The following is an abridged summary with auxiliary examples of a presentation given on 29 March 2025 at the American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies annual meeting.

Introduction

My name is Anders Muskens, a professional historical keyboard player and musicological researcher. My research examines the application of classical rhetorical expressive techniques, eighteenth-century acting methods, and the aesthetics of sensibility in musical performance of repertory from 1740–1830: in practice. I explore how rhetorical principles guided historical musicians, emphasizing expressivity, persuasion, and emotional authenticity, and how these concepts evolved alongside the rise of the “feeling” musician in the age of sensibility and early Romanticism. My work also considers music as a “language of sentiments,” exploring shared rhetorical commonplaces, gestural conventions, and rhetorical figures, emphasizing intersectional insights in different humanities disciplines. By drawing connections between rhetorical theory, eighteenth-century culture, and Enlightenment ideals, I investigate the broader intellectual landscape that shaped musical rhetoric during this period and translate it into a practical historically inspired approach that guides my own artistic approach and that of others. See the article “The Importance of a Rhetorical Approach to Performance” for an overview of this approach.

Opening Remarks

Point of departure: What can we learn from historical models of embodied expression to enhance contemporary performance practice? Can we use the eighteenth-century culture of sensibility, sympathy, and embodied sentiment to enhance contemporary musical performance of eighteenth-century musical-theatrical works?

I want to examine this question in the context of artistic research experiments in the field of musical performance practice.

Recall that sensibility was at the forefront of eighteenth-century cultural discourse. Reviewing important mid eighteenth-century concepts:

Sensibility: sensitivity or susceptibility to emotional experiences or sentiments triggered by objects and events in our perception.
Sentiment: embodied emotional experience
Sympathy: mechanism through which sentiments were conveyed from one person to another

Sensibility is needed by the artist to be expressive. According to Alexander Gerard in his Essay on Taste (1759), the artist needed “such a sensibility of heart, as fits a man for being easily moved, and for readily catching, as by infection, any passion, that a work is fitted to excite.” Therefore, this artist needed sensibility to embody the sentiments they express. This sentiment was communicated to others by sympathy.

The Project

In 2024, I initiated an ambitious artistic project which explores such concepts through experimentssurrounding the revival of three remarkable yet overlooked works from the Mannheim Court: Georg Vogler’s Hamlet overture and Christian Cannabich’s ballets en action, Ceyx et Alcyone and Médor et Angélique, ou Roland furieux.

Collaborating with violinist Rachael Beesley and historical acting specialist João Luís Veloso Paixão, I directed Das Neue Mannheimer Orchester in historically informed performances commemorating the 300-year jubilee of Prince-Elector Carl Theodor.

Carl Theodor, a prominent figure in German history, served as Elector Palatine from 1742 and Elector of Bavaria from 1778 until his death in 1799. Known for his cultural patronage and extensive contributions to art, architecture, and science, Carl Theodor significantly shaped the cultural landscape of southern Germany. He notably cultivated the Mannheim court orchestra into one of Europe’s finest ensembles, transforming Mannheim into a vibrant cultural hub known as the “Athens on the Rhine” and attracting exceptional talent from across the continent. The jubilee year in 2024 marks the 300th anniversary of his birth, offering an occasion to celebrate and reflect upon his enduring legacy and historical significance.

Hypotheses

The project is complex and has many elements, so today we want to focus on three artistic research hypotheses, which are based around a framework of eighteenth-century thought surrounding sensibility. These all follow from doxa of many late eighteenth-century musical theorists including Vogler: that instrumental music is not abstract: it inherently carries detailed dramatic narratives and emotions expressed though musical-rhetorical commonplaces, e.g. expressing pathos through mimesis of impassioned voice (including tones, inflections, timbres, etc.), gesture, and movement. Thus:

A “feeling” or sentimental musician of the period uses their sensibility and embodiment of the emotions they express to enhance their performance. Therefore: a feeling musician does not just play the notes with emotional distance: they let the notes play them, creating a sort of feedback loop that heightens their emotional response.
A group of “feeling” musicians playing together can therefore coordinate their expression with shared sensibility and sympathetic attention to others.
Performing music explicitly structured around sentimental narratives in union with an actor engaged in eighteenth-century models of embodied expression will catalyze performers and audiences alike to create dynamic links or associations between music, gesture, and declamation, and enhance their reception of the sentiments expressed.

