Exploring Josef Hofmann’s Recordings in My Pianistic Journey

<p>This exegesis studies Josef Hofmann’s pianistic intricacy and sophistication by surveying the minutiae and architectonics of his performances of Romantic and Classical piano compositions. The scores, together with a variety of other pianists’ recordings of the pieces involved, are referenced to establish the originality and significance of Hofmann’s interpretations. Chapter I introduces late-Romantic and modern perceptions of Hofmann's style, and a framework is introduced for the analysis of his technique, based on elemental pianistic parameters. Chapter II elaborates on Hofmann's jeu perlé, which is associated with non legato and leggiero touches. Chapter III addresses Hofmann's passagework, including fioriture and trills, which are imbued with jeu perlé and largely devoid of manneristic gestural agogics. It also addresses the continuous runs in the mode of toccata or perpetuum mobile, where he exerts an elastic control of tempo. Chapter IV focuses on Hofmann's voicing, especially his exploration of inner voices and hidden melodies. Chapter V discusses Hofmann’s phrasal shaping and structural projection, in particular how he calibrates and contextualises dynamic contrast, including crescendo, decrescendo, and accentuation. Chapter VI covers Hofmann’s modification of the score, including added repeated notes, octaves, and ornaments. This detailed study offers insight into the complex make up of a pianistic personality, and offers any pianist—myself included—an avenue for self-comparison and thus self-analysis.</p>

Exploring Josef Hofmann’s Recordings in My Pianistic Journey

<p>This exegesis studies Josef Hofmann’s pianistic intricacy and sophistication by surveying the minutiae and architectonics of his performances of Romantic and Classical piano compositions. The scores, together with a variety of other pianists’ recordings of the pieces involved, are referenced to establish the originality and significance of Hofmann’s interpretations. Chapter I introduces late-Romantic and modern perceptions of Hofmann's style, and a framework is introduced for the analysis of his technique, based on elemental pianistic parameters. Chapter II elaborates on Hofmann's jeu perlé, which is associated with non legato and leggiero touches. Chapter III addresses Hofmann's passagework, including fioriture and trills, which are imbued with jeu perlé and largely devoid of manneristic gestural agogics. It also addresses the continuous runs in the mode of toccata or perpetuum mobile, where he exerts an elastic control of tempo. Chapter IV focuses on Hofmann's voicing, especially his exploration of inner voices and hidden melodies. Chapter V discusses Hofmann’s phrasal shaping and structural projection, in particular how he calibrates and contextualises dynamic contrast, including crescendo, decrescendo, and accentuation. Chapter VI covers Hofmann’s modification of the score, including added repeated notes, octaves, and ornaments. This detailed study offers insight into the complex make up of a pianistic personality, and offers any pianist—myself included—an avenue for self-comparison and thus self-analysis.</p>

Bach’s Chorale Pedagogy

Largely because of the proselytizing efforts of J. P. Kirnberger, J. S. Bach’s four-part vocal chorales (Choralgesänge) have come to be viewed as idealized microcosms of Baroque composition. For this reason, the Choralgesänge have enjoyed pride of place in compositional instruction for over two centuries. Yet recent archival discoveries have begun to problematize this hallowed pedagogical patrimony. A growing number of manuscript sources originating from Bach’s circle contain chorales melodies with multiple figured basslines. This focus on outer voices and thorough bass at the keyboard aligns quite well with C. P. E. Bach’s account of his father’s teaching, in which pupils first composed inner voices to a given outer-voice framework, and later learned to compose their own basslines. These findings suggest that our image of the “Bach chorale” should be broadened to include such Choralbuch settings with multiple basslines—a reframing that in turn has potential ramifications for historically informed teaching today.

The fragmentation of the writing self: Using dialogic reflection to explore the writing process of an autobiographical novel

In this article, the author-researcher presents three intertwined texts: excerpts from an autobiographical novel, extracts from a reflexive journal written during the writing of that novel, as well as a theorized account and analysis of the overarching creative process. These texts talk to each other as a form of intertextuality in the similar way that the three generations of a Chinese Indonesian family depicted in the novel interact with one another and present differing perspectives and fresh insights. The issues of the writer’s inner voices and multiplicity of the self feature prominently in this work, the result of a deep and critical engagement with the author-researcher’s creative writing and reflective thinking processes. Together, these three interrelated texts capture and explore multiple perspectives interacting during the writing process while at the same time present how the self and sites of meaning-making can be constructed through writing.

A Feminist Critique of “I’m Thinking of Ending Things”: A Trapped Young Woman in the Dream of a Man

Written and directed by Charlie Kaufman, I’m Thinking of Ending Things recently metwith viewers of Netflix and brought the controversy. The film is in the focus of criticism as wellas the likes, praise, and applause. The film is an adaptation from the Canadian writer Iain Reid’sbestselling namesake novel. Neither the book nor the film is not intended to be a feminist study,although it argues to show the existential crisis and the inner-voices of a young woman character.Instead, this piece reflects the subjective interpretations of dreams, memories, and a man’s life,Jake. What makes this piece a subject of feminist critique is the promised story of the movieand the starting point of the movie. This movie promises the audience to hear the voice of ayoung woman going through an existential crisis, making her wonder about her story.

