Aaron Copland has been in the forefront of the American musical scene since the 1920s. He has been called an "American composer" for his ability to formulate the essence of American folk music into a wide variety of mediums. The variety and scope of his compositions encompass a diverse array of styles and techniques. From the jazz influenced works that dominated his early period to the works for Hollywood films, from the chamber music that was directly influenced by his Jewish background to the partial acceptance of serial technique, Copland has managed to delve equally into all these styles. Yet, one could arguably rank his works for the stage as his most popular and generally most successful compositions of his career. The extent to which the American public has accepted these works as being "folk" is a case for the genius and adaptability of Copland's talent. Although works like Appalachian Spring, Rodeo, and Lincoln Portrait command the attention of the general public, of whom Aaron Copland was constantly aware, there are works for the piano that deserve and demand close study by pianists. One such work is the Piano Variations. Written in 1930, it has been acknowledged as a twentieth century masterpiece in publications for piano and piano literature as well as by pianists since its premiere in 1931. It is a brutal and sparse work that encompasses a quasi-serial technique in which the motto of four notes transforms itself through the course of twenty variations and a coda. The demands of learning a work such as this can be overwhelming for the pianist not accustomed to the rigors of a non-diatonic piece. However, a careful analysis precipitated by specific questions directed not only at learning the piece but also with the goal of performance in mind, can shape the interpretational issues that will eventually face the pianist. The questions that I pose are directly pulled from Michael Remson's article, "Copland's Piano Variations: A Forgotten Masterpiece." Although it is considered by this writer as an introduction to the technique of serialism, largely because of the classical practices among which are tonal center, period structure and interruptions of the motto, Copland's Piano Variations is a classic example of a twentieth century work that will be heard as avant-garde and studied in the style of late Romanticism.

American composer Roger Reynolds was born on July 18, 1934, in Detroit, Michigan. At age 14, he determined to study piano after hearing a recording of Chopin's Polonaise in A-flat major, Opus 53 played by Vladimir Horowitz. Even though his piano teacher Kenneth Aiken recommended that he continue his study at the Curtis Institute of Music, Reynolds followed the suggestion from his parents that a musical career was not practical. After receiving a bachelor degree of engineering physics at the University of Michigan, he worked in the industry for a short period of time. In 1957, he returned to Michigan and resumed his study of music by taking a class called Composition for Non-Composers under the instruction of Ross Lee Finney. Reynolds continued his compositional study with Finney and Gerhard who were influenced by the Second Viennese School until he finished the master's degree (B.M. 1960, M.M. 1961). Variation was written under the auspices of The Banff Centre for the Arts in 1988. This piece was dedicated to Peter Serkin and premiered by Alec Karis, a faculty member at UCSD, on December 3, 1991 at Merkin Concert Hall, New York. This large-scale set of variations for piano is one of the rare instances in which Reynolds used a conventional genre. What concerned Reynolds most in Variation was "the notion that transformations of meaning could occur entirely as a result of changes in context." He designed this variation as five sections -capriccioso and I, grave and II, III, scorrevole and coda. Capriccioso, grave and scorrevole also refer to the three basic thematic elements of this piece. These three main themes appear throughout the whole piece employing fragmentations or superimpositions. Reynolds used two computer algorithms (SPLITZ and SPIRLZ) to make transformations on these three thematic ideas. He cut the themes up into small fragments, and then recombined these fragments into a kind of altered mosaic. This process resembles his experiments on words: he disassembled words into elementary figures (dots, lines, etc.) and gathered them into new figures, i.e. new words.

Orientadores: Mauricy Matos Martin, Maria Lucia Senna Machado Pascoal / Tese (doutorado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Artes / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-08T00:37:44Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Bark_JoselyMariaMachado_D.pdf: 4382112 bytes, checksum: 7cc93717de61bc5f91f845ef3d59bb17 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2006 / Resumo: O presente trabalho tem como principal objetivo realizar um estudo analítico e interpretativo do Concertante do Imaginário para Piano e Orquestra de Cordas Op. 74 de Marlos Nobre. Para introduzir e contextualizar esse estudo, apresenta na Primeira Parte um levantamento biográfico e histórico da vida do compositor. A Segunda Parte focaliza a obra. Inicialmente, descreve de forma sucinta as técnicas de análise musical desenvolvidas por John White, Arnold Schoenberg, Felix Salzer, Stefan Kostka e Joseph Straus, e destaca os principais termos empregados para o estudo da obra. Segue com o estudo analítico segundo os movimentos Desenho, Motivo e Retrato. Desse estudo são levantadas sínteses a respeito da linguagem empregada, quais os elementos composicionais característicos utilizados pelo compositor e como ele os manipula. Também de acordo com esse estudo analítico, estão indicadas sugestões sobre a execução da obra, apontando aspectos relevantes da interpretação pianística. A conclusão reúne as informações de maior interesse obtidas da análise efetuada, da entrevista complementar realizada com o compositor no Rio de Janeiro e de suas orientações a respeito da execução da obra. Em anexo se encontra a matriz da série O0 de doze sons, material formador do terceiro movimento Retrato / Abstract: The main objective of this study is to present an Analysis of the Concertante do Imaginário for Piano and String Orchestra Op. 74 by Marlos Nobre, and an Interpretative Guide to it. For the sake of contextualization, the First Part presents biographical and historical data of the composer's life. The Second Part focuses on the piece proper, followed by the Analysis of its three movements - Desenho, Motivo and Retrato - based on the techniques developed by John White, Arnold Schoenberg, Felix Salzer, Stefan Kostka and Joseph Straus. The aim of the Analysis is to provide information about the compositional language and its elements, and how the composer uses them, as well as suggestions concerning the pianistic performance of the piece. The conclusion gathers the most prominent information acquired from the overall Analysis of the work and from the complementary interview with the composer in Rio de Janeiro, and his advices on the performance of this piece as well. As an appendix, there is the twelve-tone matrix of the tone row used for the third movement Retrato / Doutorado / Doutor em Música

