Humboldt Fellow Ana Paz is researching a revolutionary in Portuguese music education
What is the connection between the Portuguese composer, pianist and pioneer José Vianna da Motta (1886-1948) and the RPTU in Landau, especially the Department of Education? And why does Professor Ana Paz from the University of Lisbon come to the RPTU in Landau to further research his life as part of a six-month guest professorship? The reason is his love for Germany - especially for Berlin, where he lived and worked for many years. As a piano student of masters such as Franz Liszt, he took with him many impressions and ideas that he later incorporated into his teaching as director of the Lisbon Conservatory. His revolutionary approach significantly changed the musical education of young people in Portugal. Researcher Paz wants to understand how his time in Germany influenced and shaped him, and she has made the life and work of the German-Portuguese star of his time the subject of her case study.
Ana Paz is a professor in the field of teacher training for cultural education. In Portugal, this includes the training of art and music teachers in public and private institutions, as well as the training of museum staff. She currently works and researches in this field at the University of Lisbon. For the past six months, she has swapped the Portuguese city for Landau in the southern Palatinate. In her small, cozy office, where books about the great thinkers of history fill the shelves, Ana Paz stands in front of a whiteboard. As in an American detective story, the board is covered with portraits of various people, notes with brief information, a map of Landau, and pictures of venerable churches. The clues are neatly connected by a thread. "Each of these clues has a connection to da Motta," Ana Paz explains with a smile. Her eyes sparkle with enthusiasm as she begins to talk about da Motta.
His life is the subject of her research
She speaks of the famous pianist and composer, who was born on the small island of São Tomé in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, just off the coast of Africa, as if he were a good old friend. "José Vianna da Motta said of himself that he was half German, at least that's how he felt. He arrived in Berlin at the age of 14. He was already an outstanding pianist, having studied at the Lisbon Conservatory under the protection and support of Ferdinand II. Prince Ferdinand of Coburg-Saxony (1816-1885) was the second husband of the Portuguese Queen and a great lover of the arts. For this reason, he is affectionately known in Portugal as the "Artist King".
In Berlin, he was taught by famous pianists and composers. From there, he embarked on a series of concert tours, stopping in various German cities for master classes, including Koblenz, Frankfurt (Main) and Bingen. "For me, it is important to immerse myself in the stages of his life here in order to understand how they shaped and changed his later work at the Lisbon Conservatory and his understanding of music education."
Did da Motta also spend time in Landau? "No," says the pedagogue with a smile, "but I wanted to do research with Professor Angelo Van Gorp." The vice dean of the Institute of Educational Sciences at the RPTU Landau is also the head of the international research group HEC (History of Educational Ecologies). This is a European group of scholars working to put education and upbringing into historical context. "In research on the history of educational ecologies, the spaces in which education takes place and the connections to other domains and areas of life, both to people and to materials, play a role," Paz explains. The European research group focuses on what divides and unites Europe in the field of teaching, education and training.
There is a scholar, highly educated pianist, composer and later piano teacher who feels at home in two European countries, a very interesting character. "That alone doesn't make him exciting. What makes him special is the source material, which is so good that we have a very precise description of his life and work. His extensive correspondence with Ferruccio Busoni, an Italian pianist, has been preserved for posterity. The same goes for his thoughts and memories of Hans von Bülow's master class, in which he participated". This allows the researcher to delve deeply into his life and understand the context of his own education and subsequent teaching career.
Humboldt fellowship takes the pressure off
"I feel very lucky to be able to do research here in peace. Even when da Motta is not in Landau, I can easily reach many of his places from here," she says. I have the Humboldt Foundation to thank for my good fortune. The fellowship allows me to concentrate fully on my research," she says happily.
Finding time for research at home in Portugal is difficult. "As a professor at the University of Lisbon, I have two main responsibilities: research and teaching. I spend about two-thirds of my working time on teaching. I teach, supervise students, prepare and follow up on seminars, and give academic advice. There is hardly any time left for my own research. She is all the more pleased to be able to concentrate fully on her fieldwork in Landau on da Motta's life in Germany, under the supervision of one of the leading scholars in the field of historical educational research, Angelo Van Gorp. The professor is a scout in the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation's Henriette Herz Scouting Program. "Being a member of this program is an honor for me and for the RPTU. It is awarded exclusively to professors working in Germany who have a strong research, international and innovative profile. As a member, I can also propose suitable candidates for a Humboldt Research Fellowship. In this way, I was able to give Ana Paz the opportunity to continue her research here, which is very important for the HEC project," explains Van Gorp.
Ana Paz runs her finger thoughtfully over the notes and photos pinned to the whiteboard, marking the stages of her life. "It is a bit tragic for me and it remains a strange feeling that many of the places da Motta talks about in his letters are simply no longer there because they were destroyed in the war. I don't know that about Portugal. And even if I knew that, of course it feels strange to suddenly stand in front of nothing instead of a concert hall, a music school or something like that. Just as the threads on the whiteboard connect things, Paz's case study seeks to connect da Motta to his historical contemporaries, such as von Bülow, Franz Liszt, or Walter Benjamin, by following the same paths. She uses the knowledge gained to understand how he was able to develop into a revolutionary pedagogue.
"When I return to Lisbon after this six-month stay, I will have a lot of new insights in my luggage, I will have discovered new connections and I will have already put it all down on paper," enthuses the likeable scholar. "Landau is the perfect place for that: it's beautiful and quiet. It is the ideal place to write a book.
Text: Miriam Tsolakidis