This thesis comprises two manuscripts prepared for scholarly journals. Chapter 2 comprises an article entitled “Exploring Historic Changes in Musical Communication: Deconstructing Emotional Cues in Preludes by Bach and Chopin.”, which examines emotion perception in historic prelude sets by J.S. Bach and F. Chopin. This work connects psychological research on perceived musical emotion to musicological research describing changes in music structure. Using a technique called commonality analysis to deconstruct cues’ individual and joint roles in predicting participants’ perceived emotions, the chapter clarifies how music’s conveyed emotion can differ in compositions from different eras. Chapter 3 comprises an article entitled “Parsing Musical Patterns in Prelude Sets: Bridging Qualitative and Quantitative Epistemologies in Historical Music Research”. This chapter bridges gaps between qualitative and quantitative research on music history through an analytical approach engaging with both fields. Specifically, cluster analyses of Bach and Chopin’s preludes reveal notable differences in the composers’ expressive toolkits, consistent with work from historical and empirical music research. Through a novel analytical framework, the chapter illustrates a method for detecting groups of pieces demarcated by salient musical differences, assessing cues’ importance within these groups, and determining the most influential cue values for each group. Together, these articles provide new insight into the subtle sonic relationships influencing musical meaning and emotion perception. / Thesis / Master of Science (MSc) / Music’s capacity to express emotion has received considerable attention in psychological and musicological research. Whereas efforts from psychology clarify the musical cues for emotion through perceptual experiments, efforts from musicology track changes in compositional practice over time—finding changing relationships between music’s cues for emotion in historically diverse compositions. To date, the implications of these changing musical relationships for emotion perception remain unclear. This thesis analyzes musical scores and listeners’ emotion ratings to gain insight into music’s structural changes throughout history and their implications for perceived emotion. By applying statistical techniques to (i) detect musical patterns in prelude sets by J.S. Bach and F. Chopin and (ii) clarify how cue relationships influence emotion perception, this thesis sheds light on the relationship between music’s historic context and its emotional meaning.

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Robert Muczynski (1929-2010), composer, pianist, and educator, is a noteworthy American musician from our time. His prowess as a pianist undoubtedly accounts for the striking number of pieces he wrote for the piano, namely, one concerto, preludes, sonatas, suites, a toccata, and variations. Out of a total of forty-eight pieces with opus numbers, seventeen are for solo piano. This document contains an overview of Muczynski's life as a composer and musician, with an emphasis on his solo piano compositions. The body of the document traces sources of Muczynski's compositional style, especially the influence of Alexander Tcherepnin, his composition teacher and mentor, and Sergei Prokofiev. An analysis of some of Muczynski's shorter piano solo pieces follows: Six Preludes, op. 6, Suite for Piano, op. 13, and Toccata, op. 15. This analysis demonstrates that Muczynski's short piano pieces often exhibit a persistent focus on one generative musical idea within each piece, usually consisting of unifying etude-like material. For variety and color, he relies on frequent changes of metric pulse, sudden accents, highly chromatic harmony and melody, and an extreme range of sound. These stylistic traits are consistent with those previously identified by other scholars in his larger piano compositions.

Luis Serrano Alarcón is one of the most important and relevant composers of our time. He is sought after as a composer, lecturer, and conductor throughout the world. His works have been performed in over 30 countries worldwide by some of the leading musical ensembles in the United States, Europe, and Asia, as well as being highly decorated by winning many prestigious composition contests including the International Band Competition Contest of Corciano, Italy. Born in Valencia, Spain, Alarcón is relatively self-taught in composition, which is a testament to his natural-born gift for composition. His compositional output ranges from the traditional Spanish pasodoble to chamber music, solo pieces, and sophisticated masterpieces for orchestra and wind ensemble. His work Duende: Four Preludes for Symphonic Wind Ensemble was commissioned by the University of St. Thomas Wind Ensemble, Minnesota (USA) in 2010. From its premiere, it became an extremely popular piece among wind band conductors. Duende’s appeal can be attributed to its fusion of Spanish popular music, the symphonic energy of Manuel de Falla’s scores, Iberia by the Spanish composer Isaac Albeniz, and the presence of jazz and Latin music. A detailed conductor’s guide will be provided in this document that includes but not limited to an analysis of form and structure for each movement, conducting considerations, and rehearsal suggestions and techniques. Last but not least, an in-depth exploration into the composer’s background, Spanish musical influences, and the Spanish Band movement and traditions has been conducted. Through this process, an uncovering of intriguing and relevant points of interest have come to the surface. Alarcón’s music sounds the way it does and appeals to the masses because of the juxtaposition of its infectious, Spanish musical elements, as well as its traditional symphonic music components. Moreover, the long and historical past, culture, and traditions of Spanish Bands creates an enormous influence and motivation to compose for the wind band genre. More than two-thirds of all municipalities in Valencia, Spain have musical societies that serve as sponsors for the bands and other ensembles, provide music education, and function as a social center to the townspeople. They are also supported by the Valencian Federation of Musical Societies, all branches of government, the business community, and the media. The musical ensembles participate in both non-competitive and competitive performance activities. Non-competitive performances include concerts, wind band festivals, honor bands, and massed bands. Wind band competitions are sponsored at the municipal, provincial, regional, and international levels. Many of these performance types are combined for special celebrations like patron saint holidays, including Las Fallas and Moros y Cristianos.

