The evolution of Chopin's 'structural style' and its relation to improvisation.

This dissertation has four principal goals: 1. to provide Heinrich Schenker's theoretical notion of improvisation with an historical context, thus laying the groundwork for a Schenkerian study of Chopin's 'improvisatory' compositions; 2. by analysing most of his early pieces and several mature ones, to define Chopin's 'structural style', i.e" the shared structural principles on which music from different genres was based; and by studying the evolution of his 'structural style' from 1817 to 1832, to show how Chopin developed the ability to conceive works as unified compositional statements rather than as a succession of independent sections; 3. to fill the gaps resulting from cursory treatment of Chopin's early and late music in the Schenkerian literature and in the work of other analysts; 4. to apply Schenkerian analytical techniques systematically to a wide body of repertoire in order to demonstrate the method's value as a musicological tool in defining the styles of other composers. The influence that improvisation had on Chopin's music has often been noted, but discussion has generally been confined to foreground details without regard to tonal structure, This study of Chopin's 'improvisatory' works - stile brillante repertoire, early dance pieces, F minor Fantasy and Polonaise-Fantasy - reveals that improvisatory practices were also important in the evolution of his 'structural style'. Contrary to Schenker's assumptions about 'genius', Chopin only gradually developed the 'improvisatory long-range vision' - that is, the ability to conceive works in a unifying 'sweep of improvisation' - that characterises his later music. Many early pieces seem to have been 'formally' conceived, with self-contained parts juxtaposed to create the whole. As he matured as a composer, Chopin learned to relate independent sections by means of structural voice-leading, tonal architecture, and an increasingly organic use of motivic and harmonic material. Overview of selected middle- and late-period works and detailed analysis of the Barcarolle and Polonaise-Fantasy show that structural principles established in Chopin's 'apprenticeship' remained a central feature of his mature 'structural style' despite the music's greater sophistication at the foreground level and the stylistic changes that occurred in the early 1840s. Chopin's reliance on these principles is particularly noteworthy in the Polonaise-Fantasy, which in the foreground conveys a sense of improvisatory freedom to the point of apparent disorder

Manipulando o tempo: ritmo, métrica e andamento nas Fantasias Op. 116 de Brahms

Resumo: Este capítulo extraído do livro “Studies in Musical Interpretation” (1995), e aqui traduzido para o português, apresenta uma consolidação de perspectivas analíticas aplicadas às sete Fantasias para piano, Op.116, de Johannes Brahms, tendo como referência o olhar do intérprete sobre a obra. Tomando como ponto de partida as evidências analíticas de Dunsby (1983), que sugere que as sete peças que constituem o Op. 116 formam uma “multi-peça” – ou seja, uma “grande obra homogênea” constituída de “pequenas peças heterogêneas” – e seguindo as suas próprias intuições para a preparação e apresentação pública desta obra, o autor desenvolve uma análise detalhada na qual discute as relações proporcionais de andamento entre as sete peças (e suas seções contrastantes) e as ambiguidades métricas através das quais o compositor fabrica um sistema de tensões internas que propulsionam o percurso da música. Palavras-chave: Música para piano; análise para performance; interpretação musical; Johannes Brahms; andamentos proporcionais

Virtual Works – Actual Things

"Beyond musical works: new perspectives on music ontology and performance What are musical works? How are they constructed in our minds? Which material things allow us to speak about them in the first place? Does a specific way of conceiving musical works limit their performative potentials? Which alternative, more productive images of musical work can be devised? Virtual Works – Actual Things addresses contemporary music ontological discourses, challenging dominant musicological accounts, questioning their authoritative foundation and moving towards dynamic perspectives devised by music practitioners and artist researchers. Specific attention is given to the relationship between the virtual multiplicities that enable the construction of an image of a musical work and the actual, concrete materials that make such a construction possible. With contributions by prominent scholars, this book is a wide-ranging and fascinating collection of essays, which will be of great interest for artistic research, contemporary musicology, music philosophy, performance studies and music pedagogy alike. Contributors: David Davies (McGill University, Montreal), Andreas Dorschel (University of the Arts Graz), Lydia Goehr (Columbia University, New York), Kathy Kiloh (OCAD University, Toronto), Jake McNulty (Columbia University, New York), Gunnar Hindrichs (University of Basel), John Rink (University of Cambridge)

