“But You’re a Violinist – Why Do You

Compose?”: Narratives of Experience of Three

Composer-Performers

By

Alice Hong

A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements

for the degree of Doctor of Musical Arts

Faculty of Music

University of Toronto

© Copyright by Alice Hong 2018

ii

“But You’re a Violinist – Why Do You Compose?”:

Narratives of Experience of Three Composer-Performers

Alice Hong

Doctor of Musical Arts

Faculty of Music

University of Toronto

2018

Abstract

In the past century, a perception has arisen of a decline in the practice of musicians

who both compose and perform. Classical musicians, such as Frédéric Chopin, Maurice

Ravel, and Camille Saint-Saëns, historically emulated their mentors by composing alongside

maintaining a performance career. However, present-day musicians have become

increasingly specialized in the fields of performance and composition; those that continue to

pursue both simultaneously can now be defined specifically as a “composer-performer,” a

term that was irrelevant in the past, as both composition and performance were already

integrated in a musician’s career. The purpose of this study is to explore the definition of

“composer-performer” in contemporary music careers.

The second objective of this study is to begin a discussion on why and when the

career paths for performers and composers became increasingly divided, exploring possible

key factors that may have motivated the specialization of composers and performers.

The last objective is to provide a platform for the voices and stories of modern-day

iii

composer-performers. In this study, the experiences, philosophies, and challenges shared by

composer-performers participating in the research process will be discussed.

This study utilizes narrative methodology in order to tell the stories of contemporary

composer-performers first-hand, and to represent their experiences in their own voices.

Conversational interviews were conducted with two composer-performers, their narratives

analyzed and themes categorized. The resulting data was put into conversation with themes

and perspectives data extracted from my personal narrative on my experiences as a

composer-performer. This study provides insight on the dual role of the modern composer-

performer in a society that rewards specialization. It also proposes questions for future

research.

iv

Acknowledgments

I would like to acknowledge my incredibly supportive committee, Dr. Lori-Anne

Dolloff, Dr. Cameron Walter, and Professor Jonathan Crow, who all were there with me

every step of the way in the preparation of this dissertation. Even with their impossibly busy

schedules and my overzealousness to complete this thesis resulting in constant emails,

meetings, and personal deadlines, they constantly offered advice and encouragement and

helped me reach my goal within my timeline. Thank you for your generosity and wisdom, as

well as your investment in this project; I couldn’t have even begun this journey without all of

your help. Thank you, Dr. Walter, for guiding me through the process of cementing my thesis

question. Thank you, Dr. Dolloff, for introducing narrative methodology to me and

consistently helping me throughout the entire thesis process, from proposal to conclusion.

Thank you, Prof. Crow, for not only teaching me as my private violin teacher but for offering

invaluable advice and guidance both inside and out of the university setting.

I would also like to thank my interview participants, Professor Norbert Palej and

Jessie Montgomery. Thank you for generously sharing your journeys and stories with me in

such an open, friendly manner. Without your accounts, this thesis would not exist, and they

will greatly serve and inspire today’s music community. Thank you as well to Kevin Lau,

who also shared his invaluable insight on the composer-performer life and history, as well as

his generous friendship throughout this process.

Lastly, thank you to my friends and family, who were so encouraging and supportive

every single day, and even carried my laptop for me sometimes when it looked like I was

about to drop everything I was holding!

v

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements…………………………………………………………………………...iv

Table of Contents……………………………………………………………………………...v

List of Appendices…………………………………………………………………………..viii

Chapter One: Introduction………………………………………………………………….1

1.1 Personal Narrative: Positioning myself in the research…………………………………...3

1.2 Methodology………………………………………………………………………………9

1.3 Purpose for the Study…………………………………………………………………….10

1.4 Need of the Study………………………………………………………………………...10

1.5 Limitations of the Study……………………………..…………………………………...11

1.6 Overview of the Dissertation Design…………………………………………………….12

Chapter Two: A Review of the Literature………………………………………………...14

2.1 Identity…………………………………………………………………………………...14

2.1.1 Defining and Categorizing “Identity” ……………………….………………...14

2.1.2 Identity of the “Musician”.….…………………………………………………15

2.1.3 Beginning the Discussion on the “Composer-Performer” Identity…………….19

2.1.4 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………..22

2.2 Past Composer-Performers………………………………………………………………22

2.2.1 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart……………………………………………………24

