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This study investigates the intermediate and advanced piano repertoire of 20th Century Russian composer, Dmitry Borisovich Kabalevsky, with the main focus being on the artistic and pedagogical relevance of these works.Background details of the composer's life, as they pertain to these works and to his style of composition, were gathered through a review of the literature found in books, doctoral theses, encyclopedias, journal articles and programme notes accompanying compact disc recordings and editions of his music.A selection of Kabalevsky's intermediate and advanced piano compositions was chosen for an in-depth analysis of their artistic, technical and pedagogical aspects. A broad examination of their structure is also made. The works selected for analysis include Concerto No. 2 in G minor Op. 23, Numbers 1,2,3,4,6 and 24 from Twenty-Four Preludes Op. 38 and Sonata No. 2 in E flat major Op. 45. In order to gauge both the level of awareness and usage of Kabalevsky's piano repertoire, two written surveys were formulated and issued to teachers and performers within Australia. The first of these (Survey A) was distributed to private studio teachers, most of whom were teaching at an elementary and intermediate level, whilst the second one (Survey B) was sent to teachers who were likely to have had experience in teaching and/or performing more advanced works. In order to determine the frequency with which Kabalevksy's piano works are set for examinations, a review of various syllabuses, including the Australian Music Examination Board (AMEB), Trinity College of London and Austrlaina and New Zealand Cultural Arts Limited (ANZCA), was undertaken. These findings, together with the results of the surveys (which include comments made by a number of teachers/performers within Australia about a selection of these pieces) and the researcher's in-depth analyses, were all considered in ascertaining the usage and level of awareness of Kabalevsky's intermediate and advanced piano repertoire within Australia and the artistic and pedagogical contribution of these works. The in-depth analyses of a selection of Kabalevsky's intermediate and advanced piano works revealed that Kabalevsky made a worthy contribution to the piano literature of this standard, and that these works are also of considerable pedagogical value. The feedback from the surveys revealed that whilst most of the respondents had a high repect and regard for Kabalevsky's elementary piano compositions, the usage and familiarity with his intermediate and advanced works was significantly less. Many of the factors suggested for the lack of awareness of this repertoire were extraneous to the merits of the pieces themselves and, hence, it is hoped that a greater awareness of its existence and an appreciation of the artistic and pedagogical contribution of this literature, will bring it to the attention of students, teachers and performers alike.

The purpose of this paper was to analyze and discuss Joan Tower’s solo keyboard compositions through 2007. This includes five piano pieces—Circles, Fantasia, Red Garnet Waltz, No Longer Very Clear, Big Steps—and an organ piece, Ascent. Tower’s compositional style can be divided into two periods. In the first period, where serial music predominates, I discussed twelve-tone row forms and contemporary keyboard techniques as found in two works, Circles and Fantasia. In her second period, I discussed these characteristics: one movement structures, her organic approach to composition, and her use of motivic development. Further, I included a discussion of form, scales, harmony, rhythm, and some performance issues. / School of Music

This work largely concerns the roles of Matthew Locke and Henry Purcell in the history of English keyboard music as reflected in their keyboard suites. Both, as composers of the Restoration period, integrated the French style with the more traditional English techniques--especially, in the case of Purcell, the virginalist heritage-- in their keyboard music. Through a detailed examination of their suites, I reveal differences in their individual styles and set forth unique characteristics of each composer. Both composers used the then traditional almain-corant-saraband pattern as the basis of the suite, to which they added a variety of English country dances. At the same time they modified the traditional dances with a variety of French and Italian idioms, thereby making distinctive individual contributions to the genre.

This study examines the five late keyboard works of Cesar Franck: the Prelude, Chorale, and Fugue and the Prelude. Aria, and Finale for piano, and the three organ chorales. The study focuses on harmonic and contrapuntal techniques and their interrelationships, placing the discussion in the context of an analysis of the whole piece. The primary goal is to identify the salient characteristics of each piece; a secondary goal is to identify common harmonic and contrapuntal aspects of Franck's style.

The keyboard works of the English virginalist Peter Philips have been little studied in comparison with his more famous contemporaries, William Byrd, John Bull and Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck. While Philips left comparatively fewer keyboard works than these composers, his music contains very unique attributes. This study compiles the latest research of Philips' life as well as an analysis of representative works showing many of the individual and uncommon features to be found in Philips' works for keyboard. Pieces from all genres of Philips' keyboard output are represented and discussed, including Pavanes and Galliards, Fantasias and Intabulations of madrigals. Musical examples of each of these works are provided. A description of the instruments needed for the performance of the music and an illustration of the rare type of keyboard instrument required in the Pavana and Galliarda Dolorosa is included. A discussion of Philips' style, particularly regarding ornamentation, is included with a comparison to the works of his contemporaries.

