ARTISTIC RESEARCH
First Doctoral Concert
The Pianist Who Does It All
7.12.2021 Camerata Hall, Musiikkitalo, Helsinki
An overview of the focus of the series—Stockhausen’s piano music and his impact on the multiple roles of the pianist. Here pianists is a mathematician, a human-error, an actor and a listener.
Karlheinz Stockhausen (1928–2007)
Klavierstücke I–IV (1952)
Klavierstück V (1954)
Klavierstück XII (1983)
Natürliche Dauern 10, 22 (2005–06)
Next doctoral concert: 10.10.2022, Camerata, Musiikkitalo
"The Pianist Who Is In Control"
The Pianist Who Does It All
7.12.2021 Camerata Hall, Musiikkitalo, Helsinki
An overview of the focus of the series—Stockhausen’s piano music and his impact on the multiple roles of the pianist. Here pianists is a mathematician, a human-error, an actor and a listener.
Karlheinz Stockhausen (1928–2007)
Klavierstücke I–IV (1952)
Klavierstück V (1954)
Klavierstück XII (1983)
Natürliche Dauern 10, 22 (2005–06)
Next doctoral concert: 10.10.2022, Camerata, Musiikkitalo
"The Pianist Who Is In Control"
Conference Presentations
Siba Research Days 2021 - (Not) Just Leaving It To Chance
In my presentation, I would like to discuss the interpretation of aleatoric music and practical approaches to scores that combine written music and improvisation. How can I as a pianist and a musician practice a piece that has an exact notation yet offers the possibility of choice? What happens when a composer chooses to turn the musician into the creator, allowing them to participate in the formation of the piece? Is it possible to improvise in the moment, when the piece has been practiced for months leading to the performance? How can one convey to the audience the feeling of something new and unexpected?
The case study for my presentation will be pieces related to my own doctorate research project: Klavierstück XI by Karlheinz Stockhausen, Sonata No.3 by Pierre Boulez and Intermission 6 by Morton Feldman. All three pieces represent the brief style of fragmentalism, which became a fashionable compositional method in the 1950s. The pieces are graphically broken into fragments; however, they are traditionally notated with notes, dynamic and rhythmical indications. Each composer asks the pianist ideally to create the piece in the moment, by “accidentally” moving from one fragment of the score to another. However, in each case, achieving total spontaneity becomes somewhat impossible.
I will also discuss these composers’ attitudes towards freedom of interpretation in their other works and show how understanding a composer’s overall character and compositional technique can help musicians to approach the aleatoric pieces in their repertoire. I would also like to share how knowing and learning about these pieces and this style has helped me to deepen my abilities to understand music with open scores, text scores and structured improvisation. The interpretation of the music of more modern composers such as Julius Eastman, Pauline Oliveros and Peter Ablinger becomes much more approachable with an understanding of the history of the beginnings of incorporating improvisation aspects into a strictly notated score.
Siba Research Days 2021 - Webern as an Inspiration (Spotlight on Artistic Research)
My artistic research project—and particularly its concert component—sheds light on the pianist’s role in contemporary music. Over the past 70 years, it has become increasingly clear that being able to simply play on the keyboard is no longer enough to satisfy the demands and ambitions of contemporary music and arts. In my concerts, I explore the tools that the pianist needs to learn and possess to be able to perform contemporary music. This exploration is focused on the work of three composers: Karlheinz Stockhausen, Pierre Boulez and Morton Feldman. Representing two different schools and taking pianism to different edges of possibility, these three composers took their inspiration, passion and compositional techniques from the same composer: Anton Webern, the representative of the Second Viennese School who dared to challenge the canon and take the new twelve-tone technique to a new level, organizing not only pitch but other musical aspects as well, thus inspiring the creation of serialism. In my presentation, I would like to briefly present the themes of my artistic research project and put Anton Webern in the spotlight, presenting two movements from his Piano Variations for piano op.27 and elaborating on the specific aspects of the piece that inspired Stockhausen, Boulez and Feldman. We will discover what Webern himself thought about the Piano Variations and explore how a short piano piece can inspire a whole new musical movement. Why Webern, not Schoenberg? How can the same composer inspire future serialists and a future pioneer of indeterminate music—two opposing artistic approaches? To what point did these three composers arrive? Who stayed true to their inspiration and who changed the most? These questions will be answered and discussed in the spotlight on my artistic research project.
