My keynote, Quantifying Karajan, took place at 9:30am, Tuesday, 30 April 2019, at the Palais Meran in Graz, Austria. See photos from the keynote and sights in Graz, and the abstract of the keynote. There were two pianos on stage and I had the choice of the Bösendorfer or the Steinway. I have given two keynotes in Austria this year, each with a Bösendorfer piano—one could get used to this.
While preparing for my keynote and wondering why I promised to analyze so many new pieces conducted by Karajan—new at least to my portfolio of analyzed examples—I got sidetracked by the Karajan recordings (with the Berlin Philharmonic and with the Vienna Philharmonic) of Solveig's Song by Edvard Grieg sitting in my iTunes folder.
The presentation thus became one centered on analyses of Karajan's interpretations of Solveig's Song, with some references to his renditions of the beginning of Tristan and Isolde by Richard Wagner and The Blue Danube Waltz by Johann Strauss II.
The session containing my keynote was chaired by Gerhard Widmer from JKU Linz/Vienna, ERC Advanced Grantee for the project Con Espressione on expressive performance that started January 2016. Music technology researcher and pianist Werner Goebl from Vienna and conductor-musicologist Peter Gülke from Weimar, Germany, were the other keynote speakers. The conference was an interesting mix of the music information research and predominantly German-speaking musicology communities.
The mayor of the city opened the town hall to the conference participants—where we had an excellent view of the main square and the clock tower atop the Schlossberg (Castle Hill).
With the keynote behind me, I had time before Wednesday's sessions to climb to the top of the Schlossberg for a view of the city's red rooftops.
A highlight of the final day was the panel discussion with members of the Berlin Philharmonic and Vienna Philharmonic Orchestras who had worked with Karajan. Unfortunately for me, this was all in German, but I was able to get a quick synopsis from Karol Berger (Stanford Professor) and speak to two of the players, trumpeter Konradin Groth and flutist Dieter Flury, afterwards. To my surprise, both had attended my keynote and Dieter even has a technical diploma in mathematics from ETH Zurich!