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(Jose Antonio) Carlos de Seixas (1704-1742) is an important figure in the European keyboard music of the beginning of the 18th-century. He composed around 700 sonatas for keyboard, of which only around 105 are known today. They demonstrate a high execution level that can be compared with J. P. Rameau (1683-1764), J. S. Bach (1685-1750), Domenico Scarlatti (1685-1757), Padre Antonio Soler (1729-1783) and other important composers of his time. Like Scarlatti and Soler, Carlos Seixas is positioned in an important transitional period in the history of music. He and his contemporaries are situated between true giants of Western Art Music: before and, in part, during Seixas's life time lived G. F. Haendel (1685-1759) and J. S. Bach (1685-1750); and after Seixas came F. J. Haydn (1732-1809), W. A. Mozart (1756-1791), and L. van Beethoven (1770-1827). During this transitional time in the first half of the eighteenth century, from the baroque to the classical eras, several stylistic trends coexisted--- the baroque, the new galant style, the empfindsamer Stil, and the pre-classical. This essay is divided into four chapters. In Chapter One I discuss the sources for Seixas scholarship followed by a historical overview of seventeenth- and eighteenth- century Portugal as well as a brief biographical sketch of Seixas's life. Chapter Two includes a discussion of Seixas's musical style and form. I examine various facets of his compositional style, including some commonalities found in many composers' works during the transitional period between the Baroque and pre-Classical. I also explore other facets of his keyboard writing such as the use of violin idioms, folkloric sounds, and symphonic textures. In Chapter Three I examine in greater detail Seixas's keyboard writing. I start with descriptions of the instruments that Seixas may have used and of his keyboard writing. I also examine available scholarship for guidelines on performing early eighteenth-century keyboard music in general--including specific approaches to ornaments, articulation, improvisation, rubato, and the like--before turning to Seixas's keyboard sonatas in particular. The last chapter, Chapter Four, includes elements for the analysis of Seixas's sonatas; I choose four of these sonatas for more in-depth analysis of formal and tonal structure. The four selected sonatas represent different formal schemes and stylistic characteristics, which demonstrate the variety within Seixas's solo keyboard pieces. They show great contrasts in form, relationship of movements, and thematic treatment: Sonata No. 16 in C minor presents only one movement in free binary form; Sonata No. 27 in D minor has three movements with no evident relationship among them and toccata elements in the first movement; Sonata No. 42 in F minor also has three movements but the last two movements relate thematically and the first movement presents imitative counterpoint; and Sonata No. 59 in A major represents pre-classical tendencies in texture and structure, presenting three movements connected as a whole through cyclical thematic ideas in the outer movements and a second movement, in A minor, that links to the last movement by means of an open ending. In addition, Chapter Four includes pedagogical insights from an analytical standpoint and annotations for the use of Seixas's sonatas as teaching resources. As part of this chapter's pedagogical resources, I also list additional sources for understanding performance practice of eighteenth-century music, review the available editions of Seixas's solo keyboard compositions, and list the primary performers of his keyboard works. Finally, the appendices to this essay include two cataloguing tables: the first (Appendix A) catalogues a selected group of Seixas's sonatas with detailed descriptions of their technical difficulties, and the second (Appendix B) catalogues all eighty sonatas according to level of difficulty. In addition, the scores of all four sonatas analyzed in Chapter Four are provided in two forms: Appendices C, D, E, and F contain the original Seixas score as edited by Seixas's preeminent scholar Santiago Macario Kastner; Appendices G, H, I, and J contain my performer's scores for the same four sonatas, that is, annotated versions of Kastner's editions.

This study aims to provide a critique of Baroque performance practice, with specific reference to the organ Preludes and Fugues of Johann Sebastian Bach. Drawing from the extensive body of literature pertaining to Bach’s keyboard music, a number of relevant issues are explored in so far as these may provide understanding of the manner in which the organ Preludes and Fugues should be performed today. These include: • The notion of Bach’s ‘generic’ keyboard works. Were the generic keyboard works as a whole intended to be performed on more than one keyboard instrument? The instrumental designations given by Bach in these works are a valuable source of information in answering this question. • The type of organ that was known to J.S. Bach and typical registration used in the Baroque, called the plenum. • Identification of the grey area that persists in the interpretation of Bach’s organ works with regard to registration, tempo, rhythm, articulation, phrasing, fingering and ornamentation. This study also engages with the current authenticity debate in musical performance as seen from the modernist and postmodernist points of view. The modernist ideal of authenticity is to “re-create” or “reconstruct” performances of Bach’s music with as much accuracy as the evidence of historical musicologists can provide. For the postmodernist, however, authenticity lies in embracing the human element of contingency in musical performance, along with a thorough grounding of such performance in historical evidence. In aligning itself with the postmodernist point of view, this study ultimately argues that we cannot learn everything there is to know about Baroque performance practice from books. Instead, in addition to historical evidence, we draw much of our understanding in this regard from our innate or tacit levels of knowing. In this regard the scholar of Bach’s organ works can draw valuable lessons from the levels of tacit knowledge of leading organ pedagogues and performers on the subject of Baroque performance practice.

In mid-eighteenth-century France, a type of ensemble music was introduced for harpsichord and another instrument(s) in which the harpsichord part is completely written out, instead of a bass line with figures to be realized. Composers of this genre used the word "accompanied" in the tides or in the prefaces of their collections to describe the genre. This study examines the earliest examples of this genre, the works of seven composers, published in the 1740's, (Mondonville, Rameau, Boismoitier, Clement, Dupuits, Guillemain, and Luc Marchand), and compares the various styles of the written out parts, both harpsichord and additional instrument, to determine the nature of the word, "accompaniment."