Receiving this award is very encouraging. My study shows how things that are overlooked can provide important outcomes. Revealing a forgotten performance practice in a single fermata opens new vistas, and I hope it inspires performers and scholars to reveal theatre echoing in our scores.
Barış Demirezer, PhD student and conductor
02 June 2025
Music PhD student reveals a forgotten performance practice through J.C. Bach
Barış Demirezer, a student pursuing a PhD in historical musicology in the Department of Music at King’s, received a commendation for his outstanding paper at the Society for Music Analysis’s annual Theory and Analysis Graduate Students (TAGS) Conference.
Barış’s paper, titled The Fermata: A Contextual and Musical Analysis Through Johann Christian Bach’s Symphonies Concertantes, explores the use of pauses in the works of the German composer, the youngest son of Johann Sebastian Bach.
Barış’s research at King’s focuses on the artistic, social and financial dynamics of 18th-century music practices in London.
‘Johann Christian Bach was an influential figure in all major musical centres during the 18th century, particularly in London. In addition to his artistic depth, the reason for his success was his ability to adapt to the changing social and commercial landscapes of the period. Alongside composing numerous works, it is also known that he revised and adapted some of his compositions specifically for particular concerts and performers,’ Barış says.
In his research, Barış observed that when Bach adapted a solo keyboard concerto to a symphonie concertante for two violins for performance at the Concert Spirituel in Paris in 1773, he introduced new fermatas, or pauses, into the score. Barış found no existing explanations for these pauses in the scholarly literature and decided to conduct broad contextual and musical analyses, which provided numerous insights.
I analysed various compositions, writings and anecdotes from that era and identified similar fermatas in stage and vocal works. I discovered that the purpose behind these fermatas was linked to rehearsed jokes, derived from the tradition of commedia dell’arte. Expanding the scope of my research, I analysed all of Bach’s compositions within the symphonie concertante genre. I found that such fermatas were not limited to this specific adaptation or even this genre alone, but that instrumental works of the period can also incorporate comedic elements.
Barış Demirezer, PhD student, conductor
Barış’s findings suggest that the commedia dell’arte (an early form of professional theatre) was deliberately shaped to respond to socio-economic transformations of this era. These critical insights, Barış says, will enhance our ability to interpret historical and contemporary contexts.
Barış Demirezer is an experienced conductor, performer and educator. He has been the principal conductor and general music director of Ankara Youth Symphony Orchestra since 2018 and held the same role at Bilkent Children’s Symphony Orchestra from 2018 to 2023.
The annual Theory and Analysis Graduate Students (TAGS) Conference took place at the Department of Music, Royal Holloway, University of London, between 30 April and 1 May 2025. It is organised by the Society for Music Analysis, a UK-based international organisation which promotes research in formal and critical theory, aesthetics, semiotics, music psychology, cognitive science, music technology and other disciplines.