Teaching qualities in piano works by Henryk Pachulski in the context of the development of piano technique in children and youth. Part 1

Henryk Pachulski (1852-1921) – a Polish composer, pianist, and teacher. He graduated from the Warsaw Institute of Music, having studied piano with Rudolf Strobl. His harmony and counterpoint teachers were Stanisław Moniuszko and Władysław Żeleński. After that, he studied piano at the Moscow Conservatory with Nicolai Rubinstein and then Pawel Pabst. He learnt harmony from E. L. Langer, then Anton Arensky with whom he also had a special course in counterpoint. In 1886 he started his teaching career at the Moscow Conservatory, which lasted over 30 years. He also performed as a pianist in Moscow, Petersburg, and Warsaw. Pachulski was acknowledged for his technical aptitude, but he gained the greatest recognition as a teacher and a composer. He created over a hundred piano works, including three sonatas, two cycles of variations, two polonaises, two mazurkas, three waltzes, preludes, studies, impromptus, and more. He also wrote chamber, vocal and orchestra compositions, as well as piano transcriptions for orchestra and chamber pieces. This article presents the composer’s music and teaching activity, it also touches on teaching qualities of his piano works. It pays special attention to technical aspects, and the analysis also covers the formal side of these compositions. While preparing the text, the author used information included in the Polish music press from the turn of the 20th century, music collection of the National Library in Warsaw, archive documents, and foreign sources.

The life and music of André Tchaikowsky: A series of performances, an analytical survey of his compositional style, and a critical/performance edition of the Sonata for Piano

<p>This thesis focuses on André Tchaikowsky (1935–82) – a Polish émigré musician who was mostly recognised as a brilliant pianist, even though he considered himself primarily a composer. His traumatic childhood spent in bombarded Warsaw during World War II, losing his mother along with almost his entire family due to the Holocaust, and being hidden in several places after escaping the Warsaw Ghetto, made a great impact on creating his eccentric and complex personality as well as his artistic outcome. Tchaikowsky’s legacy of seven published works, including compositions for piano, two string quartets, a piano trio, and an opera, as well as several unpublished works, is a small but very significant body of 20th-century music. This research explores the evolution of Tchaikowsky’s compositional style throughout his lifetime, based on selected works with piano, and investigates the elements of war stigma in his compositions. Significant contributions to the existing body of knowledge are the analysis of the selected works and a critical/performance edition of the unpublished Sonata for Piano, written in 1958 by the 33-year-old composer. Some answers can be provided to three main research questions through this analytical survey. The questions are: How did Tchaikowsky’s compositional style evolve over his life? Why does he remain largely unknown even in music circles? How did the Holocaust affect his life and work as a composer and pianist? This thesis consists of two parts, with the first presenting the result of research into the stylistic development of Tchaikowsky’s compositional language and a critical/performance edition of the Sonata for Piano, while the second is a performance component comprised of five recitals, which is the prevailing element of this degree. Each recital includes one of the analysed Tchaikowsky compositions, which are connected with other composers and their works in various ways, shaping five concerts of engaging and under-performed music.</p>

The life and music of André Tchaikowsky: A series of performances, an analytical survey of his compositional style, and a critical/performance edition of the Sonata for Piano

<p>This thesis focuses on André Tchaikowsky (1935–82) – a Polish émigré musician who was mostly recognised as a brilliant pianist, even though he considered himself primarily a composer. His traumatic childhood spent in bombarded Warsaw during World War II, losing his mother along with almost his entire family due to the Holocaust, and being hidden in several places after escaping the Warsaw Ghetto, made a great impact on creating his eccentric and complex personality as well as his artistic outcome. Tchaikowsky’s legacy of seven published works, including compositions for piano, two string quartets, a piano trio, and an opera, as well as several unpublished works, is a small but very significant body of 20th-century music. This research explores the evolution of Tchaikowsky’s compositional style throughout his lifetime, based on selected works with piano, and investigates the elements of war stigma in his compositions. Significant contributions to the existing body of knowledge are the analysis of the selected works and a critical/performance edition of the unpublished Sonata for Piano, written in 1958 by the 33-year-old composer. Some answers can be provided to three main research questions through this analytical survey. The questions are: How did Tchaikowsky’s compositional style evolve over his life? Why does he remain largely unknown even in music circles? How did the Holocaust affect his life and work as a composer and pianist? This thesis consists of two parts, with the first presenting the result of research into the stylistic development of Tchaikowsky’s compositional language and a critical/performance edition of the Sonata for Piano, while the second is a performance component comprised of five recitals, which is the prevailing element of this degree. Each recital includes one of the analysed Tchaikowsky compositions, which are connected with other composers and their works in various ways, shaping five concerts of engaging and under-performed music.</p>

