One of the hallmarks of early Romanticism is the intimate relationship between music and literature. The genre of the ballad lies at the intersection of both: in its literary form, the poem is meant to be recited and heard; in its musical form, the ballad retains the cadence of the spoken word. This performance centers on the exchange of storytelling techniques between the literary ballad, the sung ballad, and the solo piano ballad. It is part of the PhD project ‘Benoit’s Language,’ in which pianist and musicologist Hannah Aelvoet views Belgian composer Peter Benoit’s piano repertoire through the lens of 19th-century oral culture.
image (c) Kaat Pype