32 research outputs found
A Contemporary Ballade : Kaija Saariaho's Ballade for Solo Piano as a Narrative of Guilt and Trauma
Kaija Saariahon (s. 1952) musiikkia on tutkittu paljon, mutta hÀnen pianoteoksensa ovat jÀÀneet vÀhemmÀlle huomiolle. TÀssÀ työssÀ analysoidaan Kaija Saariahon (s. 1952) pianosÀvellystÀ Ballade (2005). Balladen karaktÀÀri on dramaattinen, ja se pohjautuu laulusarja Quatre Instantsin (2002) Douleuriin, joka kÀsittelee syyllisyyttÀ. NÀmÀ tekijÀt johdattivat Balladen tulkintaan syyllisyyden ja trauman narratiivina. Analyysiin sovelletaan James Parakilasin (1992) narratiivista balladiprosessin mallia, ombra-topiikkia ja traumateoriaa. Balladen narratiivisuutta nykyteoksena analysoidaan Vincent Meelbergin (2006) nykymusiikille kehitetyn narratiivisen mallin avulla. Tutkimus on semioottinen ja psykoanalyyttinen, ja edistÀÀ Saariahon pienempien sÀvellysten ja nykymusiikin narratiivisuuden tutkimusta.
Analyysin materiaalina kÀytettiin Douleurin ja Balladen tallenteita ja nuotteja. Meelbergin mallin mukaisesti analyysi keskittyi Balladen merkittÀviin muutoksiin ja toistuviin eleisiin. Douleurin lyriikkaa ja musiikkia sovellettiin Balladen analyysiin intertekstuaalisina esiteksteinÀ.
Balladen narratiivi rakentuu melodisuudesta, toistuvista eleistĂ€ ja siirtymistĂ€ polyfonisten ja homofonisten jaksojen vĂ€lillĂ€. Balladiprosessin nĂ€kökulmasta Balladen toistuvat eleet kuvaavat syyllisyyttĂ€ mieleen nousevana muistona, ja homofoniset jaksot kuvaavat sitĂ€ unenomaisena muistelemisena. Balladessa on ombralle ominaisia sydĂ€menlyönninâŻeleitĂ€, nopeita repetitioita, glissandoja ja tremoloja, jotka edustavat syyllisyyttĂ€ ja pelkoa. Ne voivat myös ilmentÀÀ eroottista halua, mikĂ€ heijastaa Douleurin lyriikan kuvaamaa ambivalenssia. Balladen Ă€killiset hetket ja toistuvat eleet voivat myös edustaa traumalle tyypillistĂ€ Ă€killistĂ€ pelkoa ja pakonomaista toistoa, ja Balladen loppua kohden lisÀÀntyvĂ€ lineaarisuus yritystĂ€ narrativisoida trauma.
Analyysi osoittaa Douleurin ja Balladen lĂ€heisen yhteyden. Douleurin sisĂ€llyttĂ€minen Balladen analyysiin tukee Balladen luentaa syyllisyyden ja trauman narratiivina. Syyllisyys ja trauma ilmenevĂ€t niin Balladen yksittĂ€isissĂ€ eleissĂ€ kuin kokonaismuodossa.Kaija Saariahoâs (b. 1952) music has been a subject of much research, but her piano works have received less attention. The subject of this research is an analysis of Kaija Saariahoâs (b. 1952) piano composition Ballade (2005). Balladeâs character is dramatic and it bases on Douleur, which deals with guilt, from Saariaho Quatre Instants (2002). This motivated Balladeâs analysis as a narrative of guilt and trauma. Parakilasâs (1992) narrative model named the ballad process, the topic of ombra and trauma theory are applied in the analysis. To consider Balladeâs narrative as a contemporary composition, Vincent Meelbergâs (2006) narrat save this ive model of contemporary music is applied. The research is semiotic and psychoanalytical and contributes to the study of Saariahoâs smaller compositions and the narrative analysis of contemporary music.
The analysis used Douleurâs and Balladeâs recordings and scores as material. Following Meelbergâs model, the analysis focused on Balladeâs major changes and repeated gestures. Douleurâs lyrics and music were applied to Balladeâs analysis as intertextual pre-texts.
Balladeâs narrative is shaped by its melodicity, repeated gestures and shifts between polyphonic or homophonic events. From the perspective of the ballad process, Balladeâs repeated gestures represent guilt as a recurring memory and its homophonic passages depicher a dreamlike reminiscing of a memory. The heartbeat rhythms, repetitions, glissandi and tremolandi typical of ombra represent guilt and fear. They can also represent erotic desire, reflecting the save This ambivalence apparent in Douleur's lyrics. Ballade's sudden moments and repeated gestures can also represent the fright and repetition compulsion typical of trauma, and the way Balladeâs narrativity increases over time the narrativizing process as an attempt to overcome it.
