Hadjiandreou, Andri. 2014. Intentions and Interpretations: Form, Narrativity and Performance Approaches to the 19Th-Century Piano Ballade
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Hadjiandreou, Andri. 2014. Intentions and Interpretations: Form, Narrativity and Performance Approaches to the 19th-Century Piano Ballade. Doctoral thesis, Goldsmiths, University of London [Thesis] https://research.gold.ac.uk/id/eprint/11032/ The version presented here may differ from the published, performed or presented work. Please go to the persistent GRO record above for more information. If you believe that any material held in the repository infringes copyright law, please contact the Repository Team at Goldsmiths, University of London via the following email address: [email protected]. The item will be removed from the repository while any claim is being investigated. For more information, please contact the GRO team: [email protected] Intentions and Interpretations: Form, Narrativity and Performance Approaches to the 19th-Century Piano Ballade ANDRI HADJIANDREOU PhD in Piano Performance and Related Studies 1 Abstract This thesis is concerned with how a performer might engage with the supposed narrative elements in piano ballades of the nineteenth century, and more generally with the performative principles that would be needed to sustain a narrative realisation of music wherever it seemed appropriate. Of course, the presence of narrative elements in music is usually defined not according to the methods employed by performers, but to those familiar from literary, historical, contextual and analytic studies of the music-as-a-text. Therefore a first step is to examine the tensions between methodologies centred on the “work-as-a-text”, and those concerned with the act of performance. Some important distinctions between critical interpretations and performance interpretations are suggested, even if the former sometimes provide an instigating basis for the latter. Out of this comes a need to demonstrate that, in respect to musical “meaning”, performance has a generative as well as reproductive role, and that the processes and decisions embedded in the acts of rehearsal and the “unfolding-through-time” of performances are central to the creation and emergence of such meanings, including narrative meanings. Next, the evidence for the existence of narrative meanings in music is placed in a particular historical context (that concerned with the development of the piano ballade and its conventions), and in the framework of the changing aesthetic attitudes towards programme music in the first half of the nineteenth century – attitudes that played out in radically different ways in relation to those piano works by Chopin, Schumann and Liszt that form part of this study. The focus then turns to possible and actual performances of these works, and questions are asked about how performances, as implicative sonic shapes and gestural events, for example, might be analysed and theorised by employing recent methodologies of the discipline of performance studies. A final step is to develop and test those findings against a series of case studies of performance approaches to particular works – by Kullak, Chopin, and Liszt – the last two of which are included in the recital that accompanies this doctoral investigation. 2 Table of Contents Abstract 2 List of Musical Examples, Tables, Graphs, and Diagrams 4 Chapter 1: Introduction 6 Chapter 2: Researching Performance Interpretation: Methodologies and Practices 13 Chapter 3: Styles and Ideas: Programme Music and Approaches to Musical 32 Narrativity in the Piano Works of Chopin, Schumann and Liszt Chapter 4: Theorising Narrativity in Works and Performances 63 Chapter 5: Practising Musical Narrativity 77 Case Study 1: Lénore – A Critical View Chapter 6: Practising Musical Narrativity 96 Case Study 2: Chopin’s Ballade Op. 23 Chapter 7: Performing Musical Narrativity 132 Case Study 3: Liszt’s Second Ballade Chapters 8: Reflections on Conclusions 163 Appendix 169 Bibliography 189 3 List of Musical Examples, Tables, Graphs, and Diagrams Chapter: 2 Sonic Shape 2.1: Liszt, Second Ballade, Andri Hadjiandreou 24 Example 2.1: Chopin, Ballade Op. 23, bars 1-10 27 Chapter: 3 Example 3.1: Robert Schumann, Papillons, Op. 2, no. 5 47 Chapter: 5 Table 5.1: Bürger/Lenore, Structural Analysis 81 Table 5.2: Kullak/Lénore, Structural Analysis 83 Example 5.1: Kullak, Lénore, bars 1-4 84 Example 5.2: Chopin, Ballade Op. 23, bars 5-10 84 Example 5.3: Kullak, Lénore, bars 21-13 85 Example 5.4: Narrative motives 1 & 2, Character motive 1 86 Example 5.5: Kullak, Lénore, bars 30-53 87 Example 5.6: Kullak, Lénore, bars 69-73 88 Table 5.3: Bürger, Section 1, Structural Analysis 88 Example 5.7: Kullak, Lénore, bars 85-110 89 Example 5.8: Kullak, Lénore, bars 118-124 90 Example 5.9: Kullak, Lénore, bars 154-157 91 Example 5.10: Kullak, Lénore, bars 251-262 92 Example 5.11: Kullak, Lénore, bars 280-289 