The Way of Steve Lacy: Finding Individuality through Musical Genealogy

<p>This research project traces Lacy’s life in music, looking at his long period of apprenticeship, the brief but important period in which he focussed exclusively on free improvisation, and the subsequent years spent formulating and creating his own music. It uses both musical analysis of his improvisations and his compositions and commentary on the path he chose, in an attempt to define his place in 20th century music and the legacy he leaves us. The second part of the project involves my own compositions, which investigate areas similar to those which Lacy explored in his lifetime. These include finding a relationship between composition and improvisation in which both methods are given equal value. Their respective qualities, such as the collective interplay found in improvisation or the structure that composition supplies, are being cultivated. The point of these works is not to investigate methods of composition or conduction in which improvisation or semi-improvisation can be integrated. In this music the improvisers have as few limitations as possible, so that they are free to improvise. The works merely look to find a balance where these two methods can co-exist. The pieces are mostly idiomatic although they use genre as a point of departure rather than a fixed entity. They attempt to transcend, or in some cases to subvert, the idiom to which they are referring. They have been written intuitively and developed and refined through live performance. The compositions for the ensemble, The Troubles, were developed over a year of weekly live performances and there was a degree of autonomy and democracy for all the performers. A score in this music is perhaps akin to many of the practices to be found in the creation of contemporary theatre, where a text can be treated, elaborated upon, toyed with, where there are moments where things have been devised by the ensemble, rather than viewed as a sacred object. It is possible to imagine that Lacy too worked in this manner with his regular group. In these pieces I have tried to heed Braque’s lessons, and to avoid mimicry, yet in this work I hope to capture something of the spirit of Steve Lacy.</p>

The Way of Steve Lacy: Finding Individuality through Musical Genealogy

<p>This research project traces Lacy’s life in music, looking at his long period of apprenticeship, the brief but important period in which he focussed exclusively on free improvisation, and the subsequent years spent formulating and creating his own music. It uses both musical analysis of his improvisations and his compositions and commentary on the path he chose, in an attempt to define his place in 20th century music and the legacy he leaves us. The second part of the project involves my own compositions, which investigate areas similar to those which Lacy explored in his lifetime. These include finding a relationship between composition and improvisation in which both methods are given equal value. Their respective qualities, such as the collective interplay found in improvisation or the structure that composition supplies, are being cultivated. The point of these works is not to investigate methods of composition or conduction in which improvisation or semi-improvisation can be integrated. In this music the improvisers have as few limitations as possible, so that they are free to improvise. The works merely look to find a balance where these two methods can co-exist. The pieces are mostly idiomatic although they use genre as a point of departure rather than a fixed entity. They attempt to transcend, or in some cases to subvert, the idiom to which they are referring. They have been written intuitively and developed and refined through live performance. The compositions for the ensemble, The Troubles, were developed over a year of weekly live performances and there was a degree of autonomy and democracy for all the performers. A score in this music is perhaps akin to many of the practices to be found in the creation of contemporary theatre, where a text can be treated, elaborated upon, toyed with, where there are moments where things have been devised by the ensemble, rather than viewed as a sacred object. It is possible to imagine that Lacy too worked in this manner with his regular group. In these pieces I have tried to heed Braque’s lessons, and to avoid mimicry, yet in this work I hope to capture something of the spirit of Steve Lacy.</p>

Zur Poetik und Interpretation des offenen Schlusses

This article reviews the long historical process and changing significance of open endings in music from Haydn's mid-period symphonies of the 1760s to Helmut Lachenmann. Taking two case studies by Alban Berg (Lyric Suite, Wozzeck) as its starting point, the article demonstrates that open endings are often linked to ideas of cyclicity and the permanence of "objective time" as well as to a critique of social or political situations. Therefore, open endings challenge the aesthetic difference between the musical art-work and everyday experience, a tendency, that can be traced back to the emergence of self-reflexivity in early 19th-century music and aesthetics and even to Haydn's earlier listener-responsive musical writing. In later 19th-century and early 20th-century music, large-scale forms increasingly posed the problem of an inability to achieve closure. Further key examples elaborate the tendency of open endings toward musical self-reflexivity and the appearance of the composer-persona at the end of a cyclic work: Schubert's Der Leiermann from Winterreise, Schumann's Der Dichter spricht from Kinderszenen, Schoenberg's concluding piece from Six little Piano Pieces op. 19 as well as Lachenmann's "music with images" The Little Match-Girl. Finally, Schumann's and Schönberg's closing pieces are considered from the perspective of performance history and analysis, highlighting th performer's substantial impact on creating (or limiting) the impression of "openness".