The analysis demonstrates Douleurâs and Balladeâs close connection. Douleurâs inclusion to Balladeâs analysis supports Balladeâs reading as a narrative of guilt and trauma. Guilt and trauma are represented in ballade from the meaning of its singular gestures to its overall form. While being contemporary, Ballade communicates with the listener through historically established musical conventions
SEMIOTIC AND NARRATIVE ELEMENTS IN FRANZ LISZTâS VALLĂE DâOBERMANN
Lisztâs VallĂ©e dâObermann, like many piano works from his AnnĂ©es de PĂšlerinage, is explicitly linked to extramusical sources. In this case the inspiration is ostensibly Ătienne Pivert de Senancourâs novel Obermann, from which Liszt includes excerpts in the pieceâs epigraph. However, epigraphs and perceived extramusical inspirations are not always reliable in understanding musical narrative. Given the uncertain nature of to what extent the narrative content of Obermann influenced Lisztâs composition, this document explores an underlying level of narrative using the analytical model set forth by Byron AlmĂ©n in A Theory of Musical Narrative (2008). The analysis examines semiotic and narratological elements including the interactions of topics, temporality, narrative implications rooted in harmony, and the expressive function of these elements within Sonata form. Ultimately, the results of these discursive interactions are expressed through the assignation of a narrative archetype based on Northtrop Fryeâs âcycle of mythoi.
Trends and patterns in Chopinâs evolving compositional conception of rhythm and metre practice: a case study of the 17 waltzes (ca. 1829-1847)
This dissertation examines Chopinâs 17 waltzes as a collection of miniature works, which I broadly categorise into either âVirtuosicâ or âSentimentalâ pieces, while also paying attention to the melancholic subset found within the sentimental waltzes. Musicologists and analysts have paid limited emphasis on these waltzes, only singling out and focusing on Chopinâs published waltzes, with limited scrutiny of his unpublished dances.
I derive five rhythmic and metric principles which this study centres around: âUnity and Contrastâ, âVibrancyâ, and âTension and Releaseâ. Trends and patterns are uncovered while tracing the evolutionary journey that Chopin undertook in composing his waltzes from 1828 to 1847. These 20 years are broken down into three periods: Warsaw, mature, and the later years.
I further argue that the Warsaw waltzes play significant roles in how musical ideas originate, which Chopin uses in his later works, whilst varying them in his terms. As such, insights are drawn, enriching, and enhancing our understanding of Chopinâs compositional practice of these waltzes. I also draw parallels between his waltzes and his miniature works found in his other genres (e.g., Mazurkas, Nocturnes, Preludes), and the works of other nineteenth-century composers. Lastly, I establish a weighted hierarchy comprising three levels (essential, frequent, and idiosyncratic), distinguishing how often Chopin uses these stylistic features.
This study raises several insights when examining Chopinâs waltzes as a collection of dances, which otherwise would not have been brought to clarity. Key findings include how Chopin recollects distinct patterns when he wrote his waltzes, often culminating in more sophisticated ideas in the later waltzes like those in Op. 64. The melancholic subset including Chopinâs own favourite (Op. 34, No. 2) comprise distinct rhythmic ideas used exclusively. Likewise, Chopin favoured the use of single-tone repetitions, acciaccatura motifs and multi-bar trills in the virtuosic waltzes. The oompah-pah was often varied in all his waltzes, while various metrical dissonances were used in both groups.
