Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/2440/86635
Type: Thesis
Title: Portfolio of recorded performances and exegesis: Fanny Mendelssohn-Hensel and Clara Wieck-Schumann: a study through performance of their selected piano works.
Author: Thia, Sock Siang
Issue Date: 2014
School/Discipline: Elder Conservatorium of Music
Abstract: This project pursues an investigation into the piano works of Fanny Mendelssohn-Hensel and Clara Wieck-Schumann, whose music had been largely forgotten until its revival as part of a recent renewal of interest in women composers. While the musical and individual styles of these two composers vary considerably, their music can still be usefully compared within the broad context of nineteenth-century Romanticism. The detailed study of their piano works poses questions relating to issues of performance practice, an area that has still not been widely explored in the literature surrounding their music. The aim of this project will therefore be to identify and address such issues from the perspective of the performer. The research carried out in this project is performance based. Performance, being a significant component of the research, functions as a tool and serves as an outcome of the project. The submission is presented in two parts. Part A consists of three CDs and contains recorded performances of selected piano works by Mendelssohn-Hensel and Wieck-Schumann. The repertoire included in the CDs covers three different genres by both composers; namely, piano sonatas, trios and miniatures. Part B is an exegesis. The commentary contained in this section combines theoretical, historical and practical perspectives that document the processes of research and performance undertaken as part of the project. Existing research on the repertoire, while gathering momentum, has centred largely on compositional techniques or gender-related studies. Aspects of performance have been substantially neglected. The present study draws heavily on existing scholarship, informed by the intimate experience of the music that comes from performing it. It addresses insights generated through the process of rehearsing and performing Mendelssohn-Hensel‘s and Wieck-Schumann‘s piano works, and examines the musical characteristics and compositional styles of the two composers. The similarities and differences between their works within each genre are identified and assessed based on key musical elements such as form, tonality, texture, notation, rhythm, dynamics, articulation, tempo, and pedalling. Also included is a discussion of the interpretation of the scores and the stylistic issues encountered while studying and performing these works. The primary outcomes of this research reside in the recordings and exegesis and differ fundamentally from the purely musicological perspectives that characterise most of the previous work devoted to Mendelssohn-Hensel and Wieck-Schumann. The project represents the first study to investigate the two composers and three of their most characteristic genres by combining the perspectives of performer and researcher, making it a distinctive contribution to the comparatively small but steadily growing body of research into these two composers. It is hoped that this project will serve as a guide and reference for pianists wishing to study the piano works of the two composers, stimulate publishers to commission complete editions of the composers‘ music, and to provide pointers towards possible areas of further investigation.
Advisor: Lockett, David Robert
Whittington, Stephen Charles
Dissertation Note: Thesis (Ph.D.) -- University of Adelaide, Elder Conservatorium of Music, 2014
Keywords: Fanny Mendelssohn-Hensel; Clara Wieck-Schumann; piano performance; piano sonata; piano trio; piano miniatures
Provenance: This electronic version is made publicly available by the University of Adelaide in accordance with its open access policy for student theses. Copyright in this thesis remains with the author. This thesis may incorporate third party material which has been used by the author pursuant to Fair Dealing exceptions. If you are the owner of any included third party copyright material you wish to be removed from this electronic version, please complete the take down form located at: http://www.adelaide.edu.au/legals
Appears in Collections:Research Theses

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