Devotional dialogue: Exploring the Musical Repertoire for Solo Voice and Clavichord from Reformation Europe
Summary
If one was to make a map of Lutheran Europe from
the Thirty Years’ War to the Industrial Revolution
and place it over a map of the European distribution
of the clavichord (that most intensely personal and
devotional of keyboard instruments) from the same
time period, one would find that the two geographical areas overlap almost exactly. The
clavichord was J. S. Bach’s favourite instrument for
his most refined and personal thoughts, but it was
also the traditional dialogue partner in the singing of
devotional songs in the home. Christina Ekström,
who has done original work with song collections in
the archives of the Moravian Church in
Christiansfeld, Denmark, began to explore this
repertoire together with Joel Speerstra in a concert
for solo voice and clavichord at the Theological
Centre at Løgumkloster in 2013. Here we propose to
go deeper into this dialogue and make a musical map
of singing with the clavichord in Lutheran Europe,
showing how the tradition focuses perhaps less on
music as domestic entertainment so much as on
music as a sharing practice that reflects and performs
Lutheran faith. With a selection of repertoire from
this tradition our lecture-recital will attempt to
illuminate more of the instrumental, vocal and
interpretive aspects of this repertoire when these
songs are embodied in a dialogue with the
clavichord. Repertoire explored will include Olof
Kolmodin’s songbooks Andelig Duwforöst (1734),
J. H. Roman’s arrangements of psalter psalms as well
as songs from the Moravian Church.
Type of work
Konstnärlig forskning
Published in
Lutheran Music Culture Conference, Department of Musicology, Uppsala University, 14-16 September
Link to web site
http://musik.uu.se/lutheranmusic2017/
Other description
Presentationen genomfördes tillsammans med Joel
Speerstra.
Date
2017-09-14Creator
Ekström, Christina
Speerstra, Joel
Keywords
Singing, Clavichord, Luther, Moravian church, Spirituality
Language
eng