Performing and contextualising the late piano works of Akira Miyoshi: a portfolio of recorded performances and exegesis

Abstract

While the music of Japanese composer Akira Miyoshi (1933-2013) has become well-known within Japanese musical circles in the past 20 years, it has yet to achieve international recognition. The aim of this research is to bring the piano works of Miyoshi to international attention through live performance and recording, and, in the complementary exegesis, to guide performers through the interpretative process of Miyoshi's piano works with a focus on one particularly challenging aspect, that of musical drama. In order to explore Miyoshi's expression of musical drama in the greatest depth, this research focuses on his late piano works as follows: En Vers, Phenomene sonore I pour deux pianos, Phenomene sonore II pour deux pianos, Pour le piano I – mouvement circulaire et croise and Pour le piano II – mouvement circulaire et croise. With musical drama at its core, this research documents the pianist’s interpretative process for performing Miyoshi’s late piano works. The primary outcomes of this doctoral investigation are the candidate’s own performances of piano works by Miyoshi and other composers who influenced him. These are documented in the set of four CD sound recordings. By carefully combining works of Miyoshi with representative works by other composers, a meaningful context in which to experience each work is created. The exegesis consists of three parts. First, it introduces important aspects of Miyoshi's music that must be grasped in order to perform his late piano works. This includes an understanding of the musical ideas in Miyoshi's significant early works Sonate pour piano and Suite In Such Time and other late works Berceuse and Cahier sonore pour piano a 4 mains that help to place his later development in context. The influence of Japanese and non-Japanese composers (such as Dutilleux, Ravel, Debussy, Prokofiev, Ikenouchi, Yashiro, Takemitsu, Otaka and Ikebe) is also identified to illuminate other musical elements relevant to understanding Miyoshi’s compositional aesthetic. Second, it examines the compositional treatment of musical drama in the late piano works and describes the candidate's own working process of transferring this knowledge into an interpretation at the piano. Finally it presents performance suggestions that are developed from the preceding discussion.