Virtual Works – Actual Things: Essays in Music Ontology

"Beyond musical works: new perspectives on music ontology and performance What are musical works? How are they constructed in our minds? Which material things allow us to speak about them in the first place? Does a specific way of conceiving musical works limit their performative potentials? Which alternative, more productive images of musical work can be devised? Virtual Works – Actual Things addresses contemporary music ontological discourses, challenging dominant musicological accounts, questioning their authoritative foundation and moving towards dynamic perspectives devised by music practitioners and artist researchers. Specific attention is given to the relationship between the virtual multiplicities that enable the construction of an image of a musical work and the actual, concrete materials that make such a construction possible. With contributions by prominent scholars, this book is a wide-ranging and fascinating collection of essays, which will be of great interest for artistic research, contemporary musicology, music philosophy, performance studies and music pedagogy alike. Contributors: David Davies (McGill University, Montreal), Andreas Dorschel (University of the Arts Graz), Lydia Goehr (Columbia University, New York), Kathy Kiloh (OCAD University, Toronto), Jake McNulty (Columbia University, New York), Gunnar Hindrichs (University of Basel), John Rink (University of Cambridge)

Virtual Works – Actual Things

"Beyond musical works: new perspectives on music ontology and performance What are musical works? How are they constructed in our minds? Which material things allow us to speak about them in the first place? Does a specific way of conceiving musical works limit their performative potentials? Which alternative, more productive images of musical work can be devised? Virtual Works – Actual Things addresses contemporary music ontological discourses, challenging dominant musicological accounts, questioning their authoritative foundation and moving towards dynamic perspectives devised by music practitioners and artist researchers. Specific attention is given to the relationship between the virtual multiplicities that enable the construction of an image of a musical work and the actual, concrete materials that make such a construction possible. With contributions by prominent scholars, this book is a wide-ranging and fascinating collection of essays, which will be of great interest for artistic research, contemporary musicology, music philosophy, performance studies and music pedagogy alike. Contributors: David Davies (McGill University, Montreal), Andreas Dorschel (University of the Arts Graz), Lydia Goehr (Columbia University, New York), Kathy Kiloh (OCAD University, Toronto), Jake McNulty (Columbia University, New York), Gunnar Hindrichs (University of Basel), John Rink (University of Cambridge)

Health care cost associated with the use of enzyme-inducing and non-enzyme–active antiepileptic drugs in the UK: a long-term retrospective matched cohort study

Further details on the calculation of health care resource use and costs. Table S1. Variables on which the cohorts were significantly different at baseline. Table S2. Most common incident diagnoses during the post-index period. (DOCX 26 kb

Large-Scale Structure, Performance and Brahms's Op. 119 No. 2

Research in musical performance studies has generated a healthy scepticism of the importance of large-scale structure to performance (in terms of both interpretation and perception): on the one hand, it might well be hardwired into notation, and on the other, prioritising it risks simply repeating outworn maxims that neglect the performer’s musical contributions. Recently, some scholars have begun to rethink the potential structural relevance of performance rather than necessarily determining structure on the basis of the musical score alone. In this article, I consolidate some of this thinking and draw out its implications for performers’ handling of large-scale structure; in doing so, I suggest that we should consider moving away from conventional large-scale score-based forms as structural certainties. I support this through a case study of Johannes Brahms’s Intermezzo in E minor, Op. 119 No. 2 in which I analyse recorded performances by Wilhelm Backhaus, Maria Yudina and Ilona Eibenschütz. I conclude by arguing that the inclusion and prioritisation of any particular musical material – whether the score, performance, or other – requires serious consideration and reflection in any analytical act

