Undercover theory.(Pedagogy Friday: Exploring Evaluation and Assessment)

This presentation explored various ways of introducing theoretical concepts as part of a student's practical training. After establishing some basic analytical categories--tonal organization, sectional organization, dramatic structure, texture and compositional technique--the discussion stressed the importance of tuning into a student's receptivity and introducing concepts in a manner that can easily be grasped. A healthy curiosity about what is actually happening in a piece can lead to appropriately probing questions.

Differing opinions about the role of analysis in performance--or in the preparation for performance--have called forth much scholarly debate in recent years. Certainly, the way we understand a piece will influence how we play it, but musicians do not agree on the extent to which analysis should influence performance. William Rothstein, for example, in his article "Analysis and the Act of Performance," has emphasized that "the performer's task is to provide the listener with a vivid experience of the work, not an analytical understanding of it." (John Rink, ed., Musical Performance: A Guide to Understanding, Cambridge University Press, 2002, 238.)

It is also interesting to survey the attitudes of composers to the relationship of analysis to performance. Debussy, for example, criticized Ricardo Vines's playing of the Images, Book 2, because he felt that Vines did not feel their architecture clearly and was distorting the expression. Rachmaninoff was acutely aware of the importance of projecting a work's climax and felt that a performer had to approach it in a precise and calculated way or risk destroying the entire sonorous edifice intended by the composer.

After examining several examples of junior- and intermediate-level pieces in which analytical awareness can provide keys to performance, we focused briefly on sonata form. Sooner or later, most of us indicate at least the outline of sonata form to our students, but we often neglect to indicate the many ways in which it can be modified. Analytical elements in the first movement of Beethoven's Sonata in G Major, Op. 14, No. 2, were mentioned briefly and explored more thoroughly in a handout.

The central portion of this presentation examined the structure of Manuel De Falla's "Miller's Dance" and aspects of three recorded performances. This character piece is the composer's arrangement of a dance De Falla added to his 1919 ballet The Three-Cornered Hat as a solo for Leonide Massine. It is a type of flamenco dance called a farruca, a sensual male dance in 4/4 time. The "Miller's Dance" can be divided into two roughly equal sections, each of which includes two subsections. Section A opens with Theme 1, whose eight bars feature a variety of snappy rhythms and richly textured, sometimes dissonant chords. The musical gestures are clearly intended to imitate the sound of guitar-strumming and foot-stamping. Theme 2, with a thinner texture of melody and broken chords, is the melodic core of a traditional dance, the ale gaditano. The second half of Section A incorporates and expands on the rhythmic gestures of the first. Section B opens with a variant of Theme 1 and continues with a variant of Theme 2. hs second ...