In recent years, the evolving landscape of ensemble music has brought to light the critical importance of collaborative pianists. The ensemble music becomes more complex and diverse, there is a growing recognition of the need to explore the internal dynamics and specific roles within collaborative piano. The aim of this study is to deepen the understanding of the collaborative piano skills necessary and vital to playing with other artists, and how this area of study has emerged as a significant career path for pianists. Utilizing a dual-theoretical framework, this research combines Deb Mashek’s Four Collaborative Progressive Modes (2015) with Martin Katz’s technical perspectives, the Three Breathing Types (2009), for collaborative settings. A practical application of these theories is demonstrated through a case study analysis of Amy Beach’s compositions, offering insights into the dynamics of collaborative piano performance. By providing a thorough examination of both theoretical and practical aspects, the findings of this study highlight the profound impact of collaborative skills on performance quality and partnership dynamics. They underscore the shift in the pianist’s role from a supportive accompanist to an equal, proactive partner in musical collaborations.

ABSTRACT

Viola Arrangements: History and Rationale with Focus on New Repertoire for the Young Violist

by

Tianna Harjo

When I was a younger viola student, I always felt there was something missing in the music I studied and performed. Often, I either did not like it or did not connect with it. If you ask any violist why they chose the viola, the response you will get most often receive is something to the effect of “because I like the dark, deep sound”. Now as a professional violist and teacher, I understand why I felt that void. Much of the music widely available to the average student and music teacher were written and intended for the violin and simply transposed a fifth lower.

This document contains fifteen new arrangements for viola and piano. The aim of this document is to create repertoire for the young violist that addresses and corrects problems viola students often face. Each piece was written with the intricacies of viola in mind. Far too long have young violists been treated as violinists that play a bigger instrument.

The arrangements were created from works by well-known composers like Tchaikovsky and Dvorak and more obscure composers like Jean Hure and Maria Hester Park.

ABSTRACT

The Contemporary Revolution—Evolution of Viola Repertoire

by

Jordan Warmath

Today, it is somewhat rare to attend a classical music concert be it a quartet performance, orchestral concert, or solo recital and have a contemporary or “new” work on the program. What was once common practice in Beethoven’s time must once again be embraced as common practice among performers if the viola repertoire and the classical genre are to flourish. It is simply no longer enough to have mastered the 20th century demands of the instrument as a performer but rather all its satellite components as well.

The contemporary violist bears little resemblance to a violist of the 19th century. Some 200 years ago, playing a viola meant being a performer of the “lesser” sibling to the violin. Today, etudes for the viola are detrimentally tilted toward the romantic, while the majority of the standard viola repertoire is decidedly contemporary. The standard etudes are largely antiquated transpositions of 18th century classicism whose application proves less helpful as the decades pass by. No longer do the tonalities of Ševčík, Kreutzer, and Mazas bear resemblance to the music they attempt to help facilitate. How does one rectify a pedagogy that has fallen so far behind in preparing its acolytes for the true challenges of its repertoire?

Part I of this document describes the current progression of pedagogical literature and technical studies at the intermediate level. This pedagogical progression is then augmented by the inclusion of contemporary literature and alternative etudes within the framework of the standard repertoire. Part II discusses the current advanced pedagogical progression and its standard accompanying etudes and technical studies. This advanced repertoire is explained further and altered to incorporate appropriately challenging contemporary literature. A new set of etudes composed in the last century will then be included to help the violist overcome the differing technical hurdles these pieces present. This part of the document will contain specific examples of contemporary pedagogical literature to highlight how a different progression of etudes, studies, scales, and repertoire can aid the student in attaining success in the landscape of a 21st century violist.

The First World War affected the musical landscape of France in immeasurable ways. Composers from three distinct musical movements—Gabriel Fauré, representing French Romanticism; Claude Debussy, associated with musical Impressionism; and Darius Milhaud and Arthur Honegger, who would soon form Les Six—all composed masterful sonatas for violin and piano in the final years of the war. This document examines these works’ stylistic, harmonic, and formal characteristics, influences, and interinfluences; the intricacies and challenges the pieces demand of their performers; and the marks of the Great War on the sonatas.

There are very few musical settings of the poetry of T. S. Eliot, considering his stature as one of the most influential and admired of twentieth century poets. Fewer still are the settings in that historically abundant genre of art song for voice and piano. This document will explore possible reasons for this seeming incongruity, as well as explore the approaches which the four composers who did set Eliot in this genre took interpretively and stylistically. In gathering information, the poetry and scores themselves were the most useful source, as well as historical and biographical literature on the poet’s and composers’ lives, and some of their peers. The main trouble with Eliot’s poetry seems to stem from the significant stylistic shift in the so-called Modernist period of English literature coinciding with the two World Wars. Poetry became vastly more dense and allusive, as well as grammatically and rhythmically more abstruse. At the conclusion of the document, an alternative stylistic method, employed by other composers during the late twentieth to early twenty-first centuries, will be suggested as a subtler way to give clarity of intent to a musical setting of Eliot’s poetry.

