Thesis (MMus (Music))--University of Stellenbosch, 2009. / Arnold van Wyk was a composer and a pianist. He recorded his largest work for
piano, Night Music (1958), on LP in 1963. Steven de Groote performed Night Music
on 21 July 1984 at the Cheltenham International Festival of Music. This live
performance was broadcast on BBC Radio 3 on 24 September 1984 and a copy of
this broadcast exists in the Arnold van Wyk collection in the J.S. Gericke Library at
Stellenbosch University.
Night Music is a perfect example of Van Wyk’s compositional techniques for
the keyboard. It demands a considerable musical imagination and piano technique
from the performer. The score of Night Music contains many detailed instructions
regarding the different musical parameters and it also encloses unusual terms such
as glacial or lugubre. It shows that the composer is extremely concerned to control
all aspects of the performance and expects great depth of interpretation of the
performer.
Analysing the score of Night Music together with a performance by the
composer enables one to consider two versions of “authenticated text”. The
comparison between Arnold van Wyk’s recording, score and Steven de Groote’s
performance allows the researcher to draw conclusions about score fidelity as a
condition for “authenticity” in performance. Therefore, the primary aim of this
research project is to yield interesting perspectives on notions of authenticity in
performance with regard to these two particular performances of Night Music.
The main body of this thesis consists of four chapters. In Chapter One a
philosophical discussion about authenticity in performance is presented. Chapter
Two focuses on the contextualisation of the work under discussion, including the
reception and a short analysis of Night Music. It is followed by Chapter Three which
compares the pianism of Arnold van Wyk and Steven de Groote. These latter two
chapters form the background of the comparative performance analysis of the
renditions of Night Music by these two performers which are presented in Chapter
Four.
Through the careful comparative analysis of Arnold van Wyk’s and Steven de
Groote’s performances of Night Music it was possible to observe that a composer
can present a version of his work that departs quite radically from the score. As
“authenticity in performance” strives to honour the composer’s intentions as notated
in the score, this discrepancy illustrates the controversial nature of the discourse on
the “authentic” in music.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:sun/oai:scholar.sun.ac.za:10019.1/1924 |
| Date | 03 1900 |
| Creators | Pinto Ribeiro, Bruno Alfredo |
| Contributors | Muller, S., University of Stellenbosch. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Dept. of Music. |
| Publisher | Stellenbosch : University of Stellenbosch |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Rights | University of Stellenbosch |
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