Engaging with eighteenth-century corporal eloquence—emphasizing expressive body gestures and tones of voice that result from a body agitated by passions—we integrated João’s acting expertise to reconstruct pantomime and melodrama practices. Vogler’s Hamlet overture was uniquely suitable due to his detailed commentary linking musical topoi explicitly with Hamlet’s emotional states and gestures. Although no exact choreographies survived for Cannabich’s ballets, his annotated scores and narrative summaries enabled us to create melodramatic texts derived from contemporaneous French poetry and drama. Central to our methodology was the idea that musical and dramatic expressions should emerge spontaneously from sensibility and emotional authenticity rather than overly prescriptive instructions – which could lead to mannerism. We encouraged musicians to internalize dramatic narratives and develop personal interpretations, guided by expressive gestures inspired by historical acting manuals like Engel’s Ideen zu Mimik (1785) and Austin’s Chironomia (1806).

Our comprehensive preparatory process included detailed narrative analysis, creating new performance editions, and curating suitable texts for melodrama. Rehearsals involved synchronizing musical gestures with João’s dramatic declamations, enhancing musicians’ imaginative engagement. This process drew from rhetorical commonplaces shared between music, declamation, and acting—using expressive gestures as inventive stimuli for authentic emotional performance.

Methodology

Historically Informed Performance (HIP) is a discipline dedicated to understanding and performing music in a manner faithful to the aesthetic, stylistic, and expressive intentions of its time. HIP employs a source-based methodology, drawing from period treatises, manuscripts, instruments, and other contemporaneous documents to shape interpretations. While this source-based approach provides valuable insights into historical contexts, it inevitably confronts limitations: historical sources often offer incomplete information, can be silent on some interpretive details, and may inadvertently constrain performers into overly prescriptive or literal readings.

To counter such risks in our HIP approach, we prioritize understanding holistic concepts from eighteenth-century culture to guide our process. We do not aim to replicate the past; rather, we prioritize reviving techniques that free the individual artist’s voice, imagination and their physical connection to expression to give them the space to be expressive. From here, we re-invite the audience to re-evaluate the transformation of interpretation and practice those results.

Original harpsichord employed in the project, c. 1780

Only in a limited capacity has HIP research explored the role of sensibility and sentimental rhetorical strategies in eighteenth-century music, although these were prominent features in discourse of the period. Music was viewed by many theorists and practitioners to be a “language of sentiments” that acted via sympathy. This proposed approach thus extends the scope of HIP. The works presented in the project as well as many other eighteenth-century theatrical works historically placed the embodied expression of emotions at the forefront of their designs. By drawing upon rhetorical commonplaces that exist between music, poetics, declamation, the visual arts, and acting, one can establish a framework that unifies these disciplines into a cohesive artistic vision, which could produce heightened emotional experiences for modern audiences that are inherently more accessible.

This proposed approach differs from other contemporary performance methodologies for classical music in its commitment to use eighteenth-century concepts like embodied sensibility, imagination, and taste to enhance eighteenth-century musical performances. It challenges certain contemporary conventions in mainstream classical music performance that were not part of eighteenth-century performance practice, some of which include rigid rhythmic precision rather than flexibility, homogeneity of tone rather than varied timbres, adherence to a conductor’s authority rather than taking individual agency in an orchestra, objectivity and emotional distancing rather than sentimentalism, as well as prioritizing technical execution and hyper-cleanliness in performance over all other considerations. Using these rhetorical and theatrical strategies opens up new possibilities and brings concepts from the past into contemporary artistic discourse and practice.

As an individual artist who uses HIP research to inform my work as a professional performer on historical fortepiano and harpsichord, I explore such concepts of sensibility, sentiment, and sympathy in my own practice. But how can sentiments be shared in the imagination of an orchestra: especially a modern one not immersed in eighteenth-century culture? Furthermore, can this be done in a way that is not dictated by a conductor, or mannered, but arising from genuine feeling in each individual?

