Research and science at the Handel House

2015 to 2018: Research project on the adaptation of CO2 snow blasting technology for cleaning sensitive surfaces of cultural artefacts contaminated with pollutants and model application using the example of historical musical instruments from nationally important collections.

Art and cultural objects in museums are exposed to environmental influences that pose a threat to the objects. In addition to the permanent effects of light, temperature and humidity, temporary chemical and physical influences cause irreversible damage. Damaging reaction mechanisms can lead to deposits, efflorescence, colour changes and/or loss of strength. The variety of damage phenomena requires a high analytical effort and the development of object-specific conservation measures.

The object of research is the investigation of the applicability of CO2 snow blasting technology for cleaning surfaces of museum cultural objects contaminated with heavy metals, condensed SVOCs and their reaction products, microorganisms and toxic insecticides. A large number of preserved original surfaces and surface coatings of cultural objects have properties that severely limit the use of currently researched cleaning methods and in some cases do not allow them.

The application of chemically neutral CO2 snow blasting technology could further close current cleaning gaps. The planned research steps are intended to clarify whether it is possible to efficiently decontaminate heavy metal and pollutant deposits under the technological process conditions of CO2 snow blasting technology while preserving the original object substance.

The project is a collaboration between the following institutions:

    Händel-Haus Foundation, Halle
    Frauenhofer Institute for Manufacturing Engineering and Automation IPA, Department of Ultrapure and Microproduction, Stuttgart
    Germanisches Nationalmuseum / Institute for Art Technology and Conservation, Nuremberg

The project is funded by the Deutsche Bundesstiftung Umwelt, Osnabrück.

For its share in the realisation of this research project, the Händel-Haus Foundation received an earmarked donation from DOW Chemicals.

2014 to 2017: Political instrumentalisation of the music of the past in 20th century Germany using the example of George Frideric Handel

"Political instrumentalisation of the music of the past in 20th century Germany using the example of George Frideric Handel" is the topic of a three-year research project funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG), based at the Department of Musicology of the Institute of Music at Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg and in cooperation with the Handel House Foundation Halle. Under the direction of Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Hirschmann, Dr. Lars Klingberg, Dr. Juliane Riepe and Katrin Gerlach M.A. are carrying out the project at the Handel House's research centre, which houses an extensive archive on the history of Handel's reception in the 20th century that has been created over the past three years.

As a research project dedicated to the question of the mechanisms of the political instrumentalisation of music of the past in 20th century Germany, the planned investigation belongs to the larger thematic complex of the relationship between music and politics. The question will be concretised in the political treatment of the person and work of George Frideric Handel as a central figure of the musical heritage and at the same time a composer who was already understood as a political composer during his lifetime and has since been instrumentalised accordingly, particularly massively and conspicuously in the two German dictatorships of the 20th century. The deliberately broad time frame - the entire 20th century - should make it possible to describe, analyse and (above all) compare not only extreme manifestations but also as wide a range as possible of manifestations of 'politicised' music from several and very different forms of state and society. With regard to the politically influenced reception of Handel in the 20th century, different areas will be examined:

    Theories of the political instrumentalisation of music;
    Images of Handel and politicised interpretations of Handel;
    Politicisation of institutions of Handel care;
    Handel festivals and anniversaries as focal points of music and politics, Handel's works within the celebration;
    politically instrumentalised arrangements and performances of Handel's works.

Contact: wolfgang.hirschmann@musikwiss.uni-halle.de

Art and cultural objects in museums are exposed to environmental influences that pose a threat to the objects. In addition to the permanent effects of light, temperature and humidity, temporary chemical and physical influences cause irreversible damage. Damaging reaction mechanisms can lead to deposits, efflorescence, colour changes and/or loss of strength. The variety of damage phenomena requires a high analytical effort and the development of object-specific conservation measures.

