DMA, University of Cincinnati, 2011, College-Conservatory of Music: Piano
This study explores the relationship between art song and its recomposition as a solo
piano work by three nineteenth-century composers. While Franz Liszt is considered the most
well-known arranger of art songs, other contemporaries excelled at the practice as well, such as
Sigismond Thalberg and Stephen Heller. Though they lived in close proximity to one another,
their arranging style shows significant variety, with each displaying different interpretations of
their source material.
Chapter 1 explains some of the most important differences between the techniques of
paraphrase and transcription, with particular reference to works by Liszt. In Chapter 2,
composers as arrangers in the nineteenth century are introduced with their biographical sketches
and a survey of their arrangements. Analyzing song arrangements by three composers – Liszt,
Thalberg, and Heller – comprises the largest part of the document. In Chapter 3, each composer's
compositional/arranging style is noted in detail, drawing from secondary sources as well as from
some of their representative pieces. In the following chapter I compare different approaches to
the same songs by pairing two composers at a time. A selected bibliography follows.
In exploring the diverse styles of composers-arrangers of the nineteenth century, this
document will also suggest that, in their hands, such works could become vehicles for homage to
the source composer as well as vehicles for charting the direction of the music of the future.
Committee: Jonathan Kregor PhD (Committee Chair); Awadagin Pratt (Committee Member); Kenneth Griffiths MM (Committee Member)
Subjects: Music