Although we know that eighteenth-century composers believed that instrumental music could move the passions, we often do not have detailed instructions from them about which passions and images they wished to portray. However, in this case, we do. Vogler has written a detailed commentary about how his overture expresses and even embodies the characterization of Hamlet through musical topoi and a description of pantomime. Although no exact choreographies survive, Cannabich’s ballets en action have accompanying descriptive summaries and textual annotations in the score which connect musical designs to dramatic action. This is a unique opportunity not only for understanding how narrative is composed into music, but also for exploring how we can create narrative out of music. In doing so, we seek to challenge mainstream approaches to music from this period, which is often treated performed with emotional distance.

This proposed approach challenges certain contemporary conventions in mainstream classical music performance that are anachronistic to the eighteenth century. Many of these were identified by musicologist Bruce Haynes in his 2011 book, The End of Early Music:

Rigid rhythmic precision rather than flexibility
Homogeneity of tone rather than varied timbres
Over-direction: adherence to a conductor’s authority rather than taking individual agency in an orchestra
Objectivity and emotional distancing rather than being guided by feeling
Prioritizing technical execution and hyper-cleanliness over all other considerations

Using these rhetorical and theatrical strategies opens up new possibilities and brings concepts from the past into contemporary artistic discourse and practice.

Contextually, the Mannheim Court represented a hub of musical innovation in the late eighteenth century, significantly influencing composers such as Mozart. Georg Joseph Vogler (1749-1814), Mannheim’s second Kapellmeister from 1776, was a composer and theorist who influenced musical pedagogy. Vogler’s Betrachtungen der Mannheimer Tonschule [Proceedings of the Mannheim School of Music](1778-81) was a periodical featuring musical works by Vogler, his students, and contemporaries accompanied by detailed analytical commentaries by Vogler. The “Hamlet Symphony,” which was originally written for a 1778 performance of Hamlet at the Mannheim Nationaltheater, appears in the Betrachtungen in 1779. Vogler explains that the symphony, which is designed to open the play, establishes thematic links by depicting Hamlet’s characterization in 4 different episodes: Hamlet’s sadness for the loss of his father, the appearance of the ghost, Hamlet’s indecision, and feigned madness. The published score is accompanied by a commentary explaining this affective content through its musical gestures, instrumentation, use of keys, and harmony.

Christian Cannabich (1731–1798), a violin prodigy from Mannheim, rose to prominence as a composer, concertmaster, and director of the court orchestra. Mozart highly regarded him as a director, calling him “the best I have ever seen.” Both Cannabich and Vogler explored the new genre of ballet en action: a new narrative ballet that emerged in the mid-18th century. This reform combined pantomime with traditional dance forms to more effectively portray sentimental narratives. The most important progenitor of this new genre was the ballet master Jean-Georges Noverre (1727–1810), who reportedly crafted his scenarios and choreographies before any music was written and then worked closely with the composers such that the music was designed to fit specifically to every gesture and action. Ballet reform in Mannheim was taken up by François André Bouqueton and Étienne Lauchery, colleagues and admirer of Noverre’s.

The historical concept of the “feeling musician,” championed by figures like Diderot, underlines the musician's personal interpretive freedom, emphasizing rhythmic and dynamic flexibility that arises from sensibility to emotions. This sensibility also influences musical performance or “delivery” in matters of “feeling,” as sentiments will spontaneously influence delivery in ways that make it more emotionally authentic. Diderot argues that musicians of “feeling” would struggle to be expressive if they had to slavishly restrict themselves to a uniform pulse:

there may not be four bars in an aria that are exactly the same length; two things necessarily contribute to lengthening some and hastening others: taste and feeling in harmony […]. A musician who knows his art has not played four bars of an air before he grasps its character and gives himself over to it: only the pleasure of harmony suspends him; here he wants the chords to be struck, there he wants them to be concealed; that is to say, he sings or plays more or less slowly from one bar to another, and even from one quarter-division to the next.
Ils objecteront contre tout Chronométre en général, qu’il n’y a peut-être pas dans un air quatre mesures qui soient exactement de la même durée; deux choses contribuant nécessairement à rallentir les unes & à précipiter les autres, le goût et l’harmonie […]. Un Musicien qui sçait son art n’a pas joué quatre mesures d’un air qu’il en saisit le caractere & qu’il s’y abandonne: il n’y a que le plaisir de l’harmonie qui le suspende; il veut ici que les accords soient frappés, là qu’ils soient dérobés; c’est-à-dire, qu’il chante ou jouë plus ou moins lentement d’une mesure à une autre, & même d’un tems & d’un quart de tems à celui qui le suit. Denis Diderot, Mémoires sur différens sujets de mathematiques (Paris, 1748), 193–94.

