Opus 15 Reflection

The project and my reflections on it offer other researchers and performers the opportunity to consider Schönberg’s Opus 15 from my perspective as a pianist. I have articulated tacit knowledge related to my experience of Opus 15 and my role as a collaborative pianist in different contexts and described an artistic process that transformed my views on the cycle. While my early understanding was (partly subconsciously) influenced by the assumption that this music should sound “modern”, and I was preoccupied with a “correct” reading, perfect ensemble coordination and clean playing, I now experience Opus 15 as highly expressive music which I strive to convey to an audience through a personal yet respectful interpretation in a truly equal partnership

The reflection text in conjunction with the artistic results offers insights into the poetry and how it guided my singers and me in our search for an expressive and unique performance. My insights into the poetry are not only useful to non-native speakers, as I took great care to go beyond the surface imagery and literal meaning in my discussion of it, and revealed how its different layers influenced my performance decisions as a pianist. I considered how to expose and communicate my understanding of Opus 15 to an audience and discussed the impact of recordings by other performers as well as how our approaches differ. With regard to the music, I elaborated on both artistic and craft-related aspects, including learning strategies, and revealed the transformation of my understanding of Schönberg’s musical language. I considered Schönberg’s performance ideals and performance practices of the time and discussed how a changed perception of collaboration influenced my performance of Opus 15. Due to the cycle’s complexity and extreme expressivity, a successful performance needs true collaboration. Then, the voice of the piano will come out on its own. Instead of over-controlling a performance to make it sound “smooth” and “nice”, both performers should remain slightly uncomfortable to reveal the expressivity of Opus

As I wrote in my reflection text, the role of the collaborative pianist does not exist, and the skills and competencies a collaborative pianist needs and the way they have to be balanced differ for each collaboration context. Discussing the influence of different contexts on my role and artistic identity as a collaborative pianist, I revealed insights that could have an impact on higher music education as well as future artistic research projects related to ensemble