The preludes as a whole do not conform to any specific formal mold, but offer a variety of form: binary, ternary, one-part, and five-part. As such, no new formal structures have been introduced by this "first" of the nineteenth century and twentieth century "disconnected" preludes. On the other hand, they are a heterogenous collection of styles, moods, and forms--a precedent that was followed by Debussy, Rachmoninoff, and various others. To determine the degree to which Chopin was harmonically advanced would require comparative analyses of works by his contemporaries and later nineteenth-century composers. Suffice it to say that one would be hard put to locate a collection of compositions of similar length and scope, written in the 1820's, that contains the wealth of harmonic innovations found within Opus 28.

<p>This essay in musicology is combined with a CD-recording of piano improvisations. Its purpose is, on the one hand, to examine some of the ideas permeating piano improvisation during the first part of the nineteenth century, and, on the other, to find ways to apply these nineteenth century ideas of improvising to modern piano playing. The artistic part of the work is as important as the theoretical, and the two strands are supporting and reinforcing each other.</p><p>The first section of the text focuses on preluding – that is, a <em>genre</em> <em>of improvisation</em>. The second section investigates some aspects of the improvising of Franz Liszt – that is, different types of <em>improvisation as practised by an important nineteenth century musician.</em> The instructional music literature written by Carl Czerny is the basic source of reference in both portions.</p><p>The text and the recordings of my piano improvisations aim to show that monothematic strategies are simple and useful tools for improvising, regardless of tonal language used.</p><p>Half of the recordings consist of improvisations of separate pieces in a contemporary musical language. The other half are preludes, interludes and a cadenza improvised in the context of compositions by Liszt, Chopin, Mozart, Mendelssohn and Grieg.</p>

Busoni's contribution to the art of the piano transcription is formidable. His chorale prelude transcriptions make him responsible for giving over to the piano repertoire a small portion of sacred literature. His special admiration of J. S. Bach, evidenced throughout his life, make Busoni's transcriptional practices all the more significant. Bach himself was a prolific transcriber of his own works and the works of others. This paper presents a brief history of keyboard transcriptional practices, emphasizing Busoni's methods by comparing the original works for organ with the transcriptions for piano. Four chorale preludes form the basis for this study: Ich ruf' zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ (BWV 639), Komm, Gott, Schopfer, Heiliger Geist (BWV 667), Nun komm' der Heiden Heiland (BWV 659), and In dir ist Freude (BWV 615).

This essay in musicology is combined with a CD-recording of piano improvisations. Its purpose is, on the one hand, to examine some of the ideas permeating piano improvisation during the first part of the nineteenth century, and, on the other, to find ways to apply these nineteenth century ideas of improvising to modern piano playing. The artistic part of the work is as important as the theoretical, and the two strands are supporting and reinforcing each other. The first section of the text focuses on preluding – that is, a genre of improvisation. The second section investigates some aspects of the improvising of Franz Liszt – that is, different types of improvisation as practised by an important nineteenth century musician. The instructional music literature written by Carl Czerny is the basic source of reference in both portions. The text and the recordings of my piano improvisations aim to show that monothematic strategies are simple and useful tools for improvising, regardless of tonal language used. Half of the recordings consist of improvisations of separate pieces in a contemporary musical language. The other half are preludes, interludes and a cadenza improvised in the context of compositions by Liszt, Chopin, Mozart, Mendelssohn and Grieg.

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This study uses Bergson's concepts of duration and spontaneous (now termed episodic) memory to reveal how musical material in Rachmaninoff's Prelude Op. 32 No. 10 in B Minor (1910) turns back on itself in recurring remembrances of its own past, bringing the listener out of ordinary time; a process that mirrors themes both from Rachmaninoff's life, and Arnold Böcklin's Die Heimkehr, the painting that inspired this piece. Time perception slows or even suspends when one reflects on the past, either a personal past or the historical past. Musical material in the Prelude undergoes analogous time warps. In conversation with Bergson's ideas, this study illustrates the unique temporal qualities in the musical language of the Prelude, for which standard forms of analysis fail to completely capture the essence. The overall aim is to demonstrate Rachmaninoff's idiosyncratic approach to piano writing, which many have discredited as anachronistic. This study suggests a new methodology – Bergsonian musical analysis – with which to understand the concealed innovations in Rachmaninoff's piano idiom. This study of Rachmaninoff's B Minor Prelude builds on publications concerning other Bergsonian interpretations of music in pursuing a thorough investigation of one work and its relationship with broader issues in philosophy and visual art. The result is a theoretical engagement with the Prelude that establishes a new methodology to deal with Rachmaninoff's piano idiom in general. A Bergsonian analytical technique reveals the real artistry behind Rachmaninoff's compositions – not just remnants of some past romantic idiom, but an idiosyncratic musical grappling with the nature of time and memory.