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Playing in the Manner of Ricardo Viñes

With the aim of resuscitating a lost performance style in classical music, pianist and artistic researcher Håkon Skogstad set out to «become» Ricardo Viñes (1875-1943) by meticulously imitating and recreating his 1930s recordings.

  • Håkon Magnar Skogstad
    Director
  • Håkon Magnar Skogstad
    Writer
  • Sverre Brandtzæg
    Producer
    Hælsikes jente, Gåte på Storås, Lost in London, Lokes datter
  • Håkon Magnar Skogstad
    Key Cast
    "Ricardo Viñes"
  • Magnus Bringvad
    Director of photography
  • Espen Bye
    Camera operator
  • Rannveig Ryeng
    Sound Producer
  • Magnus Kofoed
    Sound Designer
  • Toni Kotka
    Film Editor
  • Toni Kotka
    Color Grading
  • Project Type:
    Documentary, Music Video, Short
  • Runtime:
    26 minutes 29 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    October 10, 2021
  • Production Budget:
    12,000 USD
  • Country of Origin:
    Norway
  • Country of Filming:
    Norway
  • Language:
    English
  • Shooting Format:
    Digital
  • Aspect Ratio:
    16:9
  • Film Color:
    Black & White and Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    Yes
  • Student Project:
    No
Director Biography - Håkon Magnar Skogstad

Håkon Skogstad (b.1989) is a Norwegian prize-awarded diverse pianist and composer holding degrees in classical performance from Trondheim, Oslo and New York. He has performed in critically acclaimed ensembles and as a soloist throughout Norway and played concerts in the U.S., Argentina, Germany, Austria and Sweden. Skogstad has released three albums with critically acclaimed ensembles, as well as two solo albums which have received numerous outstanding reviews world-wide. In 2017-2021 he was an artistic research fellow (PhD in Artistic Research) at NTNU in Trondheim, Norway. In this research, Skogstad carefully embodied and recreated historical recordings of Spanish-Catalan pianist Ricardo Viñes (1875-1943) through a method of extreme imitation - aiming to "become Ricardo Viñes" to uncover a forgotten style of playing - a "lost language" in classical performance. "Playing in the Manner of Ricardo Viñes" is an artistic documentary and a result of the research. Although being slightly obsessed with film making in his childhood, writing scripts, editing and making animation short films at home, "Playing in the Manner of Ricardo Viñes" is Håkon Skogstad's official debut as a film maker.

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Director Statement

Ricardo Viñes (1875-1943) was one of the leading pianists in Paris at the beginning of the 1900s. He was a champion of contemporary music and gave the world premiere of a majority of the piano works of Claude Debussy, Maurice Ravel and several others. In Viñes's historical recordings from the 1930s, we hear a romantic performance style vastly different from the "acceptable" or "expected" way of modern classical performances. These recorded performances are un-edited one-takes and features a style of playing - highly energetic and improvisational - a stark contrast to the perfectionism in classical music production of today. In 2017-2021, pianist and artistic research fellow Håkon Skogstad carefully embodied and recreated these recordings through a method of extreme imitation - aiming to "become Ricardo Viñes" to uncover this forgotten style of playing. In the artistic documentary short "Playing in the Manner of Ricardo Viñes", Håkon Skogstad records five of these "imitations" in a historical recording environment, un-edited one-takes by using vintage technology - one the same terms as Ricardo Viñes in 1930.