THE VULNERABILITY AND RATIONALISATION OF PROSTITUTES WITHIN MERITOCRATIC CAPITALISM~SOUTHEAST ASIAN MIGRANT WORKERS IN TAIWAN

This study sought an insightful understanding of the effects of social meritocratic capital—an inevitable phenomenon/mechanism whereby individuals receive social recognition, respect, and other benefits due to their monetary achievement—on Southeast Asian migrant workers’ behaviours and their ingrained perceptions through investigating their life stories and inner voices reflecting the factors inducing them to participate in the prostitution world. Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) was employed to scrutinise the qualitative data collected from a series of in-depth interviews with four Southeast Asian migrant women in Taiwan. This study led to the following conclusions: (1) These migrant workers moved overseas due to their pure and simple intention of pursuing better lives for themselves and their family; (2) The internal factors (family reputation and wellbeing) and external ones (unexpected events and a meritocratic society) simultaneously pulled and pushed them, eventually turning them out of their normal careers; (3) They were stuck in the very depths of an extravagant but vicious world by the shock, even attraction, of “big money” characterising a meritocratic capitalist order; and (4) Innocence and ‘purity’ get lost easily, even unconsciously, in the social context of meritocratic capitalism and wishful rationalisation of questionable behaviours, flouting convention and morality, with self-sacrifice and compensation, and self-rationalisation.

Ndibeer and Ned Ride Again

This article tells a dialogical story and describes a process of mutual learning and embodiment over the course of a long therapeutic relationship. The article maps the development of relationship, between my inner voices, my supervisors and those of my client, where stories of self and other are articulated, elaborated and externalised using the metaphor of a "bundle of treasures". A self-reflexive process of personal and professional mapping, using the hierarchical model of the Coordinated Management of Meaning, is described. In a recursive and isomorphic process, supervisory and therapeutic conversations further elaborate these stories, and through joint action, enable the creation of a liminal, reflexive space, a Fifth Province position, a cauldron of creativity where practice-based theory can develop. This process will be illustrated as it arises in the story of relationship and the process of therapy, so this narrative invites the reader to become an active participant in a never-ending process where theory becomes a live metaphor in the quest for being human

Solidarity now? Other stories about researchers, otherness, and polyphony in research

We are three researchers within the field of mental health. For the past 3 years, we have collaborated with colleagues in Greece on evaluating the pilot project Refugee Outreach Mental Health Team. Part of our role has been to evaluate how refugees and asylum seekers experience the treatment and support offered by the team. The findings from the evaluation have been presented in a published research report and we have thereby “completed our task.” However, following the completion of the formal obligations, we have continued to dwell on the less outspoken dialogues and inner voices. Not only those of the participants, but also the ones of the researchers that are present before, during and after research interviews. Inspired by relational autoethnography, we share some “other stories” about how the research processes touched us deeply and how it has left traces in our minds and bodies long after the project completion. We reflect on how relational processes of polyphonic meaning-making can be used to develop deeper insights and knowledge as well as a call for action. We suggest that the sharing of other stories can provide new knowledge and new understandings of how knowledge can be developed. Our hope is also that it may serve troubling or evocative purposes, and encourage the development of dialogues by invoking inner and outer voices. Perhaps, it may even call for solidarity in others and ourselves.

Writing the Multilingual in Maghrebi Literature

Maghrebi literatures have been always approached from the lenses of colonial hegemony, either as postcolonial “Francophone” literatures, or as marginalized “derivative” literatures that mimic the “belle lettres.” Maghrebi literatures, however, offer a critical and highly crucial exercise to question and rethink the recent debates regarding the problematics of world literature. The main objective of this study is to intervene in the recent critical debates in the disciplines of comparative literature and world literature, with the postulates of a literary multilingualism that necessitates the task of rethinking the critical standards with which these disciplines approach literatures of the world. Writing the multilingual makes us think of the literary positionality of being a multilingual. This positionality is never understood without rethinking the very poetical and aesthetical dimensions of multilingual writing experience. Writing the multilingual highlights the imaginative space as a poetic factor that generates and evaluates those inner voices, images, rhythms, tensions, and memories as significant determinant of multilingual literatures. It rethinks in a sense what is common between languages of the same tongue. Furthermore, it transcends the linguistic barriers that avoid the realization of public sphere where all languages can meet and negotiate. In other words, writing the multilingual – literarily speaking – is making the realization of this shared space be possible, but also, it gives to the marginalized and subaltern spaces an opportunity to share its voiced world values.