into the process of learning and skill acquisition in instrumental performance. These highly skilled manual and cognitive tasks present the ultimate achievement in complex hand dexterity. This paper will review methods of assessing instrumental performance in music, focusing specifically on biomechanical measurement and the associated technical challenges faced when measuring highly dexterous activities.

C. P. E. BACH TERCENTENARY CONFERENCE: C. P. E. BACH AND EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY KEYBOARD CULTURE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD, 29–30 NOVEMBER 2014

There was a time when C. P. E. Bachs music was mostly interesting as a connection between periods of music history. Indeed, perhaps no composer was done a greater injustice by such un-useful terms as ‘pre-classical’, meant to place Bach in various grand narratives and often forcing him into the role of bearing the spirit of his father to the Viennese classics. Such fussy periodizations of eighteenth-century music history are now mostly passe. So it was a pleasure to attend this conference, held at the Faculty of Music of Oxford University, at which speakers explored the varied terrain of Bachs place in eighteenth-century keyboard culture without for the most part framing their arguments in terms of influence and legacy. They examined this most fascinating (and in some ways enigmatic) of composers on his own merits.

MARIANNE DANCKWARDT AND WOLF-DIETER SEIFFERT, EDS BERICHT ÜBER DAS MOZART-SYMPOSION ZUM GEDENKEN AN WOLFGANG PLATH (1930–1995) AUGSBURG, 13. BIS 16. JUNI 2000 PUBLISHED AS MOZART-JAHRBUCH 2001) Kassel: Bärenreiter, 2003 pp. xiv + 501, ISBN 3 7618 1580 8

This collection is devoted to the legacy of Wolfgang Plath, whose premature death in 1995 robbed Mozart scholarship of a distinct and influential voice. It was his conviction that the best research is often the pursuit of little problems. Plath, clearly influenced by Karl Popper, believed attempts at their solution would lead to a kind of collective progress in the aggregate. He wasn’t shy about his methodological premises: his controversial position paper ‘Der gegenwa¨rtige Stand der Mozartforschung’ (1964; reprinted, with the rest of his works on Mozart, in Mozart-Schriften: Ausgewahlte Aufsatze, ed. Marianne Danckwardt (Kassel: Barenreiter, 1991), 78–85), which he presented at a panel discussion at the 1964 meeting of the International Musicological Society in Salzburg, was remarkable both for the controversy it engendered and for its prescience. In German Mozart research the grand exercises in Geistesgeschichte at which his polemics were aimed are now more the exception than the rule, and the smaller problems whose solution he proposed as an alternative continue to set the agenda. Indeed, there is little doubt that the discipline has moved substantially forward in a series of small steps, and it would be no exaggeration to say that Plath had something to do with this. Plath’s own interests, besides methodological reflection, included an extremely focused brand of critical source study, which he pursued in his capacity as one of the lead editors of the Neue Mozart Ausgabe, and an analytical fascination with compositional process. I found all three here, in five groupings organized mostly by genre; the final section of the volume is devoted to two ‘Arbeitsgruppen’ (working groups) consisting of longer essays and substantial transcriptions of plenary discussions.

Reviews: recordings: Divas of Mozart's day: operatic arias by Domenico Cimarosa (1749–1801), Vicente Martin y Soler (1754–1806), Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791), Vincenzo Righini (1756–1812), Antonio Salieri (1750–1825), Stephen Storace (1762–1796): Patrice Michaels (soprano), Peter van de Graaff (bass-baritone) / Classical Arts Orchestra / Stephen Alltop (conductor and fortepiano) Cedrille CDR 90000 064, 2002; one disc, 1'16"

Mozart was what Germans would call an Opernnarr: an opera nut. He could not get enough of the theatre and the singers on its stage. He loved to spend time with them, write about them, perform with them and most importantly compose for them. Those who have read the portions of Mozart’s correspondence on the subject of musical theatre know about his critical ear: there was no special quality of voice for which he did not imagine he could craft the most fitting music. So this CD, an ambitious attempt to fashion a musical portrait of five of the most prominent prima donnas of Mozart’s Vienna – Catarina Cavalieri, Anna Selina(Nancy) Storace, Adriana Ferrarese del Bene, Louisa Laschi Mombelli and Louise Villeneuve, all of whom created major roles in his operas – comes as a welcome contribution. The study of opera remains apropos in these days of musicological multidisciplinarity: it combines the social history of institutions, music analysis, performance history and performance practice. Indeed, opera’s own collaborative nature blurs the distinction between author and performer. The history of opera, one could argue, is less the history of lonely musical heroes and more the history of groups: composers and performers in dialogue with one another and with the conventions of the genre. A recording such as this one, constructed around a group of composers who collaborated with a group of singers in 1780s Vienna, is both the natural and appropriate answer to the questions opera can raise.