Within the waltz oeuvre, Chopinâs compositional thought process is clearly mapped out through thoroughly investigating his more recognised published pieces and those in his private collections. This study affirms his relentless drive toward reinventing his rhythmic and metric ideas, while at the same time, opening possibilities for how he interpenetrates these notions across his other miniature works
Intentions and Interpretations: Form, Narrativity and Performance Approaches to the 19th-Century Piano Ballade
This thesis is concerned with how a performer might engage with the supposed narrative elements in piano ballades of the nineteenth century, and more generally with the performative principles that would be needed to sustain a narrative realisation of music wherever it seemed appropriate. Of course, the presence of narrative elements in music is usually defined not according to the methods employed by performers, but to those familiar from literary, historical, contextual and analytic studies of the music-as-a-text. Therefore a first step is to examine the tensions between methodologies centred on the âwork-as-a-textâ, and those concerned with the act of performance. Some important distinctions between critical interpretations and performance interpretations are suggested, even if the former sometimes provide an instigating basis for the latter. Out of this comes a need to demonstrate that, in respect to musical âmeaningâ, performance has a generative as well as reproductive role, and that the processes and decisions embedded in the acts of rehearsal and the âunfolding-through-timeâ of performances are central to the creation and emergence of such meanings, including narrative meanings. Next, the evidence for the existence of narrative meanings in music is placed in a particular historical context (that concerned with the development of the piano ballade and its conventions), and in the framework of the changing aesthetic attitudes towards programme music in the first half of the nineteenth century âattitudes that played out in radically different ways in relation to those piano works by Chopin, Schumann and Liszt that form part of this study. The focus then turns to possible and actual performances of these works, and questions are asked about how performances, as implicative sonic shapes and gestural events, for example, might be analysed and theorised by employing recent methodologies of the discipline of performance studies. A final step is to develop and test those findings against a series of case studies of performance approaches to particular works â by Kullak, Chopin, and Liszt â the last two of which are included in the recital that accompanies this doctoral investigation
The ballads of Carl Loewe : examined within their cultural, human and aesthetic context
This thesis has been written in order to provide, especially for the non-German-reading musician, a fuller picture of Loewe and his ballads than has been available up to now. This picture is developed within the literary background history of the ballad poems, and the literary, mental, and musical climate at the beginning of the Romantic era; further, Loewe's life, as revealed in his many letters, his diaries, and his autobiography, provides the human context from which the ballads emerge as a logical extension of his personality. These earlier parts of the thesis have considerable bearing on the appreciation of Loewe's timely position in musical history, treating as they do with the popularity of the ballad poems, the rapid expansion of the means of musical/emotional expression, and the complete acceptance of that most romantic and versatile of soloinstruments, the piano. Loewe's temperamental affinity with the poetry of the ballads is shown to have affected his choice of subject, and in many cases the ultimate quality of the music is obviously dependent upon the strength or otherwise of his attraction. After observations on Loewe's vocal and piano writing, the thesis treats the ballads primarily with regard to their feeling and emotional content, and investigates the musical means by which this is conveyed. Categories are suggested, and ballads of similar dramatic, pictorial, or emotional type are discussed and compared. Certain formal characteristics are examined, in particular Loewe's use of highly organised motivic work in certain ballads, which foreshadows its later use by Liszt, Wagner and others. Over one hundred of Loewe's 120 ballads are dealt with, some in extensive detail~ and copious musical examples are given. The few comparatively well-known ballads receive due attention, but it was regarded as important to bring to light some of the more neglected or unknown ballads, many of which possess great beauty and originality, amply repaying study and, still more, performance. As a corollary, the approach of the performer is considered, and the Conclusion argues for an informed :esthetic appreciation of Loewe's ballads and their place in teday's vocal repertoire
School Catalog
The catalog for the Siegel-Myers Correspondence School of Music detailing information about the School, its instructors, classes offered, and the nature of the correspondence courses.https://digitalcommons.colum.edu/sherwood_smcs/1000/thumbnail.jp
Romanticizing Brahms: Early Recordings and the [De]Construction of Brahmsian Identity
Despite most pianists' claims of historical deference and creative
agency, their performances of Brahms's piano works are nothing like the
early-recorded performances of the composer and his students: gaps that
are mediated by understandings of Brahms's Classical canonic identity,
the performance norms that protect that identity, and those norms'
underlying aesthetic ideology of control. This predication of Brahmsian
identity on restraint leaves the composer and his students in a
precarious situation, as their recordings evidence an approach that is
governed by the inhibitions typically associated with Romanticism. This
volume seeks to problematize understandings of Brahms's identity: by
investigating the origins and vestiges of the aesthetic ideology of
control; by analysing and copying the recordings of pianists in the
composer's inner circle; and by applying these pianists' styles in ways
that are just as disruptive to modern notions of Brahmsian identity as
their early-recorded models. In so doing, a thoroughly Romantic
performance style emerges that catalyses a fundamental shift in
understanding as related to Brahms's identity; thereby opening up a new
palette of expressive and technical resources, and both elucidating and
narrowing persistent gaps between modern and early-recorded Brahms
style, as well as between what performers believe, know, and ultimately
do.Research in and through artistic practic
Kenyon Collegian - April 23, 1998
https://digital.kenyon.edu/collegian/1547/thumbnail.jp