Browsing by Author "Blättler, Damian"
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Item A Cathedral in the Forest: Reinterpreting Barber's Sonata for Piano as Motivic Narrative(2018-04-20) Marshall, Richard Sorensen; Blättler, DamianSamuel Barber’s Op. 26 Sonata for Piano is his landmark achievement for solo piano, considered a staple of the modern repertoire. It has drawn much attention both from pianists and scholars alike for its daunting technical requirements and musical rewards. The piece exhibits many paradoxical traits that have generated comment, chief among them the serial qualities of the first and third movements respectively, where tone-rows exist in textures clearly not based on conventions of the Second Viennese School. None of the analyses I have seen aptly captures the underlying nature of the paradoxical serialism. This study will take a different tack in interpretation. It will examine the behaviors and structures of the piece not through the lens of conventional theoretical approaches, but through a lens based on the inner logic of the piece itself. It will examine how musical relationships may be formed outside a tonal or serial framework. It will look at motivic elements as engaging in a musical conflict for hegemony between the tonal and the atonal. It will put forth a comprehensive analysis of all four movements and frame a new narrative way to view the piece. It will draw connections between Barber’s compositional process and the nature and structure of the piece itself. Each chapter will analyze one of the four movements, mining each in linear fashion. I will narrate from a three-dimensional view that draws on the piece’s future and past, in an effort to construct essentially this sonata’s theory of everything.Item Phrase Rhythm and Loss in the Music of Maurice Ravel(Wiley, 2023) Blättler, DamianA particular subset of Ravel's output features a phrase-rhythmic technique wherein tonal and thematic returns are accompanied by surprisingly asymmetrical or ambiguous phrase rhythm. This defies both generic conventions linking thematic reprise and tonal closure to relatively stable phrase rhythm and specific expectations created by these works’ formal processes, and contrasts with trajectories moving from phrase-rhythmic instability to stability which Ravel deploys in other works. The set of pieces which features this technique includes À la manière de … Chabrier, the Menuet sur le nom d'Haydn, pieces from Le Tombeau de Couperin, the last of the Valses nobles et sentimentales, and the ‘Blues’ movement from the Violin Sonata. This study notes how themes of loss and distance connect these pieces, allowing for the phrase-rhythmic technique to be bound up with interpretative implications which can enhance our understanding of how phrase rhythm can carry expressive freight.Item The Evolution of Musical Language and Sonata Form in the Piano Sonatas of Alexander Nikolayevich Scriabin(2017-04-20) Blachnio, Filip; Blättler, DamianABSTRACT The evolution of musical language and sonata form in the piano sonatas of Alexander Nikolayevich Scriabin by Filip Blachnio The evolution of Scriabin’s musical style has been unmatched by any other composer and poses questions until this day. The collection of Scriabin’s ten piano sonatas most aptly demonstrates Scriabin’s long-term transformation. The composer’s early and late sonatas are radically different on the surface but share similar underlying principles. The purpose of this dissertation is to show the profound lines of development between Scriabin’s early and late styles and conceptions of sonata form. The introductory chapter provides a background necessary for the study of change in Scriabin’s approach to sonata form. The main body of my dissertation consists of three analytic chapters on Scriabin’s third, fifth, and seventh sonatas - representative works of the composer’s three creative periods. These analyses focus on three areas which are most indicative of Scriabin’s musical development: harmony, form, and extramusical ideas. By comparing these indicative areas in Scriabin’s early, middle, and late sonatas I gain a better understanding of his idiosyncratic musical language and sonata form. The concluding chapter releases my observations and places Scriabin’s sonatas in a broader musical context.Item Unconventional: Sonata-Form Manipulations in the Multi-Movement Works of Fanny Hensel(2020-04-20) Lee, Frances Shi Hui; Blättler, DamianFanny Hensel challenged the conventions of her time, not only by writing works that ventured outside of the domestic realm prescribed to women of her social class, but also by deviating from structural norms within her compositions. With this document, I intend to further the theoretical study of Hensel’s instrumental works, using her manipulation of sonata-form conventions as an entry point. The first three chapters comprise analyses of ten movements in sonata and sonata-rondo form that are found across six of her multi-movement works, spanning the course of her compositional output: the Piano Quartet in A-flat Major, the Piano Sonata in C Minor, the Ostersonate (Easter Sonata) for piano, the String Quartet in E-flat Major, the Piano Sonata in G Minor, and the Piano Trio in D Minor, op. 11. Each movement presents a unique take on sonata form, building its narrative through a dialogue with the structural model. The pieces chart Hensel’s journey as she emerges out of eighteenth-century traditions to boldly experiment with formal organization and cyclicism, then, in her last years and with publication on her mind, adheres more closely to structural conventions in the Piano Trio, while still employing innovative strategies. General stylistic tendencies also emerge, such as an avoidance of redundancy, via both constant variation and sectional omissions, and the creation of cohesiveness within and across movements by means of motivic and harmonic references. The concluding chapter discusses these and other trends found across the works, and proposes paths for further research.