ABSTRACT

The Piano Technique of Frederic Chopin and Franz Liszt: A Comparative Analysis and Application of their Philosophy of Technique

by

Asher Fields Severini

The purpose of this study is to examine how Frederic Chopin and Franz Liszt revitalized piano technique. Because Chopin and Liszt were both composers and pianists whose music bears many similarities, they are often compared by musicians, pianists, and listeners. It seemed natural to write a dissertation that focused on comparing their physical approach to playing the piano. The goals of this paper are to discover similarities and divergences between these pianists' methods and to see if foundational principles of their technique can be found in modern methodologies. This paper shows how their technique can be applied to playing their music and conquering technical problems. Lastly, one question I set out to answer was: “Were there particular techniques that work best for playing one specific composers’ music as opposed to the other?”My methods of research were: (1) reliable sources, (2) further discoveries through the application of their techniques to my playing, and (3) personal knowledge gained from lessons with piano teachers throughout the years. I discovered that Chopin and Liszt held similar beliefs about technique. They came up with ways of utilizing certain principles of piano technique, such as arm weight and economy of motion. They both emphasized looseness and playing with a supple wrist, along with arm-weight and efficiency, which have remained of paramount importance to modern-day pianists.  

Entertainment has changed dramatically in recent decades. The frequency of live music making and live performances of all genres has significantly declined. These changes reach deep into the heart of classical vocal music. This study examines present concerns in art song performance as its enthusiasts recognize the necessity to employ innovative approaches in order to continually share their art form. All people involved in performing or in educating others to perform this genre are reexamining its relevance in society. Some have reached a new conviction that art song is important. Those who have observed evidence of its decline seek ways to rejuvenate audiences for this beloved and transformative art form. Establishing an authentic connection with the audience, utilizing art song as true theatrical entertainment, and removing lenses that would alienate audiences are each essential.

Jake Heggie is a composer who offers a relevant artistic contribution to society and reinvigorated hope for contemporary opera and art song. His significant collaborations speak of his ability to work successfully in theatrical productions and his enthusiasm to educate students about this rewarding vocation.

Desire for and expertise with connecting with the audience is a priority in professional performance but was not the priority in student venues while perfecting technical skill. However, the transition to professional status requires a performer's deep understanding and expressive capability. Performing in such a way that this happens in a mutually satisfying manner for performer and audience is the definition of artistic success. Heggie's song cycle inspires a deep reflection on the vocation, the problems and potential solutions in a song artist's journey.

The genesis of Heggie's The Starry Night, a song cycle for mezzo-soprano and piano on texts of Vincent Van Gogh, Anne Sexton and Emily Dickinson, was inspired by a personal event in Heggie's life. While each of the authors of the texts have contributed significantly to art and poetry, their personal lives give inspiration to others who share similar types of suffering. Each analysis of the songs explores the text and the composer's musical treatment. The author and soprano Elizabeth Croy coached the cycle with Jake Heggie and his personal interpretations of the texts and music, as described on February 23, 2010, are recorded in this document.

It has long been the common belief that advanced cello technique and repertoire did not rise until Luigi Boccherini began writing for his instrument in the late 18th century. Prior to this, the cello was viewed predominantly as an accompaniment instrument, struggling to reach equality with its higher registered family member, the violin. The propagation of this belief was due greatly to a misunderstanding of the role of the cello and its relationship to other members of the violin family, as well as little to no access to the compositions of the early 1700’s. Until recently. Utilizing Nona Pyron’s collection of over 8,000 works where the cello is either featured or plays a prominent role, the author has chosen the cello sonatas of five composers, as well as Bach’s unaccompanied suites, to demonstrate how cello technique of the early 18th century informed the technique that is used today to play works of the 19th and 20th centuries.

The author will compare the techniques of the right- and left-hand found and isolated within etude books commonly used today, and demonstrate how they are presented within the context of a musical line in the early compositions.

Robert Schumann’s pedagogical contribution ,Album for the Young Op. 68, was recognized as a leading pedagogical resource in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. From the time of J. S Bach, composers have been aware of the need for didactic compositions directed towards a beginning-level pianist. An oft-neglected work of Robert Schumann, his Sixty-eight Rules for Young Musicians, was written to be published in conjunction with his work; Album für die Jugend, Op. 68. Contemporary teachers and students are rarely aware of these rules and of the related compositional manifestations in such pedagogical works as the Album für die Jugend of Schumann and also in Mendelssohn’s similar contribution; Lieder ohne Worte. The purpose of this paper is to clarify Schumann’s pedagogical contributions by first comparing Schumann’s pedagogical views with those of previous historical pedagogues prior to Schumann. These would include François Couperin (1668 -1733), Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach (1714-1788), Frédéric François Chopin (1810-1849), and Johann Gottlob Friedrich Wieck (1785-1873). Secondly, I shall demonstrate how the Sixty-eight Rules for Young Musicians are exemplified by the works in Album for the Young. Thirdly, I have investigated the correspondence between Robert Schumann and Felix Mendelssohn. Finally, I will point out examples of a similar nature from the parallel work; Mendelssohn’s Lieder ohne Worte. This is a logical progression to examine a portion of the works from each and explores how they deal with technique, voice-leading, balance of the hands, projection of melodic content, phrasing, counterpoint in its most simplistic forms, and the fundamental principles of Romantic nuance and rubato.