The first three recitals contained solely performances of piano music. The first one consisted of an Etude-Tableau by Rachmaninov, the Capriccio by Stravinsky (the chamberensemble accompaniment arranged for second piano), and the great Sonata in A minor by Schubert. The second recital contained a Prelude and Fugue by J. S. Bach, Reger's Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Bach, a Romance by the performer, Peter Covino's Toccatina Op. 4 No. 8, and Chopin's Nocturne Op. 55 No. 2 and Scherzo in E. The third recital consisted of Schonberg's Sechs Kleine Klavierstilcke, Ives's Some South-Paw Pitching, and the Sonata Op. 106 ("Hammerklavier") by Beethoven. The fourth recital featured a lecture which surveyed the piano waltz throughout its history. Several complete examples, namely Weber's Invitation to the Dance, Chopin's Waltz in A minor, and La Valse by Ravel, and incomplete examples including a Lundler by the performer, several of Schubert's waltzes, Chopin's Waltz Op. 42, and Man Lebt Nur Einmal! by Strauss-Tausig interspersed the lecture. All four recitals, tape-recorded, and the lecture, typewritten, are filed together in the Graduate Office of the North Texas State University.

The fact that a number of pianists of the past two centuries adapted, embellished, and rearranged piano works for performance, be these original works or transcriptions, has been well documented throughout history. This thought, in addition to the fact that Stradal’s scores needed revision, encouraged me to make alterations to Stradal’s transcriptions and served as a strong incentive to write the current study. In it, I will comment on the alterations performed to segments of Stradal’s piano transcriptions of Wagner’s Schluβ der letzten Aufzuges (End of the last Act) from Siegfried and Trauermusik aus dem letzten Aufzug (Siegfried’s Funeral March) from Götterdämmerung. These changes have the purpose of reflecting in the piano as closely as possible the sonorous reality of the transcriptions’ operatic sources and, by doing so, making Stradal’s arrangements more effective for performance.

This master’s thesis deals with the design of a digital piano. This increasingly popular musical instrument offers possibilities not available in an acoustic piano (outputting sound into headphones, utilizing sample libraries, recording, use of sheet music in digital form and more). From technical standpoint, it attempts to closely mimic the qualities of traditional instruments, both in its tactile feedback and sound quality. The aim of this work was to design a solution which would starkly differentiate from the very conservative classical design without being overly extravagant. The main focus is therefore on aspects of visual appearance, with emphasis on ergonomics, and an outline of the technical solution.

I denna studie undersöks olika metoder för att lära sig ny musikrepertoar. Den mer tradition- ella övningen vid instrument jämförs med konsten att öva utan instrument. Frågor som under- söks är hur effektivt det är att öva vid respektive utan instrument och om svårighetsgraden på stycket spelar någon roll. Jag gör fyra experiment med sektioner av olika svårighetsgrad. I vardera experiment ställer jag övning utan och vid instrument mot varandra. Vid övning vid instrument övar jag med piano tills jag kan stycket. Vid övning utan instrument använder jag mig av visualisering. Jag tillåter mig i experiment 1–3 att använda mig av yttre hjälpmedel vid övning utan instrument som att spela på ett bord och användning av ett virtuellt tangentbord för att höra tonernas frekvens. I experiment 4 undersöker jag ren mental övning där inga yttre hjälpmedel är tillåtna. Resultatet visar att det är möjligt att lära sig musik utantill från första stund utan instrument. Gällande effektiviteten så var resultaten något motstridiga. I vissa ex- periment gick det snabbare att memorera musik utan instrument medan det var mindre effek- tivt i andra. I kommande arbeten vill jag undersöka vad detta beror på. / The purpose of this study is to evaluate different methods for learning new pianistic re- pertoire. Traditionally, a pianist’s practice is always conducted in front of the instrument. Here, practicing without the instrument is compared to practicing in front of the instrument. How efficient each method is and if different levels of the choosen repertoire will affect the result is examined. I conduct 4 experiments with sections of music of various difficulty. In each experiment practicing with and without instrument is compared. When practicing with instrument I practice with piano until I know the section by heart. When practicing without instrument I use visualization. In experiments 1–3 I allow myself to use tools when practicing without instrument such as playing on a table and the usage of a virtual keyboard to hear the pitch of the notes. In experiment 4 I examine pure mental practice where no tools are allowed. The result of the study shows that it is possible to memorize music without instrument. Regar- ding the efficiency the results were somewhat conflicting. In some experiments it was more efficient to memorize music without instrument and in some it was more efficient to memorize in front of the instrument. In future studies I would like to see why that is.

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