Romantic lab
Octavie Dostaler-Lalonde, cello
Artem Belogurov, piano
Romantic Lab is a video-blog dedicated to the study of late 19th- and early 20th-century performance practice, presenting the results of research and experimentation with Romantic performance by imitating historical recordings.
There is a consensus among musicologists and researchers that the earliest surviving recordings are an invaluable source of information of what performance practices of the time were. This is corroborated by a large amount of written evidence, such as treatises, methods, reviews of concerts, letters and memoirs of composers and performers. We believe that analysing and imitating early recordings is an effective technique in the study of 19th-century performance practices: both as a way of understanding them better and as a way of incorporating their stylistic features in our own playing. We chose the format of a video-blog hoping to engage with other musicians who have similar interests and approaches, open a discussion, as well as reaching to a wider audience.
We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts
Nous remercions le Conseil des arts du Canada de son soutien.
Videos by Noelia Nicolas and sound by Antal van Nie.
Chopin, Nocturne in E-flat major
To give a taste of what the rest will be like, here is one of the full pieces we recorded.
Chopin, Nocturne in E minor arranged for cello and piano by Adrien Servais
Imitation of a recording by Joseph Hollman (ca.1915)
To listen to Hollman: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uku64KH8lmw