Influences of Classical Indian Music in Albert Roussel’s Evocations

"An important figure of early 20th century music, the French composer Albert Roussel was deeply influenced by his encounter with India, which led to the composition of several orientalist works. The present paper aims to disclose the influences of classical Indian music in the orchestral work Evocations. Despite the Impressionist sound of the musical discourse, a careful analysis reveals the incorporation of several scalar structures in which Hindu rāgas can be recognized. Roussel goes beyond the musical representation of India: his goal is not the creation of a musical work with powerful oriental sound, but the evocation of the impact this encounter had on his creation. Situated at the crossroad of several stylistic orientations, Roussel incorporates Impressionist, Neo-classical and Post-romantic influences in rigorously devised structures, aiming to create an unusual and novel sound. Keywords: Albert Roussel, orientalism, Impressionism, India, rāga "

“A composItIon wrItten wIthout creatIve lImItatIons” – Wanda Landowska and concerto for harpsichord and five instruments by ManueL de Falla (1923)

The aim of the present article is the analysis of Concerto for harpsichord and five instruments by Manuel de Falla – a piece which was dedicated by the composer to Wanda Landowska, an outstanding Polish harpsichord player. The piece was meant to commemorate the friendship these two artists shared as well as their collaboration. Written in the period of 1923-1926, the Concerto was the first composition in the history of 20th century music where harpsichord was the soloist instrument. The first element of the article is the context in which the piece was written. We shall look into the musical influences that shaped its form. On the one hand, it was the music of the past: from Cancionero Felipe Pedrell through mainly Bach’s polyphony to works by Scarlatti which preceded the Classicism (this influence is particularly noticeable in the third movement of the Concerto). On the other hand, it was music from the time of de Falla: first of all – Neo-Classicism and works by Stravinsky. The author refers to historical sources – critics’ reviews, testimonies of de Falla’s contemporaries and, obviously, his own remarks as to the interpretation of the piece. Next, Inés R. Artola analyses the score in the strict sense of the word “analysis”. In this part of the article, she quotes specific fragments of the composition, which reflect both traditional musical means (counterpoint, canon, Scarlatti-style sonata form, influence of old popular music) and the avant-garde ones (polytonality, orchestration, elements of neo-classical harmony).

Elementary School Pupils' Music Preferences for Classical Music / Glazbene sklonosti prema klasičnoj glazbi učenika osnovne škole

The paper explores music preferences of elementary school pupils for classical music and the influence of familiarity with music on their music preferences. As a part of the research, a questionnaire, and a sound questionnaire as its integral part, was administered to 238 pupils attending the second, the fifth and the eighth grade of elementary school. The results confirm that younger pupils, compared to the older ones, show greater preferences for classical music. In addition, the influence of gender on preferences for classical music was also confirmed, while attendance of extracurricular music lessons was not proven to be a significant predictor of the pupils’ preferences for classical music. It was also noted that familiarity with music is a significant factor influencing pupils’ music preferences. The results confirm that pupils show the lowest music preferences for the 20th-century music, which has significant implications for music-pedagogical theory and practice.Key words: classical music; elementary school; music preferences---U ovom radu istražuju se glazbene sklonosti učenika osnovne škole prema klasičnoj glazbi i utjecaj poznavanja glazbe na njihove glazbene sklonosti. U sklopu istraživanja, upitnik i glazbeni upitnik su primijenjeni na 238 učenika drugog, petog i osmog razreda osnovne škole. Rezultati su potvrdili da mlađi učenici pokazuju veće sklonosti prema klasičnoj glazbi od starijih. Osim toga, utvrđen je i utjecaj spola na sklonosti prema klasičnoj glazbi, a pohađanje izvannastavnih glazbenih aktivnosti nije se pokazalo kao značajan prediktor učeničkih sklonosti prema klasičnoj glazbi. Rezultati upućuju na to da učenici pokazuju najmanje sklonosti prema glazbi 20. stoljeća, što ima značajne posljedice za glazbeno-pedagošku teoriju i praksu.Ključne riječi: glazbene sklonosti; klasična glazba; osnovna škola