2.2.2 Felix Mendelssohn………………………………..……………………………25

2.2.3 Dmitri Shostakovich………………………………..……………………….…30

2.2.4 Frédéric Chopin……………………………………………………………..…33

2.2.5 Conclusion……………………………………………………………..………35

2.3 Modern Composer-Performers…………………………………………………………..36

2.4 Related Dissertations…………………………………………………………………….38

2.5 Conclusion: Comparing Literature between Past and Present Composer-Performers…..39

Chapter Three: Methodology……………………………………………………………...41

vi

3.1 Rationale for Narrative Inquiry……………………………………………………….….42

3.2 Autoethnography…………………………………………………………………………44

3.3 Methodology in Practice: Interviews…………………………………………………….47

3.3.1 Choosing the Participants…………………………………………………..….47

3.3.2 Conducting the Interviews…………………………………………………..…49

3.3.3 Analyzing the Data…………………………………………………………….53

Chapter Four: Norbert Palej………………………………………………………………57

4.1 Participant Introduction………………………………………………………………….57

4.2 “I’m a Composer-Performer”……………………………………..……………………..58

4.2.1 Introduction……………………………………………………………………58

4.2.2 Dr. Palej’s Story……………………………………………………….………58

4.2.3 Discussion……………………………………………………………………...61

4.3 Key Themes……………………………………………………………………………...76

4.3.1 Redefining Labels………………………………………………………….…..76

4.3.2 Becoming a Composer-Performer……………………………………………..77

4.3.3 Hierarchies of Musical Activity………………………………………………..78

4.3.4 Changing Habits of Composition………………………………………………79

4.3.5 Composer as Interpreter………………………………………………………..80

4.3.6 Summary……………………………………………………………………….80

Chapter Five: Jessie Montgomery…………………………………………………………82

5.1 Participant Introduction………………………………………………………………….82

5.2 “I’m a ‘Musician’”……………………………………………………...………………..83

5.2.1 Introduction…………………………………………………………………….83

5.2.2 Montgomery’s Story…………………………………………………………...84

5.2.3 Discussion……………………………………………………………………...89

5.3 Key Themes……………………………………………………………………………...96

5.3.1 Choosing the Composer-Performer Label……………………………………..96

5.3.2 Public Perception of the Composer-Performer………………………………...97

5.3.3 The Unconventional Path………………………………………………………97

5.3.4 Music as a Physical Art………………………………………………………...98

5.3.5 Balance as a Composer-Performer……………………………………………..98

5.3.6 Summary …………………………………………………………...………….99

vii

Chapter Six: Alice Hong…………………………………………………………………..100

6.1 Participant Introduction………………………………………………………………...100

6.2 “ I Am Who I Am and I Love What I Love”……….……..…………………………....102

6.3 Discussion……………………………………………………………………………....111

6.4 Key Themes…………………………………………………………………………….116

6.4.1 Composer and Performer Relations…………………..………………………116

6.4.2 Public Perception of the Composer-Performer……………………………….117

6.4.3 Developing Confidence as a Composer-Performer…………………………..118

6.4.4 Summary……………………………………………………………………...118

6.5 Closing Thoughts……………………………………………………………………….119

Chapter Seven: Discussion and Conclusion……………………………………………..121

7.1 Discussion………………………………………………………………………………121

7.1.1 Public and Personal Perception of the Identity of the Composer-Performer…121

7.1.2 Non-Performing Composers versus Composer-Performers………………….123

7.1.3 Overlapping Experiences……………………………………………………..125

7.1.4 Conflicting Experiences………………………………………………………128

7.2 Answering the Research Question……………………………………………………...129

7.2.1 Definition of the Modern Composer-Performer……………………………...129

7.2.2 The Divide: Why and When?…………………………………………….......131

7.2.3 The Drive to Pursue Both Fields……………………………………………...136

7.3 Implications for Further Study………………………………………………………….138

7.4 Impact and Influence of “‘But You’re a Violinist – Why Do You Compose?’”…...…..141

7.5 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………...144

7.6 Postlude………………………………………...……………………………………….145

References………………………………………………………………………………….146

viii

List of Appendices

Appendix A - Invitation to Participate & Informed Consent Form………………………...155

Appendix B - Interview Guideline………………………………………………………….156

1

Chapter One: Introduction

“Progress in the arts: a series of gifted mistakes perhaps. We owe our

greatest musical achievements to an unmusical idea: the division of what is an

indivisible whole, ‘music,’ into two separate processes: composition (the

making of music) and performance (the making of music), a division as

nonsensical as the division of form and content...The methodical division of

labor (I write it, you play it) served us well, until composer and performer

became like two halves of a worm separated by a knife, each proceeding

obliviously on its course.”1

For centuries, the practice of classical music featured musicians who both composed and

performed. Recent decades have seen the fields of performance and composition become

increasingly divided, and expectations have changed so that the majority of musicians execute

in one field or the other. Musical Toronto writer Michael Vincent asks, “What ever happened to

the notion of composer-performer in classical music?...In the 20th century, for good or for bad,

composers and performers began to specialize in their respective areas. I suspect this was due in

part to the notion of the double life of a musical image.”2 Kenneth Hamilton, a contributing

author of Mendelssohn in Performance reflects on improvisation, composing without

preconception, and the reluctance of classical performers of today to do so in performance:

