Mozart and aristocratic women performers in Salzburg : a study of the piano concertos K. 242 and K. 246

Among recent approaches to Classic music, one of the most revealing is the investigation of expression via topoi. Pioneered by Leonard Ratner, and developed by leading musicologists specializing in 18th-century music, this system identifies characteristic figures and styles that conveyed specific meanings to 18th-century audiences via processes of association. These implications resulted from intimate contacts with everyday musical activities in worship, entertainment, dance ceremonies, the military, hunt, and outdoor events. Familiarity with such characteristic topoi and styles enables listeners and performers today to reconstruct the original venues of communication between composers and their audiences. Serving as case studies, this paper explores the expressive content of two concertos intended for aristocratic women performers in Salzburg: the Concerto for three keyboards in F, K. 242 (1776), written for the Countess Antonia Lodron and her two daughters, Aloysia and Josepha, and the keyboard concerto in C, K. 246 (1776) intended for the Countess Antonia Lützow. Indeed, it seems that much as Mozart provided his singers with arias that were tailored to their voices,3 in these cases, he granted the Countesses music that was redolent of their social milieu. In support of this hypothesis, this article opens with a description of several social-musical activities that engaged the Lodron and Lützow families in Salzburg during the 1770s. It then proceeds to discuss references to these concertos found in the Mozart family correspondence. While much of this information is gleaned from well-known Mozart sources, its recall establishes the cultural and sociological context for these specific works, and provides an insight into the manner of performance that Mozart valued for this music. The paper concludes with a semiotic analysis of selected passages, suggesting that the choice of the topical content bears homage to the women dedicatees

Program notes of graduate recital

Master's Project (M.Mu.) University of Alaska Fairbanks, 2017This paper discusses the four pieces of the graduate recital of student Evanthia Maniatopoulou; Johann Sebastian Bach's Prelude and Fugue in F minor, Well-Tempered Clavier Book II, BWV 881; Ludwig van Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 30, Op. 109; Frederic Chopin's Scherzo No. 3, Op. 39; and Sergei Prokofiev's Piano Sonata No. 7, Op. 83. It is divided into four chapters, with one chapter dedicated to each piece. In each chapter there is a discussion about the composer's background, then some comments about his compositional style in general, then some information about the genre in which every piece falls into, and finally a brief analysis and discussion about the specific piece that was in the graduate recital.Chapter 1. Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) -- Chapter 2. Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) -- Chapter 3. Frederic Chopin (1810-1849) -- Chapter 4. Sergei Prokofiev (1891-1953) -- Bibliography

The impact of cognitive load on operatic singers' timing performance

In the present paper, we report the results of an empirical study on the effects of cognitive load on operatic singing. The main aim of the study was to investigate to what extent a working memory task affected the timing of operatic singers' performance. Thereby, we focused on singers' tendency to speed up, or slow down their performance of musical phrases and pauses. Twelve professional operatic singers were asked to perform an operatic aria three times; once without an additional working memory task, once with a concurrent working memory task (counting shapes on a computer screen), and once with a relatively more difficult working memory task (more shapes to be counted appearing one after another). The results show that, in general, singers speeded up their performance under heightened cognitive load. Interestingly, this effect was more pronounced in pauses-more in particular longer pauses-compared to musical phrases. We discuss the role of sensorimotor control and feedback processes in musical timing to explain these findings

An Overview of The Life and Works of J.S. Bach, W.A. Mozart, and A. Dvořák

The violin works of J.S. Bach, W.A. Mozart, and A. Dvořák are amongst the most demanding pieces from the violin repertoire. The purpose of this thesis is to give a historical context and an analysis of the pieces by these composers, which I performed for my graduate recital. Also, I will explain the music in detail by describing how each piece is played in their particular era and how each piece found their way to the standard repertoire of the violin. Bach, Mozart, and Dvořák are three of the most important figures of Western Music who provided different musical styles that helped expand the influence of Western Music on society as well as its impact on violin repertoire