For Diderot, rigid, unfluctuating, or mechanical tempi–so prized in modern musical practice–are inherently unfeeling. Diderot underscores that the flexibility afforded to feeling via spontaneous dynamic and rhythmic modification is what makes musicians musical: not strict adherence to a score. The feeling musician is not merely prescriptive: they are reactive, and their sensibility guides their inventions and enhances them. They must embody their emotions: they cannot be cold, indifferent, and detached because they would have nothing to express: the arrangements of notes would become artificial, mechanical, stiff, and lifeless. Sensibility is so at the core of musicmaking in this epoch that it cannot be ignored, and any performer seeking to play expressively will have to develop it in some measure.

How to cultivate the sensitive imaginations of the musicians in the orchestra? Interfacing with the acting of our artistic collaborator, Joao Paixao lies at the center of this exploration–hence, engaging with the sentimental content of eighteenth-century music through the language of the body or corporeal eloquence. Firstly, we reconstructed and realized Hamlet’s pantomime described by Vogler in the commentary of his overture, such that members of the orchestra could see and feed their imaginations with a synchronized visual of eighteenth-century acting. Our reconstruction uses the grand gestures and attitudes drawn from treatises like Engel’s Ideen zu Mimik (1785) and Austin’s Chironomia (1806). Secondly, in the absence of surviving choreographies to stage the ballets, we converted the ballets into melodramas: a genre where declaimed text is accompanied by musical interludes, selecting appropriate dramatic texts to describe the action at key points. The texts themselves were a pasticcio of various poetic and theatrical texts in French from the period, In the performance, João declaimed them with appropriate tones and inflection, employing eighteenth-century methods drawn from sources like John Walker’s Rhetorical Grammar (1785) and Melody of Speaking (1787). We wanted to avoid excessive prescription that would hinder, what eighteenth-century writer Aaron Hill called the “flexible Fancy.” Hence, not having a conductor, our directing aimed to be less top-down than most modern orchestras, and resembled more the concept of the “army of generals”: a term used by Charles Burney to describe orchestral governance in Mannheim in 1772. This contrasts sharply with modern conductor-centric orchestral practices, suggesting a historical model where each musician contributed creatively to the expressive whole. We explored this model of flexible orchestral governance—characterized by negotiated hierarchies, individual artistic agency, and rhetorical expressivity— so that we can inform contemporary performance practices whilst challenging and transforming accepted conventions within the institution of the orchestra.

As Alexander Gerard noted in his 1774 Essay on Genius, sensibility must guide the artist’s inventions, helping the imagination discover the rhetorical tools and associations suited for their design, and while this generator must be moderated by taste and judgement, it will not bear fruit without input and material to manipulate. Thus, by unifying music with period acting styles, we sought to cultivate the imaginative palettes of our musicians with period expressive models. In any art form, prescription is necessary to a certain degree. Theatrical performances result from texts, notation, rehearsals, and techniques. But rather than fixing or prescribing every expressive element, we provide space for certain expressive devices to arise from “fancy,” and “intuition” in the moment of performance, which are only possible when orchestra musicians are given the space to engage with sensibility.

Therefore, as hypothesized, the group of “feeling” musicians should use their sensibility to engage their imagination, forming dynamic links between music, poetry, declamation, and gesture through this exchange with João’s acting and declamation.