The object of research is the investigation of the applicability of CO2 snow blasting technology for cleaning surfaces of museum cultural objects contaminated with heavy metals, condensed SVOCs and their reaction products, microorganisms and toxic insecticides. A large number of preserved original surfaces and surface coatings of cultural objects have properties that severely limit the use of currently researched cleaning methods and in some cases do not allow them.

The application of chemically neutral CO2 snow blasting technology could further close current cleaning gaps. The planned research steps are intended to clarify whether it is possible to efficiently decontaminate heavy metal and pollutant deposits under the technological process conditions of CO2 snow blasting technology while preserving the original object substance.

The project is a collaboration between the following institutions:

    Händel-Haus Foundation, Halle
    Frauenhofer Institute for Manufacturing Engineering and Automation IPA, Department of Ultrapure and Microproduction, Stuttgart
    Germanisches Nationalmuseum / Institute for Art Technology and Conservation, Nuremberg

The project is funded by the Deutsche Bundesstiftung Umwelt, Osnabrück.

For its share in the realisation of this research project, the Händel-Haus Foundation received an earmarked donation from DOW Chemicals.

2014 to 2016: Modelling and Characterisation of the Structural Behaviour of Historical Wooden Cultural Objects under Hygro-Mechanical Stress" KA 1163/25

Playable, stringed keyboard instruments are subjected to very high mechanical loads, which are intensified by climatic stresses. Over time, these can lead to severe deformations and damage the construction. In this interdisciplinary research project, objective criteria for assessing the load-bearing capacity of the instruments are to be determined and tolerable climatic stresses estimated with the help of simulation programmes.

The project "Modelling and Characterisation of the Structural Behaviour of Historical Wooden Cultural Objects under Hygro-Mechanical Stress" KA 1163/25 is a collaboration of the following institutions:

    Institute for Statics and Dynamics of Structures ISD, TU Dresden
    Institute for Building Materials IfB, ETH Zurich
    Händel House Foundation, Halle
    Musée d' Ethnographie MEG, Geneva

Financial support is provided by the German Research Foundation DFG and the Swiss National Science Foundation SNF.

Further information is available here:

http://gepris.dfg.de/gepris/projekt/240287377

Responsible research assistant:

Dipl.-Ing. Daniel Konopka, Institute for Statics and Dynamics of Structures, Faculty of Civil Engineering, Technical University of Dresden

2010 to 2014: Basic research on the history of Handel's reception under Germany's dictatorships.

One of the desiderata of Handel research is a reappraisal of the composer's reception history that goes beyond selective analyses and interpretations and takes a look at overarching contexts on a broad document basis. The research project focuses on two important fields of Handel reception that are linked by the concept of dictatorship: the reception of Handel in the Nazi state and in the GDR. The aim of this project is to lay a foundation for future research on Handel's reception in the German dictatorships by systematically indexing, collecting, scientifically processing and partially publishing all available sources for the first time.

George Frideric Handel may be considered one of the first composers in the history of European music whose work has been continuously received not only in England but also in Germany since his composition; he is the first musician to receive (in 1760) a comprehensive printed biography. The multitude of interpretations that had already been attached to Handel in the 18th and 19th centuries were taken up in the 20th century.

Both the Nazi state and the GDR made use of traditional patterns of reception, recombining them in specific ways and adding others. The fact that Handel has been politically appropriated again and again in the course of history is probably one of the characteristics of his reception. Never before, however, has the composer been used so intensively for political purposes and has the image of Handel been shaped by ideologies as much as in the two German dictatorships of the 20th century.

