Hausmusik

What it means

Hausmusik (“house music”) is music-making in the private setting, without an audience in the proper sense and without professional aspiration. The term designates less a genre than a practice: whoever gathers at home to sing or play practises Hausmusik, whether with folk songs, chamber music, or arrangements. For centuries it was the most widespread form of experiencing music at all — before the possibility of recording and reproducing music.

Musical use

From this practice follow peculiarities of the repertoire. Publishers issued large quantities of arrangements: symphonies and operas in versions for piano four hands, songs with light accompaniment, pieces for changing scorings with substitute parts. The piano reduction arose from the same need. Many composers wrote expressly for amateurs, with limited technical demands and singable melodies; that is not lesser music but music intended for other conditions. With the rise of sound recording and radio, Hausmusik lost its self-evidence without disappearing.

Performance practice

Choose pieces that fit the available forces instead of failing on repertoire that is too hard; shared success is more important here than fidelity to the work in detail. Use scoring variants and arrangements whose parts also work with changing scoring, if the original scoring is not available, since in the domestic circle individual instruments are often missing. Watch for balance in the living room, which is different from that in a hall: a grand piano easily covers everything there, and winds quickly sound too loud; play more quietly than you are used to, and place yourselves so that everyone hears each other. Fix tempo and repeats before playing.

Keep a fixed repertoire ready that can be played without long preparation — regularity carries more than rare long sessions.