Bourdieusian Frameworks Applied to Topics in Piano Pedagogy

Abstract

This dissertation is presented in three parts: 1) dissertation recital with program note essay, 2) lecture recital, and 3) pedagogy workshop with accompanying document. Submitted in partial fulfillment of the degree requirements for the degree of Doctor of Musical Arts (Performance: Piano Performance and Pedagogy) at the University of Michigan. The dissertation recital Return from Oblivion: Reflections of Grief was presented on April 19, 2021, in Britton Recital Hall. It included compositions with extra-musical connections to grief and loss: “1.X.1905” (‘Sonáta”) by Leoš Janáček; “Fantasia nach Johann Sebastian Bach” by Ferruccio Busoni; Polonaise-Fantaisie, op. 61 by Frédéric Chopin; the first, third, and fifth movements of Maurice Ravel’s Le Tombeau de Couperin; Michael Kropf’s Nocturne No. 3; and the sixth, seventh, and twenty-eighth movements of Federico Mompou’s Múscia callada. The accompanying program note-essay is believed to be an original literary genre inspired by the work of Milan Kundera which embeds the traditional content of program notes inside of personal essays. The project was partially supported by funds from the Eisenberg Family Depression Center through a Mental Health Awareness Microgrant awarded by SMTD’s Wellness Initiative. The lecture recital Bookends to a Tragedy: Variation Sets by Clara Schumann and Johannes Brahms was presented in Britton Recital Hall on May 25, 2022. Clara Schumann’s Variations on a Theme of Robert Schumann, op. 20 and Johannes Brahms’s op. 9 variations on the same theme were used to exemplify dichotomous approaches used in composing variations: decorated and deconstructed. Their historical placement also justified the pairing, with the former closely preceding and the later immediately following Robert Schumann’s attempted suicide in February 1854. The presentation highlighted musical references in Brahms’s variation set to further contextualize his relationship with the Schumann family. Additionally, Clara Schumann’s variation set was presented to attempt to showcase the merit of her compositional output, which is often mentioned as an aside when discussing her career as a performer of works by other composers. The pedagogy workshop Bourdieusian Frameworks Applied to Topics in Piano Pedagogy was presented virtually on August 8, 2022, using the Zoom platform. Concepts of Bourdieu’s theoretical writings were introduced and mapped onto topics currently being discussed in the field of piano pedagogy: canonicity, technological advancements, and student-teacher relationships.