“although highly, perhaps sadly, unusual nowadays outside cocktail bars and jazz clubs, the

practice of improvising a prelude to a piece, or a modulating transition between pieces,

remained common up until around the Second World War...present day players, with a few

notable exceptions, have been extremely reluctant to reintroduce the improvised elements that

were a normal feature of concerts in the past.”3

1 Lukas Foss, “The Changing Composer-Performer Relationship: A Monologue and a Dialogue,” Perspectives of

New Music 1, no. 2 (1963): 45, accessed April 3, 2017, doi:10.2307/832102. 2 “The Practice and Decline of the Composer-Performer,” Musical Toronto, last modified March 9, 2014,

http://www.musicaltoronto.org/2014/03/09/the-practice-and-decline-of-the-composer-performer. 3 Kenneth Hamilton, “Mendelssohn and the Piano,” in Mendelssohn in Performance, ed. Siegwart Reichwald

(Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 2008), 36-7.

2

Violinist and composer Henning Kraggerud states on the subject,

“‘But you’re a violinist - why do you compose?’ This is a question I’m

asked frequently, as if it were somehow unnatural to be both...Bach, Vivaldi,

Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Chopin, Brahms, Debussy - they were all

performers as well as composers. And those famous violinists who played their

works - Spohr, David, Joachim, Ysaÿe and Kreisler, they were all composers

as well. It was considered entirely commonplace that the two disciplines

should go hand in hand. So, when did this change, and how has it affected the

world of classical music?”4

Why has this change occurred? Perhaps the two fields have become more demanding,

influencing musicians to choose only one professional focus, as composer-pianist Samuil

Feinberg suggests:

“Naturally, a composer can be a performer of his own compositions. Probably

this combination of composer and performer in one person is the most fruitful

and yields the highest artistic achievements. However, the composer is not

always a perfect instrumentalist. Creation of a composition and its concert

performance are two different aspects of the musical art. Therefore it shouldn’t

be surprising if a composer relegates the interpretation of his work to another

musician with a greater mastery of the instrument...This problem has a special

interest from the historical perspective. It is known that separation of the roles

of the composer and performer is related to the development of virtuosity and

the emergence of professional performers whose artistic efforts go mostly into

performance/recitals. The many reasons for this division of creative tasks

require a study of their own.”5

With the development of this separation, the identity of “composer-performer” has

developed as a label for those that embrace both composition and performance in modern

practice. As someone who identifies as a composer-performer myself, I have had the pleasure of

getting to know the unique participants of this somewhat underground and self-supporting

community. Each musician has unique experiences worth sharing, as well as a personal

4 “Performer-Composers – A Time for Renewal?” Gramophone, last modified September 7, 2015,

https://www.gramophone.co.uk/blog/gramophone-guest-blog/performer-composers---a-time-for-renewal. 5 “The Composer and the Performer,” Samuil Feinberg, accessed April 26, 2017,

http://math.stanford.edu/~ryzhik/Feinberg1.html

3

perspective of what contributes to their identity as a composer-performer and what the identity

means for them and their careers. A deeper exploration of these composer-performers’

experiences may yield interesting insights into the perspective of those who self-identify as both

composer and performer, and the challenges of maintaining this multimodal identity.

Research question:

What is the definition of a modern classical composer-performer in the 21st century, and what

are the qualities, duties, and experiences that come with the definition?

Sub questions:

Why and when did the career paths for performers and composers become increasingly divided?

What drives modern-day composer-performers to pursue artistic excellence in both areas despite

this 21st century shift?

1.1 Personal Narrative: Positioning myself in the research

For the first years of my life, my family lived in an abandoned fraternity house on Mars

Hill College’s campus. It didn’t have a kitchen, so my mom built a makeshift one out of shower

curtains in our backyard; most of our possessions were donated from the student body, and our

diet consisted of rice, eggs, and canned fish. We lived modestly, but there was one possession of

luxury in our house: the upright Yamaha in our living room. My brother took on the role of

being my piano teacher when I turned five, and, though my beginning studies were quite

harrowing, and I lacked the focus the learning process deserved, my love for it was evident.

