In February the ULB Laboratory of Musicology finally welcomed Dr Peter Asimov, who like other Wiener-Anspach fellows this year had to struggle with the many challenges posed by Brexit and the pandemic. We are delighted that Peter has finally been able to move from Cambridge to Brussels and start working on his research project (“Toward a theory of paratextual practices in musical composition: the case of Olivier Messiaen’s writings”), under the supervision of Prof. Valérie Dufour.
Peter is the author of a recent article on French composer and folklorist Louis-Albert Bourgault-Ducoudray (1840–1910), featured in the latest issue of the journal 19th Century Music. Entitled “Transcribing Greece, Arranging France: Bourgault-Ducoudray’s Performances of Authenticity and Innovation”, the article examines Bourgault-Ducoudray’s role in propagating “ancient Greek modes as a modern resource for French composition” and how his “quasi-philological analyses” were translated into “an artistic agenda through techniques of transcription, arrangement, and composition”.
Louis-Albert Bourgault-Ducoudray had utopian visions for French music. These visions were articulated socially and aesthetically, in multiple interconnected spheres of French musical life: in the ambitious mobilizing aspirations of his choral society, in proposed educational initiatives, and, not least, in his ethnic nationalist agenda for the future of French composition. In the estimation of Michel Dimitri Calvocoressi, writing in 1933, Bourgault paved the way for “nearly everything that took place in [French] music until 1914.”
The full article is available for free access on the website of 19th Century Music. On December 2-3, 2021 the Conservatoire national supérieur de musique et de danse de Paris will host an international conference on Bourgault-Ducoudray, convened by Peter and Professor Yves Balmer. More information on this event, which had to be cancelled in January, will be posted on the website of the Conservatoire de Paris.
Peter is also an accomplished pianist. In this video from October 23, 2018, he plays La Valse by Maurice Ravel with composer, conductor and pianist Toby Hession at West Road Concert Hall in Cambridge.