Dissertation in Music Performance

Abstract

The focus of the first program, for violin and viola duo, is the celebration of virtuoso works for this relatively lesser performed ensemble. The repertoire presented follows the development of the violin and viola duo from a traditionally amateur environment to that of the concert stage. Each of the four duos, from Mozart to Bohuslav Martinu, demonstrates how the collaboration of two such closely related instruments yields remarkably rich results no matter what the period or harmonic vocabulary. Every piece presented in this recital displays a unique style of virtuosity, each one reflecting the composers’ different philosophical concepts of performance. Indeed, in every one of the duos, the listener witnesses new, groundbreaking approaches to virtuosity which will prove essential in the development of chamber music composition throughout the centuries. The second recital draws exclusively from the work of three twentieth-century composers, Igor Stravinsky, Paul Hindemith, and Alfred Schnittke, each of whom leveled the post-Romantic playing field, as it were, and pressed forward with the development of entirely fresh, autonomous, and innovative musical languages in response to the mercurial aesthetic and philosophical climate of their day. The program revolves their different approaches to early 20th Century Neoclassicism, following Hindemith and Schnittke’s references to Bach, and Stravinsky’s arrangement of his Neoclassical ballet Le Baiser de la Fée. The third recital was performed at the Chicago Cultural Center as part of the Dame Myra Hess Recitals, and was broadcast on WFMT. The performance was associated with a separate recorded lecture, which can be accessed at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=feUimKL4q00. Its program is constructed around the fascinating nexus both among and between the charismatic Robert Schumann, his equally famous (if not even more so) wife Clara Wieck Schumann, and the young Johannes Brahms in the period just prior to Robert's confinement and demise. Focusing on Clara’s influence on the compositional style of the triumvirate, the program also follows the deep friendship that the three composers maintained with the famous virtuoso Joseph Joachim. All three works, for violin and piano, are representative of their mutual commitment to the concepts of Werktreue and transcendent, "poetic" virtuosity.