Masters Thesis

Recital and Concerto works by Bach, Beethoven, Rachmaninoff, Debussy, Zhao, and Shostakovich

In the following paper, I will analyze works that I performed within a solo recital and a concerto recital. The recital consisted of works by Johann Sebastian Bach, Ludwig van Beethoven, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Claude Debussy, and Zhao Zhang, and the goal of the following analysis will be to research and explain the related performance practices of these composers. To a musician, interpretation is always of the utmost importance in the learning of a new work. One must consider the historical period in which the work was written in order to give a convincing and authentic performance. Different periods of music have different styles and the performer must therefore play the piece in the appropriate style in order to faithfully represent the composer's intentions. Some composers such as Rachmaninoff-who lived during the Late Romantic era-had the opportunity to record their own pieces. Due to the existence of these recordings, contemporary listeners can have a clear sense of Rachmaninoff's musical style. A performer can listen to Rachmaninoff himself play his own works: listening to such recordings can be very helpful to a pianist today in deciding how to play the works of Rachmaninoff. However, most works that pianists play today were composed before the twentieth century, when recorded sound did not even exist. Thus, in order for one to comprehend the musical intentions of composers that wrote prior to the twentieth century, one must simply discover the musical style through the study of the literature. In this paper, I will focus on the correct interpretation of these pieces from a stylistic prospective. I will introduce each piece by providing a brief historical background. Furthermore, I will provide a harmonic, rhythmic and structural analysis in order to gain a better overall understanding of each work. Ultimately, I will compare various references related to interpretation and discuss the style in which each piece should be performed.

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