Inside Beethoven! The Walk-in Ensemble

The exhibition project will travel to six museums in different states across Germany and Austria:

• Lippe Regional Museum Detmold (Lippisches Landesmuseum Detmold) (Opening on 13 December 2019)

• Heinz Nixdorf MuseumsForum Paderborn

• House of Music Vienna (Haus der Musik Wien)

• Beethoven House Bonn (Beethoven-Haus Bonn)

• German National Library Leipzig (Deutsche Nationalbibliothek Leipzig)

• German National Library Frankfurt/Main (Deutsche Nationalbibliothek Frankfurt/Main)

 

The audience usually maintains a respectful distance when musicians perform on stage. All that changes with the “Inside Beethoven! The Walk-in Ensemble” installation: The musicians perform virtually and the visitors are allowed on stage and invited to visit the place of each individual musician to listen to them play up close. The music, its polyphonic structure, the playing of each individual instrument and its contribution to the whole all suddenly become transparent.

We will hear Beethoven's Septet in E flat major, played both in the version for wind and strings and as Beethoven's own trio arrangement. The basis of the project is a recording of the piece by lecturers of the Detmold University of Music (Hochschule für Musik Detmold). The digital music stands at the exhibition allow visitors to follow the notes of the individual parts and at the same time also track the changes in the trio arrangement of the septet. From the outside, the music sounds just as it would sitting in the audience. However, if the listener approaches a music stand, they also enter the sound range of a directional loudspeaker. This carefully adjusted acoustic close-up of the musician in question, allows the finest nuances to become audible, complementing the otherwise spatially distant perception; the interaction of each individual musician with their ensemble partners is experienced vividly and "up close".

The walk-in ensemble was developed by the Center for Music and Film Informatics of the Detmold University of Music (HfM Detmold) and East Westphalia-Lippe University of Applied Sciences (TH OWL), the "Beethoven's Workshop" research project, the Center for Music - Edition - Media (Zentrum Musik – Edition – Medien) and the Erich Thienhaus Institute of the Detmold University of Music (HfM Detmold).

During the Beethoven Anniversary Year, the exhibition will travel to six museums across Germany and Austria. In addition, there will also be a CD with the new recordings of the two Beethoven works and a documentary volume published in cooperation with the Academy of Sciences and Literature (Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur) in Mainz and the Beethoven House Bonn (Beethoven-Haus Bonn).