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Ricardo Viñes's Pianistic Legacy: an Evaluation of His Articles

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Ricardo Viñes's Pianistic Legacy: an Evaluation of His Articles Ricardo Viñes’s Pianistic Legacy: An Evaluation of his Articles, Recordings, Compositions, and Pedagogy by David Potvin A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Musical Arts Faculty of Music University of Toronto © Copyright by David Potvin 2020 Ricardo Viñes’s Pianistic Legacy: An Evaluation of his Articles, Recordings, Compositions, and Pedagogy David Potvin Doctor of Musical Arts Faculty of Music University of Toronto 2020 Abstract Ricardo Viñes (1875-1943) was a Catalan pianist who spent most of his career based in Paris. He premiered many of the major piano works by Debussy, Ravel, and other French, Spanish and Latin American composers of the early twentieth century. He had a reputation among his peers as a pianist who possessed an extraordinary technique, who was selflessly committed to the integrity of his musical performances, and who sacrificed further career success to promote the music of lesser-known composers. His legacy is that of a contemporary music specialist. Literature on Viñes is based mostly on his diary, which he kept between 1885 and about 1914, testimony by his students, press reviews and homages by his peers. The English literature on Viñes is lacking a study of his published articles, compositions and recordings, and has not convincingly challenged Elaine Brody’s assertion that Viñes was essentially a self-taught pianist. This dissertation examines that material and finds that Viñes’s articles indicate his preference for romantic musical ideals, his compositions belie his purported technical prowess, his recordings ii reveal some technical limitations, and his training and teaching methods are rooted in the French piano school tradition. This dissertation also adds new information on Viñes to the English literature from French and Catalan sources, including the only French biography of the pianist by Mildred Clary. Viñes’s legacy of disseminating contemporary music over the course of his career was well earned, but not selflessly. The research in this dissertation demonstrates that Viñes capitalized on his association with contemporary composers to cultivate a reputation as a new music specialist, which was a career direction that played to his strengths. iii Acknowledgments When reflecting on those who supported me during this project, I am reminded of the proverb It takes a village to raise a child. I believe it is also applicable to this paper, and I am very grateful to all those who helped me realize this dissertation from its infancy as an idea to a complete document. Thank you, Ryan McClelland, for all your edits, and for the conversations that helped keep me on the right track. Thank you, Marietta Orlov, for your pianistic observations with this project, for your tireless guidance with my musical development, and for believing in me. Thank you, Sarah Gutsche-Miller, for your insight into French musical culture and for helping me navigating the resources I needed for my research. Thank you, Marlene Goldman, our conversations on Viñes and about writing were an essential part of my work. Thank you, Dr. Peter Keefe for helping me keep the faith in myself necessary to see this through and for helping me keep it all in perspective. Thank you to my family. Marc, Janice, Grampy and Grammy, your continued encouragement and check-ins were always appreciated. Thank you to my friends who were always up for chatting about the project, including Michael Lee, Asher Armstrong, Elizabeth Fox, Robin Roger, and many others who are not named here. Thank you most of all to my fiancé Leandra Desjardins for your unlimited support. You gave me the courage to press on with this project and I wouldn’t have been able to do it without you. iv Table of Contents Acknowledgments.......................................................................................................................... iv Table of Contents .............................................................................................................................v List of Examples ........................................................................................................................... vii The Viñes Narrative ....................................................................................................................1 1.1 Introduction ..........................................................................................................................1 1.2 State of the Literature...........................................................................................................2 1.3 Biographical Vignette ..........................................................................................................6 1.4 Critical Reception ..............................................................................................................12 Viñes the Writer: Articles on Music .........................................................................................24 2.1 Liszt and the Spirituality of Romanticism .........................................................................27 2.2 Viñes the Verticalist ...........................................................................................................32 2.3 Instinct Over Analysis........................................................................................................36 Viñes in Performance: The Recordings ....................................................................................41 3.1 Viñes’s Pianism as Exhibited on Record ...........................................................................44 3.2 Viñes the Faithful Interpreter? ...........................................................................................48 3.3 Viñes’s Recording Legacy .................................................................................................55 Viñes the Composer: 4 Hommages pour le piano ....................................................................56 4.1 Background ........................................................................................................................56 4.2 Pianism ...............................................................................................................................59 4.3 Musical Convictions ..........................................................................................................65 Training and Pedagogy: Viñes as an Exponent of the French School of Piano Playing in Contemporary Repertoire ..........................................................................................................78 5.1 Training ..............................................................................................................................78 5.2 Lessons with Viñes ............................................................................................................93 5.3 Viñes as Pedagogue .........................................................................................................103 v Challenging the Narrative .......................................................................................................109 6.1 Review of the Arguments ................................................................................................109 6.2 Toward a New Understanding .........................................................................................113 Bibliography ................................................................................................................................118 vi List of Examples Example Page Example 3.1 De Falla, Danza ritual del fuego, mm. 22-39……………………………50 Example 3.2 De Falla, Danza ritual del fuego, mm. 85-102…………………………..51 Example 3.3 De Falla, Danza ritual del fuego, mm. 238-248…………………………51 Example 3.4 De Falla, Danza ritual del fuego, mm. 123-128…………………………52 Example 3.5 De Falla, Danza ritual del fuego, mm 53-58……………………….........53 Example 3.6 De Falla, Danza ritual del fuego, mm. 249-273……………….....….......54 Example 4.1 Viñes, En Verlaine mineur, mm. 53-60………………………………….60 Example 4.2a Viñes, Menuet spectral, mm. 31-32...……………………………………60 Example 4.2b Viñes, En Verlaine mineur, m. 39………………………………………..60 Example 4.2c Viñes, Thrénodie, m. 5…………………………………………………...61 Example 4.2d Viñes, Crinoline, mm. 19-20…………………………………………….61 Example 4.3a Viñes, Menuet spectral, mm. 5-6………………………………………...61 Example 4.3b Viñes, En Verlaine mineur, m. 63…………………….………………….62 Example 4.3c Viñes, Menuet spectral, m. 26…………………………………………...62 Example 4.4 Viñes, Crinoline, mm. 53-56…………………………………………….62 Example 4.5 Viñes, Thrénodie, m. 36………………………………………………….63 Example 4.6a Viñes, Menuet spectral, m. 16…………………………………………...64 Example 4.6b Viñes, En Verlaine mineur, mm. 19-20………………………………….64 Example 4.6c Viñes, Thrénodie, mm. 11-12……………………………………………64 Example 4.6d Viñes, Crinoline, mm. 30-31…………………………………………….64 Example 4.7 Viñes, Menuet spectral, mm. 17-28……………………………………...67 Example 4.8a Viñes, Thrénodie mm. 21-26 and mm. 41-42…………………………....68 Example 4.8b Viñes, Crinoline, mm. 4-8, mm. 36-40, and mm. 46-52………………...69 Example 4.9 Viñes, Menuets spectral, mm. 5-8……………………………………….70 Example 4.10 Viñes, En Verlain mineur, mm. 1-6……………………………………...70 Example 4.11 Viñes, Crinoline, mm. 30-34…………………………………………….71 Example 4.12a Viñes, En Verlaine mineur, mm. 35-36………………………………….71 Example 4.12b Viñes, Thrénodie, mm. 19-20……………………………………………71 vii Example 4.12c Viñes, Menuet spectral, m. 16…………………………………………...72 Example 4.12d Viñes, En Verlaine mineur, m. 20………………………………………..72
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