The piano provided me a world of colors I could only see when I played: my favorite

was practicing slow scales. Of course, I wouldn’t know about scale degrees and chord qualities

4

until a decade later, but climbing up and down the scales - in octaves, thirds, and in contrary

motion - was an incredible journey every time. I remember memorizing which notes made me

feel which sensations: the first three notes of the major scale were happy, the third being

hopeful. The fourth had a yearning quality, and so on. I tried explaining to my brother these

discoveries, but I of course could barely make any sense! However, I believed this was the

discovery and aural guide upon which I began composing.

Four years later, I was sitting in a lesson plodding through the Chopin waltz I was

playing the next day in the foyer of a shopping mall, the venue of our studio recital. Assured

that I was properly prepared, my teacher considered ending the lesson early. With our remaining

time, I asked if I could play something I had been messing around with on my own; with her

blessing, I played for her two short sketches I had come up with for fun when I got bored of

practicing Chopin. Ms. Skibicki gave me her accolades, the kind I was used to; I was at the age

where anything positive I did needed to be encouraged. “That’s so great, Alice! Good for you!”

At noon the next day, I was sitting in a plastic chair, warming my hands in my pockets.

The familiar butterflies flitted in my chest when the person before me stepped up to perform. I

had taken my hands out to mime the keys on my lap as a warmup when Ms. Skibicki knelt

down by my chair.

“Alice, how would you like to play your little songs after you play the Chopin?”

I was surprised and shy but titillated by the idea. I never thought that anyone would be

hearing my pieces, that they were just fun things equally significant to a crayon drawing a child

made of their house. Suddenly, I was given an opportunity to showcase my crayon drawing in

the context of Chopin waltzes and When the Saints Go Marching In. I felt a mixture of

excitement and unease about the whole idea.

5

After Chopin, I began to play my compositions. I didn’t think at the time, playing these

two pieces in the mall next to a Williams Sonoma, that this was something I’d be doing ever

again and that in fact, it would be a defining moment in my life.

When I was 11, I began studying the violin with Thomas Ludwig. He conducted his own

community orchestra that he had prestigious dreams for, had composed three symphonies

written and was working on a fourth on his own upright piano, and he worked against the status

quo. His next season for the Ludwig Symphony Orchestra featured a violin soloist who also tap-

danced, an up-and-coming pianist billed to play both Emperor concerto and the Entertainer, and

a throat singer. But he had one soloist spot remaining.

As most of the time in my violin lessons was spent talking, the subject of composition

came up during which I mentioned my piano pieces (I had at that point added a third to my

collection). His wacky response was a challenge for me to turn them into a three-movement

orchestral piece. In an energetic frenzy, he fetched me a stack of 11x17 staff paper and a copy

of his own orchestral score for reference. With nothing else to go on, I went home and began to

layer onto my piano works, one instrument at a time.

After some helpful revisions from my violin teacher over the next two months, my piece

was programmed on the first concert of the new LSO season, with me as the piano soloist in my

composition. Even at that age, I felt that I was a most likely a gimmick. Mr. Ludwig sent me

home with a stack of flyers to distribute advertising the debut of the “next Mozart” with my

sixth-grade yearbook picture underneath. However, with the recording from that concert, he

encouraged me to submit the piece to BMI and ASCAP Morton Gould Awards, and, though

BMI wasn’t interested, ASCAP awarded me as the third-youngest winner that year.

I felt a bit like a fraud. I wondered if any other composers came into their lesson to show

6

their instrumental teacher a score with notes written in impossible ranges, or only knew the

shape of an alto clef because they copied off of their teacher’s score, then had to erase and

rewrite the entire viola part because it had been assumed that alto was the same as treble. I

wondered if anyone else had entered this competition without ever having taken a composition

lesson in their life; perhaps composition was their principal study without compromising their

time with any instrumental studies. When I was asked to do a video interview during the award

ceremony at Lincoln Center, I was anxious about whether they used it and, as a result, would

reveal my ignorance as a composer.

However, I ended up snagging a few more wins over the next few years. My pieces

enjoyed performances by Atlanta Symphony and New York Philharmonic members, and the

LSO programmed a few more of my pieces as I churned them out. I steadily racked up the

necessary milestones of a budding composer, yet I still couldn’t believe that what I was doing

was legitimized by talent. I always wrote myself off as a violinist or pianist who liked to

compose on the side.

