Inaug.-Diss.--Köln. / Vita. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. "Literaturverzeichnis": p. 238-248.

This dissertation consists of four programs: one lecture- recital, two recitals for piano solo, and one (the Schubert program) in combination with other instruments. The repertoire of the complete series of concerts was chosen with the intention of demonstrating the ability of the performer to project music of various types and composed in different periods.

One of the major problems faced by performers of Chopin’s mazurkas is recapturing the elements that Chopin drew from Polish folk music. Although scholars from around 1900 exaggerated Chopin’s quotation of Polish folk tunes in their mixed agendas that related ‘Polishness’ to Chopin, many of the rudimentary and more complex elements of Polish folk music are present in his compositions. These elements affect such issues as rhythm and meter, tempo and tempo fluctuation, repetitive motives, undulating melodies, function of I and V harmonies. During his vacations in Szafarnia in the Kujawy region of Central Poland in his late teens, Chopin absorbed aspects of Kujaw performing traditions which served as impulses for his compositions. This study examines how certain qualities of movement or gesture experienced in Kujaw music are embedded in Chopin’s mazurka style. Modern performances of Chopin’s mazurkas are too often far removed from these original sources. This thesis aims to reconnect the pianist with the gestures embedded within Chopin’s mazurka styles by: i) assessing the gestural nuances in Kujaw folk music; ii) identifying these trends as gestures and notational elements in Chopin’s mazurkas; and iii) examining historical performances of Chopin’s mazurkas to demonstrate the techniques that performers have utilized to capture these folk patterns and traditions. Field recordings from the Kujaw region, and historical recordings of Chopin mazurkas played mostly by Polish pianists accompany the discussion. / Graduate / 0413 / monikaz@uvic.ca

It is no secret that Frédéric Chopin was fond of dance music. Dance genres—including the mazurka, polonaise, and waltz—dominate his oeuvre. According to the Henle Urtext edition, Chopin penned fifty-seven mazurkas during his lifetime, writing in this genre more than any other. It is interesting, then, that the mazurkas seem to be one of Chopin’s most historically misunderstood genres. In their haste to point out the mazurkas’ seeming irregularities of rhythm, harmony, mode, accent pattern, and such, critics both of Chopin’s time and in more recent history often ignore two equally fundamental issues: (1) the relationship between Chopin’s mazurkas and the dance of the same name, and (2) the manner in which that relationship might inform hermeneutic readings of the mazurkas. Surely, the perceived “irregularities” were not employed haphazardly, but rather for specific expressive purposes. This essay aims to construct a model for embodied musical meaning as it pertains to Chopin’s mazurkas by examining the intersection of gesture, narrative, and temporal theories. Drawing on Robert S. Hatten’s (2004) and Alexandra Pierce’s (2007) work on musical gesture, I will relate the steps of the danced mazurka to their abstract musical counterparts in Chopin’s solo piano works and examine the affective connection between the physical steps and the musical gestures. I will then call upon the narrative theories of Michael Klein (2004) and Byron Almén (2008) and the temporal theories put forth by Jonathan D. Kramer (1973, 1996) and Judy Lochhead (1979) to construct a framework in which the musical gestures (and the expressive states they imply) interact to produce emergent meanings. Finally, I will present a gestural/narrative reading of Chopin’s Mazurka in C# minor, op. 50, no. 3, which aims to demonstrate both the utility of my proposed theoretical model and the necessity of going back to the dance to grapple with issues of musical meaning in the mazurkas. / text

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