Siba Research Days 2021 - (Not) Just Leaving It To Chance
In my presentation, I would like to discuss the interpretation of aleatoric music and practical approaches to scores that combine written music and improvisation. How can I as a pianist and a musician practice a piece that has an exact notation yet offers the possibility of choice? What happens when a composer chooses to turn the musician into the creator, allowing them to participate in the formation of the piece? Is it possible to improvise in the moment, when the piece has been practiced for months leading to the performance? How can one convey to the audience the feeling of something new and unexpected?
The case study for my presentation will be pieces related to my own doctorate research project: Klavierstück XI by Karlheinz Stockhausen, Sonata No.3 by Pierre Boulez and Intermission 6 by Morton Feldman. All three pieces represent the brief style of fragmentalism, which became a fashionable compositional method in the 1950s. The pieces are graphically broken into fragments; however, they are traditionally notated with notes, dynamic and rhythmical indications. Each composer asks the pianist ideally to create the piece in the moment, by “accidentally” moving from one fragment of the score to another. However, in each case, achieving total spontaneity becomes somewhat impossible.
I will also discuss these composers’ attitudes towards freedom of interpretation in their other works and show how understanding a composer’s overall character and compositional technique can help musicians to approach the aleatoric pieces in their repertoire. I would also like to share how knowing and learning about these pieces and this style has helped me to deepen my abilities to understand music with open scores, text scores and structured improvisation. The interpretation of the music of more modern composers such as Julius Eastman, Pauline Oliveros and Peter Ablinger becomes much more approachable with an understanding of the history of the beginnings of incorporating improvisation aspects into a strictly notated score.
Siba Research Days 2021 - Webern as an Inspiration (Spotlight on Artistic Research)
My artistic research project—and particularly its concert component—sheds light on the pianist’s role in contemporary music. Over the past 70 years, it has become increasingly clear that being able to simply play on the keyboard is no longer enough to satisfy the demands and ambitions of contemporary music and arts. In my concerts, I explore the tools that the pianist needs to learn and possess to be able to perform contemporary music. This exploration is focused on the work of three composers: Karlheinz Stockhausen, Pierre Boulez and Morton Feldman. Representing two different schools and taking pianism to different edges of possibility, these three composers took their inspiration, passion and compositional techniques from the same composer: Anton Webern, the representative of the Second Viennese School who dared to challenge the canon and take the new twelve-tone technique to a new level, organizing not only pitch but other musical aspects as well, thus inspiring the creation of serialism. In my presentation, I would like to briefly present the themes of my artistic research project and put Anton Webern in the spotlight, presenting two movements from his Piano Variations for piano op.27 and elaborating on the specific aspects of the piece that inspired Stockhausen, Boulez and Feldman. We will discover what Webern himself thought about the Piano Variations and explore how a short piano piece can inspire a whole new musical movement. Why Webern, not Schoenberg? How can the same composer inspire future serialists and a future pioneer of indeterminate music—two opposing artistic approaches? To what point did these three composers arrive? Who stayed true to their inspiration and who changed the most? These questions will be answered and discussed in the spotlight on my artistic research project.
Artistic Research Overview (In English)
Helga Karen is doing her artistic research at the Doctoral School in Sibelius Academy, University of Arts. Helga's artistic research has two components - written (monograph) and musical (doctorate concerts).
