Perspectives on the performance of French piano music

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Where to find it

Music Library

Call Number
ML724 .P47 2014
Status
Available

Authors, etc.

Names:

Summary

Perspectives on the Performance of French Piano Music offers a range of approaches central to the performance of French piano music of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The contributors include scholars and active performers who see performance not as an independent activity but as a practice enriched by a wealth of historical and analytical approaches. To underline the usefulness of contextual understanding for performance, each author highlights the choices performers must confront with examples drawn from particular repertoires and composers. Topics explored include editorial practice, the use of early recordings, emergent disciplines such as analysis-and-performance, and traditions passed down from teacher to student. Themes that emerge demonstrate the importance of editions as a form of communication, the challenges of notation, the significance of detail and of deeper continuity, the importance of performing and teaching traditions, and the influence of cross disciplinary frameworks. A link to a set of performed examples on the frenchpianomusic.com website allows readers to hear and compare performances and interpretations of the music discussed. The volume will appeal to musicologists and analysts interested in performance, performers, students, and piano teachers.

Contents

  • Introduction
  • Part I How Composers Communicate
  • Inside rather than under the composer's skin: another tilt at being authentic Roy Howat
  • Messiaen as pianist: a romantic in a modernist world Christopher Dingle
  • Part II Teachers as the Conduit to the Composer's Intent
  • The genesis of Messiaen's Catalogue d'oiseaux Peter Hill
  • A link to the French pianistic tradition: the teaching of Paul Doguereau David Korevaar
  • Part III Historical Resources
  • Style, performance practice, and reception in the Prelude, Chorale and Fugue: placing and performing César Franck Richard Langham Smith
  • Players and pianos: an overview of early recorded resources for the French piano repertoire Christopher Dingle
  • Part IV Using Analysis for Informed Performances
  • Pianists' Views: Florent Schmitt and Maurice Ravel: measured time from the turn of the century Scott McCarrey
  • Messiaen to Murail, or, what sounds become Marilyn Nonken
  • Selected bibliography
  • Index

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