Automatic Bach

Overview

Researcher: Daniel Porcel Chalup

Listening to recordings of Bach’s French Overture often left me frustrated rather than inspired. While impeccably executed, they rarely matched the rhythmic flexibility and gesture I associate with the French overture tradition. This gap between inherited interpretations and my own imagined sound became the catalyst for this project.

In this project, I approach Bach’s French Overture as a laboratory of doubt, questioning the automatic interpretative paths that often shape its performance on the piano. Although explicitly framed by Bach as a work in the French style, my engagement with the piece has been marked by a persistent dissatisfaction with recorded traditions, which rarely align with the sound and elasticity I imagine.

Rather than seeking a ‘correct’ interpretation, I treat this tension as the engine of a practice-based investigation. Beginning from scratch, I explore tempo, metric hierarchy, rhythmic flexibility, articulation, and ornamentation, documenting how decisions emerge and evolve.

The project culminates in a videographic, audiographic, and visual analysis centred on an annotated score, presented through a dynamic web platform, framing interpretation as an active, self-critical process.