Performing Carl Loewe’s ballads: Context, history and experimentation in the piano accompaniments

Abstract

This practice-based project investigates performing practices in the piano accompaniment of Carl Loewe’s ballads. The primary outcomes of this research are a live recital performance and a written thesis commentary; recordings of the same repertoire are also incorporated in the written thesis as evidence of an earlier stage of this project that helped to prepare the way for the final recital.
Existing research on Loewe places his music in its broader context but rarely considers performance issues directly. My practice-based research adopts an experimental approach whereby contextual issues, such as textual and musical analyses, are applied directly to the performance of specific ballads. The first chapter introduces the research context and the methodology which outlines the research strategy: exploration of music, text and relevant contextual matters, collaborative process and reflection approach. The second chapter considers the historical background of the ballad, the nineteenth-century literary and various other factors that influenced the development of the genre. The third chapter highlights the fundamental characteristics of the style of Loewe’s ballads and explores interpretative strategies.
Loewe’s output was a significant factor in the development of the ballad as a musical genre in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century, and the fourth chapter thus explores the composer’s life with particular focus on his abilities as a singer and pianist, but also on his improvisatory style and how it affects performance approaches. Chapter five examines the contextual aspects of the historically informed performance practice movement and how some of the movement’s facets can apply to the interpretation of Loewe’s ballads. All chapters are interleaved with case studies of specific examples from my experimental approach.

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Supervisors:	Hutchinson, Mark and Seymour, Peter
Awarding institution:	University of York
Academic Units:	The University of York > School of Arts and Creative Technologies (York)
Depositing User:	Miss Ioanna Koullepou
Date Deposited:	17 Feb 2025 09:37
Last Modified:	17 Feb 2025 09:37
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID):	oai:etheses.whiterose.ac.uk:36265

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Performing Carl Loewe’s ballads: Context, history and experimentation in the piano accompaniments

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