Virtual Works – Actual Things

Beyond musical works: new perspectives on music ontology and performance. What are musical works? How are they constructed in our minds? Which material things allow us to speak about them in the first place? Does a specific way of conceiving musical works limit their performative potentials? Which alternative, more productive images of musical work can be devised? Virtual Works – Actual Things addresses contemporary music ontological discourses, challenging dominant musicological accounts, questioning their authoritative foundation and moving towards dynamic perspectives devised by music practitioners and artist researchers. Specific attention is given to the relationship between the virtual multiplicities that enable the construction of an image of a musical work and the actual, concrete materials that make such a construction possible. With contributions by prominent scholars, this book is a wide-ranging and fascinating collection of essays, which will be of great interest for artistic research, contemporary musicology, music philosophy, performance studies and music pedagogy alike. Contributors: David Davies (McGill University, Montreal), Andreas Dorschel (University of the Arts Graz), Lydia Goehr (Columbia University, New York), Kathy Kiloh (OCAD University, Toronto), Jake McNulty (Columbia University, New York), Gunnar Hindrichs (University of Basel), John Rink (University of Cambridge

Open Versus Robotic Cystectomy: A Propensity Score Matched Analysis Comparing Survival Outcomes

Background: To assess the differential effect of robotic assisted radical cystectomy (RARC) versus open radical cystectomy (ORC) on survival outcomes in matched analyses performed on a large multicentric cohort. Methods: The study included 9757 patients with urothelial bladder cancer (BCa) treated in a consecutive manner at each of 25 institutions. All patients underwent radical cystectomy with bilateral pelvic lymphadenectomy. To adjust for potential selection bias, propensity score matching 2:1 was performed with two ORC patients matched to one RARC patient. The propensity-matched cohort included 1374 patients. Multivariable competing risk analyses accounting for death of other causes, tested association of surgical technique with recurrence and cancer specific mortality (CSM), before and after propensity score matching. Results: Overall, 767 (7.8%) patients underwent RARC and 8990 (92.2%) ORC. The median follow-up before and after propensity matching was 81 and 102 months, respectively. In the overall population, the 3-year recurrence rates and CSM were 37% vs. 26% and 34% vs. 24% for ORC vs. RARC (all p values > 0.1), respectively. On multivariable Cox regression analyses, RARC and ORC had similar recurrence and CSM rates before and after matching (all p values > 0.1). Conclusions: Patients treated with RARC and ORC have similar survival outcomes. This data is helpful in consulting patients until long term survival outcomes of level one evidence is available

Sexual Phenotype Differences in zic2 mRNA Abundance in the Preoptic Area of a Protogynous Teleost, Thalassoma bifasciatum

The highly conserved members of the zic family of zinc-finger transcription factors are primarily known for their roles in embryonic signaling pathways and regulation of cellular proliferation and differentiation. This study describes sexual phenotype differences in abundances of zic2 mRNA in the preoptic area of the hypothalamus, a region strongly implicated in sexual behavior and function, in an adult teleost, Thalassoma bifasciatum. The bluehead wrasse (Thalassoma bifasciatum) is a valuable model for studying neuroendocrine processes because it displays two discrete male phenotypes, initial phase (IP) males and territorial, terminal phase (TP) males, and undergoes socially-controlled protogynous sex change. Previously generated microarray-based comparisons suggested that zic2 was upregulated in the brains of terminal phase males relative to initial phase males. To further explore this difference, we cloned a 727 bp sequence for neural zic2 from field-collected animals. Riboprobe-based in situ hybridization was employed to localize zic2 signal in adult bluehead brains and assess the relative abundance of brain zic2 mRNA across sexual phenotypes. We found zic2 mRNA expression was extremely abundant in the granular cells of the cerebellum and widespread in other brain regions including in the thalamus, hypothalamus, habenula, torus semicircularis, torus longitudinalis, medial longitudinal fascicle and telencephalic areas. Quantitative autoradiography and phosphorimaging showed zic2 mRNA hybridization signal in the preoptic area of the hypothalamus was significantly higher in terminal phase males relative to both initial phase males and females, and silver grain analysis confirmed this relationship between phenotypes. No significant difference in abundance was found in zic2 signal across phenotypes in the habenula, a brain region not implicated in the control of sexual behavior, or cerebellum