Research Project

Biedermeier Trio: Chamber music for violin, viola and guitar.

Kim, Margaret Hayne., Chantanakajornfung A., and Suwanpakdee S.(2022) Biedermeier Trio: Chamber music for violin, viola and guitar. Princess Galynai Vadhana Institute of Music. www.pgvim.ac.th/research/biedermeier

In every culture and time period, music has always been a medium of expression that gathers people together. In Thailand, the Sadhukarn, ceremonial music from the beginning of the Rattanakosin era (1782-1851), expressed a bodily and mental salutation to heavenly spirits, inviting and uniting the minds of the people towards one shared belief. In a parallel era in Central Europe, the music of the Biedermeier period (1815-1848) also had a unifying function as it grew out of societal conditions in which the distinction of classes became less pronounced. The search for a simpler, more natural aesthetic in music and the arts emerged as a response to the tumultuous events that had shaken European history preceding this era; it was a conscious, rigorous move to restore a sense of peace. This spirit of Biedermeier culture was the starting point for exploring new options in chamber music performance. The pieces studied and performed for this research were serenades written for the relatively rare combination of guitar, violin, and viola by Biedermeier-era composers Leonard von Call, Wenzeslaus Matiegka, and Anton Diabelli, as well as a newly created arrangement of the Thai Sadhukarn for the same combination of instruments. Upon investigation of the role that music written in the Austrian Biedermeier and Thai Rattanakosin cultural contexts had in the broader community, it was found that both cultures were strongly driven by the middle class, resulting in a conception of music that emphasized its accessibility and functionality in daily life. By performing these works, the aim was to transfer knowledge about the social function of this music to contemporary audiences of today.