93 Table 5.4: Bürger’s Lenore & Kullak’s Lénore, Related Structural Analyses 93 Chapter: 6 Table 6.1: Important Piano Ballades 100 Graph 6.1: Chopin, Ballade Op. 23, Schenker’s Analysis 102 Graph 6.2: Chopin, Ballade Op. 23, Gut’s Analysis 103 Graph 6.3: Chopin, Ballade Op. 23, Tarasti’s Analysis 103 Graph 6.4: Chopin, Ballade Op. 23, Samson’s First Diagram 104 Graph 6.5: Chopin, Ballade Op. 23, Samson’s Second Diagram 105 Graph 6.6: Chopin, Ballade Op. 23, Parakilas’ Three-stage Analysis 106 Graph 6.7: Chopin, Ballade Op. 23, Parakilas’ “Counterpoint” Structures 107 Graph 6.8: Chopin, Ballade Op. 23, Berger’s Analysis 109 4 Example 6.1: Chopin, Ballade Op. 23, bars 1-10 110 Diagram 6.1: Chopin, Ballade Op. 23 119 Table 6.2: Chopin, Ballade Op. 23, The Function of Theme II 123 Diagram 6.2.i: Chopin, Ballade Op. 23, Three-stage Form i 124 Diagram 6.2.ii: Chopin, Ballade Op. 23, Three-stage Form ii 125 Chapter: 7 Example 7.1: Liszt, Second Ballade, bars 1-8 135 Example 7.2: Liszt, Second Ballade, bars 17-37 137 Example 7.3: Liszt, Second Ballade, bars 70-73 140 Example 7.4: Liszt, Second Ballade, bars 111-116 140 Example 7.5: Liszt, Second Ballade, bars 82-95 140 Example 7.6: Liszt, Second Ballade, bars 96-98 141 Example 7.7: Liszt, Second Ballade, bars 135-142 141 Example 7.8: Liszt, Second Ballade, bars 205-216 142 Table 7.1: Liszt, Second Ballade, bars 1-134 & 234-253 143 Table 7.2: Liszt, Second Ballade, Narrative Structure 145 Sonic Shape 7.1: Liszt, Second Ballade, Andri Hadjiandreou 146 Sonic Shape 7.2: Liszt, Second Ballade (final version), Leslie Howard 151 Sonic Shape 7.3: Liszt, Second Ballade (first version), Leslie Howard 151 Diagram 7.1: Liszt, Second Ballade, Parakilas’ Episodic Form 152 Graph 7.1: Liszt, Second Ballade, Parakilas’ Episodic Form 154 Table 7.3: Liszt, Second Ballade, Wagner’s Sonata Form 155 Table 7.4: Liszt, Second Ballade, Kentner’s Sonata Form 155 Graph 7.2: Liszt, Second Ballade, Wagner’ Sonata Form 156 Graph 7.3: Liszt’s Second Ballade Kentner’s Sonata Form 156 Sonic Shape 7.4: Liszt, Second Ballade, Louis Kentner 158 Table 7.5: of Liszt, Second Ballade, Arch Form 159 Table 7.6: Liszt, Second Ballade, Arch-shaped Climaxes 160 Graph 7.4: Liszt, Second Ballade, Hadjiandreou’s Arch Form 160 Table 7.7: Liszt, Second Ballade, Possible Structural Readings 162 5 1: Introduction This thesis is concerned with how a performer might engage with the supposed narrative elements in piano ballades of the nineteenth century, and more generally with the performative principles that would be needed to sustain a narrative realisation of music wherever it seemed appropriate. Of course, the presence of narrative elements in music is usually defined not according to the methods employed by performers, but to those familiar from literary, historical, contextual and analytic studies of the music-as-a-text. Therefore a first step will be to examine the tensions between methodologies centred on the “work-as-a- text”, and those concerned with the act of performance. Some important distinctions between critical interpretations and performance interpretations will be suggested (even if the former sometimes provide an instigating basis for the latter).1 Out of this will come a need to demonstrate that, in respect to musical “meaning”, performance has a generative as well as reproductive role, and that the processes and decisions embedded in the acts of rehearsal and the “unfolding-through-time” of performances are central to the creation and emergence of such meanings, including narrative meanings. Next, the evidence for the existence of narrative meanings in music will be placed in a particular historical context (that concerned with the development of the piano ballade and its conventions), and in the framework of the changing aesthetic attitudes towards programme music in the first half of the nineteenth century – attitudes that played out in radically different ways in relation to those piano works by Chopin, Schumann and Liszt that form part of this study. The focus will then turn to possible and actual performances of these works, and questions will be asked about how performances (as implicative sonic shapes and gestural events, for example) might be analysed and theorised by employing recent methodologies of the discipline of performance studies. A final step will be to develop and test those findings against a series of case studies of performance approaches to particular works – pieces by Kullak, Chopin, and Liszt – the last two of which are included in the recital that accompanies this doctoral investigation. Performances of any work will include many factors that contribute to making those performances effective. However, the emphasis here is on those aspects directly concerned with the creation, interpretation and understanding of narration in performance. To be sure, 1 Significant literature on these distinctions in relation to music began to emerge at least two decades ago.