Results and Reflections

Our results demonstrated profound emotional resonance in performances. Integrating João’s dramatic declamation and pantomime deeply influenced musicians’ interpretive choices, creating performances with greater expressive depth. Personal reflections revealed that allowing greater interpretive freedom significantly elevated musicians' emotional engagement and group energy. Musicians affirmed that incorporating dramatic context enhanced their clarity of emotional intention and expressive imagination. Our reflection also touched upon the importance of imagination in creating new artistic expressions. We realized that embodied, physical experiences significantly enriched our imaginative capacity, providing groundbreaking perspectives that traditional prescriptive approaches to music could not match. One of the most significant revelations came through my personal experience: Initially, my interpretations erred on caution—beautiful, tidy, but somewhat emotionally neutral. After closely engaging with Vogler’s Hamlet through João's passionate acting, I recognized the need for greater emotional extremes to truly portray the dramatic narrative, with its violent Sturm und Drang intensity. Inspired by João's portrayal, we embraced expressive devices beyond traditional notation—agogics, rubato, rhetorical pauses, micro dynamics, chordal spreading, and different blending of sounds—to vividly depict Hamlet’s intense passions. This resulted in deeper, more authentic emotional transitions and a heavier sense of emotional inertia.

Integrating João’s declamation and acting into rehearsals profoundly influenced our musical imagination, reinforcing the connection between physical gestures and musical expressivity. We noticed that synchronizing musical gestures with dramatic ones significantly enhanced the visceral quality of our performances. This approach culminated powerfully in our concerts, generating an electric atmosphere. Feedback from musicians further validated these connections: Performers acknowledged increased emotional clarity and expressive imagination from integrating dramatic context into musical performance. Even after João’s physical presence was gone, his influence lingered strongly, continuing to inspire expressive decisions. Ultimately, our exploration of corporeal eloquence and rhetorical expressivity underscored the transformative potential of historically informed interpretive freedom. By combining historical practices with contemporary creative imagination, we revitalized these neglected masterpieces, offering modern audiences powerful, emotionally authentic performances.

Artistic Collaborators

Rachael Beesley is an internationally renowned Australian/British violinist, conductor, concertmaster, and music educator specialising in historically informed performance. Her recent international engagements include as conductor/violinist with Teatro Nuovo New York, as concertmaster of Das Neue Mannheimer Orchester, Anima Eterna Brugge and La Petite Bande, as well as guest director of Les Muffatti and NZBarok, performing in concert halls around the world. In Australia, Rachael is Co-Artistic Director, conductor, and concertmaster of the Australian Romantic & Classical Orchestra and co-director of the Young Mannheim Symphonists. She has also performed as guest concertmaster with distinguished ensembles and orchestras, including the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra, Pinchgut Opera, Opera Australia, and Victorian Opera. Additionally, Rachael performs as concertmaster and director with modern orchestras, including the Tasmanian and Canberra Symphony Orchestras, Melbourne Chamber Orchestra, and Adelaide Chamber Players. She features on over 50 album recordings and broadcasts. As a chamber musician and soloist, Rachael collaborates with contemporary Australian composers and explores repertoire from the 17th-21st centuries on period instruments. A highly regarded music educator, she teaches at the Royal Conservatoire in The Hague, The Netherlands, the Melbourne and Sydney Conservatoriums of Music and Sir Zelman Cowen School of Music and Performance, Monash University.

João Paixão is an early music singer and actor, historical acting researcher and lecturer, and teacher of historical acting techniques. His areas of interest are rhetorical acting, declamation, second nature, embodiment, and the doctrine of the passions. As a performer, he has dedicated himself to genres where music and declamation intertwine, such as eighteenth century melodrama. He is currently a PhD applicant at the University of Amsterdam, where he is conducting his research on facial expression and passion arousal on the eighteenth-century London stage.

Corporeal Eloquence: Reviving the Mannheim Court Ballet

Introduction

Opening Remarks

The Project

Hypotheses

Methodology

Results and Reflections

Artistic Collaborators

Acknowledgements

Contact

Corporeal Eloquence: Reviving the Mannheim Court Ballet

Introduction

Opening Remarks

The Project

Hypotheses

Methodology

Results and Reflections

Artistic Collaborators

Acknowledgements

Franz Ignaz Beck’s Keyboard Sonatas

Vogler’s Travel Souvenirs for Keyboard

Contact