Award Date

December 2016

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Musical Arts (DMA)

Department

Music

First Committee Member

Mykola Suk

Second Committee Member

Dave Loeb

Third Committee Member

Timothy Hoft

Fourth Committee Member

Kenneth Hanlon

Fifth Committee Member

Margot Colbert

Number of Pages

75

Abstract

Much has been written and said on how piano works should almost imitate the sounds of an orchestra to be played well. There is a style and musical language that serious pianists must master in order to play with correct voicing, specific tones, and other techniques that make a piano sound like a full orchestra and thus bring it to life.

While there much written about how the piano should imitate the traditional orchestra in the classical and romantic style, what of the big band? In the last century many works have been written for the piano using jazz rhythms, harmonies, and idioms. Nikolai Kapustin is known among other things for melding complex jazz stylings with classical forms. Does Kapustin have a big band in mind when writing music for the piano the same way that Beethoven had the 19th century orchestra in mind when writing his piano sonatas? In this document I will investigate the possible correlations that exist between Kapustin’s Variations Op. 41 and big band sounds. I will then discuss what my findings should mean to a pianist when he/she is making decisions on how to play this and other pieces by Kapustin.

Keywords

Big-Band; Kapustin; Piano; Variations Op. 41

Disciplines

Music

File Format

pdf

Degree Grantor

University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Language

English

Rights

IN COPYRIGHT. For more information about this rights statement, please visit http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

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