Body Language, Body Science. Analyzing the Great Pianists in Action : Louta Nouneberg's Pioneer Slow-Motion Films (1927) - HAL Accéder directement au contenu
Communication dans un congrès Année : 2023

Body Language, Body Science. Analyzing the Great Pianists in Action : Louta Nouneberg's Pioneer Slow-Motion Films (1927)

Résumé

Born in 1893 a Polish-speaking town of Imperial Germany, Louta Nouneberg studied the piano in Vienna with Theodor Leschetizky (1830-1915). She then moved to Paris in order to perform and teach according to the maestro’s recommendations, yet without being fully satisfied with the results obtained. She was in fact soon to become obsessed with the mastering of the most effective hand, arm and body gestures, from the fingertips to the shoulders. Blessed with a scientific mind – she was the sister of neurologist Hermann Nunberg, an early member of the Psychoanalytic Society who was Carl Jung’s assistant in Zurich and closely associated with Sigmund Freud – Louta Nouneberg kept working on perfecting her keyboard technique, motor coordination and tone production by reading methods, observing great virtuosos on stage and questioning her daily pratice. The development of her own approach took a definite step forward after she discovered the slow-motion cinematographic effect in an avant-garde theater. Between January 1927 and April 1928, using one of the only high-speed military cameras available in France, she found a way to record several world-famous pianists perform a selection of Etudes by Chopin. Her cast included such luminaries as Alfred Cortot, Wilhelm Backhaus, Vladimir Horowitz (aged 23), Claudia Arrau, composer Igor Stravinsky, Wanda Landowska (playing Bach on a Pleyel harpsichord), a. m. o. At the time, her unprecedented experiment was daring. This cutting edge technology required the assistance of a dedicated crew. For she wanted to understand (that is, to transmit) the fundamental principles in piano playing, Nouneberg also invented a whole set of marks to transcribe the musicians’ body movements on the music. She published two methods and a series of annotated scores. She thus achieved international recognition up to Tasmania and was appointed lecturer in piano studies at the Sazlburg Mozarteum in 1935. Only 7 out of the 14 silent films Louta Nouneberg shot in the late 1920s survived the Holocaust.
Loading...
Fichier non déposé

Dates et versions

halshs-04037339, version 1 (20-03-2023)

Identifiants

  • HAL Id : halshs-04037339 , version 1

Citer

Frédéric Gaussin. Body Language, Body Science. Analyzing the Great Pianists in Action : Louta Nouneberg's Pioneer Slow-Motion Films (1927). Body Knowledges : Praxis, Politics, Performance. 9th Annual Conference of the School of Performing Arts, University of Malta, Dr Mika Lillit Lior, Dr Jeremy Coleman, Mar 2023, Valletta, Malta. ⟨halshs-04037339⟩
64 Consultations
0 Téléchargements
Dernière date de mise à jour le 12/05/2024
comment ces indicateurs sont-ils produits

Partager

Gmail Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Plus