Such a reception cannot be understood without the political, social, cultural and intellectual-historical context and without a view of the respective prehistory. The interest is therefore just as much on the constants and changes in the image of Handel as on the practice of cultivating Handel (be it state-directed or not) and the feedback between the two: Handel in musical life, in film, on the theatre, in literature, in musicological research, in cultural-political literature; the development of Handel societies, Handel festivals and Handel editions. A central aspect is the question of the cultural-political intentions of the two regimes and how they were implemented, as they appear, for example, in the Handel jubilees of 1935, 1959 and 1985, generally in the Handel festivals and festivities in Halle, in the practice of editing Handel oratorios in the Nazi period and in the Hall opera cultivation of the GDR period. Two further, historically overarching questions follow naturally: on the one hand, the question of the mechanisms, possibilities and limits of the instrumentalisation of music for political purposes, and on the other hand, the doubt as to whether (and if so, how) it is at all possible to arrive at secure historical knowledge beyond time-bound images and projections.

The project sees itself as a contribution to basic research; accordingly, the focus is on collecting and indexing the sources. To this end, an extensive systematic collection of documents will be created in the Handel House, which will be made available for future research. A selection is to be published in a volume of documents. The staff working on the project will participate in the academic conferences taking place as part of the Handel Festival in 2012 and 2013.

The sponsor of the three-year research project (beginning October 2010) is the Handel House Foundation; the project is funded by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media on the basis of a resolution of the German Bundestag.

Katrin Gerlach M. A., Dr. Lars Klingberg, Dr. Juliane Riepe and Susanne Spiegler M. A. are working on the project.

There is cooperation with the Chair of Historical Musicology at the Institute of Music at the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Hirschmann).

2008 to 2011: Research project: Static investigations on historical keyboard instruments.

The KUR - Programme for the Restoration and Conservation of Mobile Cultural Assets is carried out by the Federal Cultural Foundation together with the Cultural Foundation of the Federal States.

The Handel House's important and extensive collection of musical instruments includes a large number of historical keyboard instruments. One focus of restoration measures has always been to make the sound of these instruments tangible. Static changes caused by the force of the strings have led and continue to lead to irreversible deformations and component damage in playable instruments. Often this also means the loss of sound.

The research project is being carried out together with the Institute for Statics and Dynamics of Structures at the TU Dresden and is dedicated to the question of the fundamental causes of the damage that occurs. With the help of the latest material models and computer-aided simulation of the instrument statics, insights into the characteristics and damage risks of the different historical instrument constructions are to be gained. The "finite element method" is used for this. Here, a complex structure that can no longer be calculated analytically is "broken down" into individual finite elements. The force-deformation relationship of an element type can be described on the basis of analytical relationships and energy principles, taking into account suitable material models depending on its shape. If the complex structure is now composed of a finite number of finite elements, the deformations and stresses arising under the boundary and continuity conditions along common element edges and surfaces can be calculated.

Based on the results, suitable restoration measures can be selected to ensure the preservation of the instrument as part of a very valuable collection and, if necessary, to enable the instrument to be played in the long term. The selected instruments represent very common construction models in their time. The results obtained will therefore be of great value for numerous collections of historical keyboard instruments.

For the Handel House Foundation, the results of the investigation will be directly integrated into the restoration concept for the restoration of the tangent grand piano from around 1800 planned with this project.

Project procedure:

    Creation of the three-dimensional geometry model using CAD
    Recording, mapping and checking of existing component damage on the instruments
    FE-discretisation of the fortepianos MS-28 + MS-44
    Definition and transfer of the material models
    Experimental investigation to determine missing material parameters on old woods
    FE simulation and validation of the modelling
    Long-term simulation to predict the future behaviour of the instruments
    Numerical investigations for static improvement
    Assessment of the consequences for the sound
    Conceptual design for long-term conservation and restoration measures
    Implementation of the structural analysis results within the restoration of the tangent wing MS-30
    Publication of the methods and results
    Organisation of a scientific conference

Project sponsor:
Handel House Foundation Halle

Cooperation partners:
Dresden University of Technology, Institute for Statics and Dynamics of Structures
Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna, Collection of Ancient Musical Instruments
Weimar Classic Foundation

Contact person:
Stefan Ehricht, Händel-Haus Foundation

funded by the KUR programme for the conservation and restoration of movable cultural property