From the pianist to the contemporary musician - The development of the pianist’s roles through classics of contemporary music
The focus of the research is on Karlheinz Stockhausen's piano pieces Klavierstücke. The concert series explores the development of the pianist’s role from the beginning of the Darmstadt school. It follows the change in the understanding of the piano, pianism and the pianist as a person and an interpreter during the past 70 years. The journey of three composers, Stockhausen, Boulez and Feldman, who all three inspired by the same Webern, took the music and the pianism into completely different directions.
Monograph
Introduction to Karlheinz Stockhausen’s piano music - practical guide for a pianist
Through the piano works of Stockhausen, Helga is exploring the roles of the pianist, the demands and the challenges that the pianist has to face, discovers the technical and mental difficulties that appear when practicing and performing the pieces and searches for the new methods to solve those problems. The goal is to explore Stockhausen’s piano music from an interpretation perspective identifying in detail the most unusual and critical pianistic issues of the repertoire. The problems will be described, verbalised, and approaches and solutions will be offered. The book will walk through the pieces together with the reader, untangling the complex practice and performance issues, in order to help the pianists not only to get familiar with Stockhausen’s piano pieces and the practice methods, but also give the tools to explore the contemporary music beyond that.
Abstrakti (suomeksi)
Pianistista nykymuusikoksi – pianistin roolin muuntuminen nykymusiikin klassikoiden myötä
Tutkimusprojektini taiteellinen kokonaisuus avaa kuulijalle pianistin roolin kehitystä ja muodonmuutosta toisen wieniläisen koulukunnan jälkeen. Konserteissa tutkitaan, miten säveltäjien käsitykset pianosta, pianismista ja pianistista ovat muuttuneet viimeisen 70 vuoden aikana. Perinteisten soittotekniikoiden lisäksi pianistilla on oltava laaja työkalupakki tekniikoita ja rooleja, jotta hän voisi toteuttaa nykymusiikille asetettuja tavoitteita. Sen lisäksi, että soittaja on pianisti, hänen on joskus oltava matemaatikko, konemainen suorittaja, laulaja, näyttelijä, perkussiosoittaja, sivusta seuraaja ja paljon muuta. Tutkin pianistin roolin muuntumista nykymusiikin klassikoiden kautta keskittyen Karlheinz Stockhausenin, Pierre Boulezin ja Morton Feldmanin pianomusiikkiin. Heidän pianotuotantonsa sisältää laajan kokoelman pianistin rooleja ja erikoisia soittotekniikoita, ja ne sijoittuvat samalle aikavälille. Nämä kolme hyvin erilaista säveltäjää hakivat inspiraatiota Anton Webernilta, mutta he veivät sävellystekniikansa, käsityksensä pianismista ja nykymusiikin esittämisestä aivan eri suuntiin.
Karlheinz Stockhausenin pianotuotanto sisältää pianistin rooleja ja pianismin muodonmuutoksia niin paljon, että hänen pianokappaleidensa kautta pianisti saa haltuunsa kaikki työkalut, joita hän tarvitsee nykymusiikin soittamiseksi. Tutkimusprojektini kirjallisessa osiossa keskitynkin avaamaan Stockhausenin neljäntoista pianokappaleen tarjoamia haasteita ja autoetnografisen tutkimusmetodin avulla tuon pianistille käytännöllisen oppaan, joka tarjoaa ratkaisuja ja harjoitusmetodeja jokaisen pianokappaleen harjoitteluun. Stockhausenin tuotannosta on kirjoitettu paljon, mutta kaikki kirjallisuus liittyy hänen sävellystekniikkaansa tai teostensa analyysiin, joten tuotannosta lukeminen voi olla kuormittavaa eikä välttämättä auta kappaleiden lukemisessa tai harjoittelussa. Tarkoituksena on luoda selkeäkielistä, nuottiesimerkeillä vahvistettua, tarkkaan kuvailevaa ja omalla kokemuksella vahvistettua tekstiä, johon nykymusiikissakin kokematon pianisti osaa samaistua ja josta hän voi hyötyä.
Avainsanat: pianismi, nykymusiikki, autoetnografia, harjoitusopas, Stockhausen
