Sonata had gone through the development of Baroque and Classical Era and reached the high point in the beginning of 19th century. Liszt¡¦ s Piano Sonata in B minor is an important work. It is also an arguable piece in the sonata literatures. Its musical form or content are both the issues of which is considered to carry on the past musical heritage and opened up the future. This thesis starts from the introduction of the composing background of Piano Sonata in B minor. It then focuses to the significance of this work in Romantic Era. After that, many pianists¡¦ and scholars¡¦ view points are collected and analyzed for discussing how this work has the characteristics of absolute music and program music. The relationship between Liszt¡¦s Faust Symphony and this sonata is also explored. Finally, the structure of this sonata is analyzed for understanding how the technique of thematic transformation works in this piece.

abstract: Pursuit of an informed approach to interpreting Frédéric Chopin’s music has been increasingly challenging in the twenty-first century. In the process of forming their unique voices, pianists turn to the sound recordings of some of the most notable pianistic figures in history. This document offers a detailed inspection of three revered recordings and, with the help of syntactic analysis, seeks an understanding of the extraordinary interpretational decisions of Alfred Cortot, Arthur Rubinstein and Dinu Lipatti. The examined works are Chopin’s Prelude in C Major, Op. 28, No. 1, and the Largo of the Sonata in B Minor, Op. 58. The analysis of the Prelude compares recorded performances of Alfred Cortot (ca. 1933-1934) and Arthur Rubinstein (ca. 1946) and explains how their vastly different interpretational choices can, through an analytical process, be traced to the harmonic and melodic implications of the score. Likewise, inspection of the Largo focuses on Dinu Lipatti’s performance (ca. 1947) and draws connections between his phrasing and critical characteristics of the movement. All three performances present exquisite examples of a style of expressive playing that seems to have fallen into disuse in the twenty-first century. This study contributes to a deeper understanding of the performing style of Cortot, Rubinstein, and Lipatti, and also seeks to show connections between score analysis and interpretational decisions. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Music 2020

This dissertation pursues the following three objectives: (1) a comprehensive formal analysis of Franz Liszt’s sonata in B minor that combines adequate analytical models; (2) various hermeneutic approaches to the sonata that trace thematic and expressive transformations and deviational elements from sonata conventions; and (3) a comprehensive interpretation of the sonata analysis and the hermeneutic analyses based on historical, religious, and political contexts around Liszt and the sonata, which will differentiate this dissertation from preceding research on the sonata and other sonata genres in the nineteenth century. Chapter 1 begins with a literature review, focusing on (1) the sonata’s formal analyses and (2) programmatic approaches. Considering the formal boundaries of the sonata are still disputable in former research, I argue that the sonata strongly demands appropriate analytical methodologies in order to uncover its exceptional form. These methodologies include James Hepokoski’s and Waren Darcy’s sonata theory (2006), Leonard Meyer’s “secondary parameters” (1989), and Peter Smith’s “dimensional counterpoint” (2005), which will be discussed in Chapter 2. Hepokoski’s and Darcy’s sonata theory reveals the conventions of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century sonatas and suggests hermeneutic interpretations that result from deviations from these conventions. Secondary parameters and dimensional counterpoint are critical in shaping musical processes and form. I provide a three-step sonata analysis based on the analytical ground that combines these methodologies. My analysis offers a comprehensive view of the entire sonata as a one-movement sonata form, including structural, motivic, and narrative analyses. Chapter 1 also describes several programmatic approaches that Liszt scholars have developed. However, an obsession with the good/evil dichotomy in former research narrows narratives of the sonata. Considering that the sonata presents five motto themes, interpretations of the sonata may be more extensive and complex than previous research has found. I develop various and distinctive hermeneutic readings of the sonata in Chapter 3, which includes the following three sub-sections: 1) Topical approach; 2) Narrative approach; and 3) Lacanian approach. The topical approach investigates how different topical significations are manifested in Liszt’s sonata in nineteenth-century historical and cultural contexts. The narrative approach concentrates on five mottos presented in the sonata and their motivic and expressive transformations. The Lacanian approach concentrates on a lack of strong cadences in the sonata, relating to Lacan’s famous concept, objet petit a, an unattainable object of desire. Then, I continue to use the Lacanian viewpoint to interpret an unresolved fully-diminished seventh harmony as a Sinthome, a symptom that can never be healed. In Chapter 4, I relate Liszt’s religious convictions and various struggles to bring about another hermeneutic reading in the political, religious, and theological contexts around Liszt and the sonata, by revisiting my interpretations in Chapter 3. / Music Theory

Notre recherche porte sur une analyse comparative des interprétations de la Sonate en si mineur de Liszt. Nous avons analysé vingt-cinq enregistrements de pianistes regroupés en cinq écoles :hongroise, française, russe, américaine et allemande. Nous avons comparé les déviations des interprètes par rapport à la partition et les divergences entre les différentes interprétations, en sélectionnant sept paramètres qui nous ont permis de caractériser chaque interprétation. Une double analyse a été effectuée : « à l'oreille » et à l'aide d'un logiciel informatique. Notre recherche a démontré l'importance de plusieurs facteurs d'influence complémentaires : l'enseignement reçu, l'époque où l'on vit et l'on crée, le tempérament et l'individualité artistique. Au terme de notre recherche, nous avons démontré l'existence de spécificités qui se manifestent au sein de chacune des écoles pianistiques nationales, et également de particularités caractérisant le mode de jeu des différentes générations. / Our research focuses a comparative analysis of the performances of Liszt's Sonata in b minor. We analysed twenty-five recordings by pianists grouped into five piano schools : Hungarian, French, Russian, American and German. We compared the deviations of the performers from the score and the differences between the individual performances, based on a selection of seven parameters that allowed us to characterise each of them. A double analysis was made: "by ear" and with the aid of acomputer. Our research has shown the importance of several complementary factors of influence : education, the period during which the pianists lived and created, the artists' temperaments and their artistic individualities. At the end of our research, we demonstrated the existence of specific features within each of the national piano schools, and also of some features that characterise the performing style of each generation.

This dissertation examines the skill of adaptable playing essential for collaborative pianists by looking closely at the sonata's many challenges for ensemble playing, using musical examples from the sonata to study balance between instruments, tone and articulation, choice of voicing, and use of pedal to ensure a successful performance.