Studies in musical symbolism are often interdisciplinary, with collaboration with areas to do with the literary and visual arts. My dissertation re-orients the focus to the non-representative function of symbols and engages with symbolist thought and the hermeneutics of Hans-Georg Gadamer in an effort to justify musical analysis of Symbolist music through identifying effects and atmospheres. In part one, I present a general overview of Symbolist aesthetics, drawing largely from Claude Debussy’s writing Monsieur Croche: the Dilettante Hater. In part two, I liken the total experience of piano performance to Gadamer’s concept of play and festival in order to explicate the mechanisms of symbols in musical symbolism. Part three features Symbolist piano pieces based on its effects—fluidity and stasis—and provides a closer look into interpretation and performance.

Virtuoso playing has ingrained itself into the fabric of classical piano performance culture. “Virtuosity” is difficult to define; if treated as an isolated goal, it can result in problems such as mechanical playing and mindless practicing by piano students. Pianists spend years to cultivate technical perfection by employing mechanical finger exercises and training methods. Without a systematic training method, an average piano student might have difficulties combining technical works with musical understanding. By examining and combining valuable pedagogical methods from the 19th and 20th centuries, I establish my own teaching method, specifically designed to help pianists find a musically aware approach to technical training. Inspired by Wieck’s Piano and Song and Neuhaus’ The Art of Piano Playing, my method, “Imagining between Notes”, will hopefully aid piano students to practice technically difficult material with imagination and meaning.

Times of war and political turmoil provoke an array of musical responses. The years between 1936 and 1945 saw unprecedented casualties for humanity in the horrors inflicted by the Third Reich. Artistic freedom also suffered under such oppressive forces, and mounting nationalistic impulses in Europe and the United States served to both strengthen and convolute composers’ sense of identity. Seminal works of the era include Shostakovich’s Seventh Symphony, which was famously performed during a violent siege by the Axis forces and Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time, written while the composer was a prisoner of war. This dissertation will focus on smaller compositions, works for solo piano that echoed the sentiment of their composers’ inward nostalgia and nationalist spirit that came to the fore as a result of the turbulent political climate. I shall explore these issues through three piano cycles of similar scope. Joaqu�n Rodrigo’s Cuatro Piezas para Piano was written during the Spanish Civil War, a conflict that elicited in the composer a reflective glance at the past through folk traditions and early music. �mile Gou� composed Pr�histoires in a Nazi prison camp, and his unfortunate circumstances inspired the development of his unique compositional voice. Samuel Barber wrote Excursions, Op. 20 as a medley of regional styles during a time when most of his works were contributions to U.S. war propaganda. The research shall highlight the ways in which these three very different composers crafted their music, examining through analysis their use of traditional devices against a modern compositional idiom. An abundance of primary source material will inform the research, including the original manuscripts of Gou� and the recently translated writings of Rodrigo. Scholarship from the war years as well as our current era illuminates how perceptions have evolved and also remind us that the challenges of confronting this pivotal era have not yet been exhausted. The present dissertation is not a comprehensive study, but a snapshot of three individuals who, through these piano cycles, offer nuanced musical responses to their varied wartime experiences. Looking at the music through the lens of nostalgia raises questions about modernism and traditionalism, the past and present, and how the notion of freedom exists within those dichotomies.

Piano transcriptions are often treated as superficial works, the sole purpose of which is to display the technical prowess of the performer. In this dissertation, I engage critically with this perspective by investigating the various layers present in transcriptions. The study will focus on the Ernani Paraphrase by Franz Liszt. The investigative question of this study is: “How can I intertwine the layered information gained through the analysis process of the Ernani Paraphrase with the embodied discoveries, in preparation towards performance?” I offer the palimpsest as an analogy through which to analyze the Ernani Paraphrase. In the palimpsest layers, dealing with the analyses, I trace a trajectory from the play and opera that inspired Liszt’s transcription, through the musical and social circumstances surrounding the transcription, and a musical analysis of the transcription itself. These layers are referred to as the ‘peeling away’ phases in the process. In the palimpsest layers, that follow the analytical phase, I engage autoethnographically with embodied explorations of the score while interacting with the piano as I prepare for an eventual performance. These embodied layers are perceived as the re-accumulation phase. Separating these various layers provides a unique overview of the work, its influences, and origins. Ultimately, all these layers will reaccumulate into what will become the palimpsest of performance. The analogy of the palimpsest proved effective in outlining the many origins and influences of the transcription which then inform later layers in preparing for the eventual performance.