What compelled me to undervalue my compositions, even from a young age? In the

majority of the press advertising a concert with my pieces programmed, I would be advertised

as a “pianist” or a “violinist” who composed a piece. This description always seemed like a step

down from simply “composer”, as if my piece was a novelty rather than a bona fide work of

substance. I did not know any other composer-performers, and rarely was I labeled as one.

However, in the times that I saw the title of “composer-performer” next to my name, I shied

away from the identity. Sometimes I felt like a stratagem, a rarity that both composed and

performed. In retrospect, I realized I had no composer-performer role models to look up to,

leaving me feeling insecure about what kind of musician I wanted to be. Lori Dolloff discusses

7

in her article “All the Things We Are” the distinctions one makes in their identities in order to

stay relevant and most useful to the community.6 I found this particular distinction relevant as I

often felt pressured to cater my identity away from the “composer-performer” in order to be

taken more seriously.

In high school, as a member of the Atlanta Symphony Youth Orchestra, I had the

pleasure of meeting a very special artist. Lori joined us onstage every Saturday morning for

rehearsal at nine and would plant herself somewhere, cross-legged with a pad of paper and

charcoal. She sketched each of us quietly as we rehearsed through the morning; she never

missed a rehearsal or concert. The most touching memory I have of her support, however, takes

place in a retirement home where some of the ASYO musicians played an outreach concert.

Lori came to support us in this casual event for which I fashioned a short solo violin piece.

As I played it, I felt familiar feelings of uneasiness: I wondered if my ideas were stupid,

if the harmonies were cheesy. On top of it all, I wondered if it was pretentious to play my own

piece. Insecure but having finished my performance, I turned to take my bow. I looked out into

the audience and saw Lori in the back, tears flowing as she applauded and wiped her nose. I’ll

never know how the rest of the audience responded to my piece, but I knew that something I

had done or said in my piece had stirred Lori to feel something emotional. When I went to thank

her for coming, she put my face in her hands and said, “No one in the world could have given

me this but you: it’s you saying your own words, and I am so grateful for it.” As I hugged her, I

thought about Lori’s word choice. I hadn't just gotten onstage and played an instrument for the

audience to watch and hear, nor had I just crafted a piece as a vessel for the instrument to

6 Lori Dolloff, “‘All the Things We Are’: Balancing Our Multiple Identities in Music

Teaching,” Action, Criticism, and Theory for Music Education 6, no. 2 (2007): 4, accessed April 2, 2017,

http://act.maydaygroup.org/articles/Dolloff6_2.pdf.

8

display itself. By both composing and playing the piece, I had provided an “experience”: a

world completely my own that I could share in a holistic manner.

I felt at that moment that I wasn’t just a second-rate composer who more often plays an

instrument, nor was I a performer who happens to dabble in composition as well. I composed,

and I performed: I was a composer-performer. This identity was not just a skill set; it was a

means for providing audiences a holistic musical experience. Composer-performers have the

tools to craft their own musical language both through the palette of notes they compose with as

well as the colors they produce as a performer. They take into their hands the story of a

composition that they want to share and have the choice of how it is delivered as the performer.

With all of these intricate details in their control, only the composer-performer themselves can

provide this unique “experience”. Dolloff states that “identity” is not only what we project of

ourselves to others but also how we project ourselves to ourselves.7 At age 16, I finally

embraced this identity of the composer-performer and the responsibility that accompanied it.

These defining experiences that led to my identification as a composer-performer

sparked a new path for my post-secondary schooling, eventually leading to this thesis. Though

the identity of “composer-performer” was who I aimed to be from that point on, the process of

developing who I was within the identity had only just begun. Along this route, I experienced

triumphs as a composer-performer, but I also experienced self-doubt, both self-inflicted and

inflicted by the musical community. In a music education setting, Dolloff states that “if others

don’t accept you as a ‘teacher’ then you are not.”8 Despite my revelation on being a composer-

performer at age 16, the road to accepting myself and being accepted as a composer-performer

7 Ibid., 4.

8 Ibid., 15.

9

would prove to be hard. Through my personal experiences and observations, I have witnessed

the composer-performer identity frequently challenged by performers and composers alike – for

example, some may find it hard to believe that performers’ compositions would have the same

depth and quality as a specialized composer; or, because composers do not spend their time

practicing the way performers do, perhaps some might guess that they are incapable of

providing a live performance that matches the capability of a specialized performer. I hope to

explore more thoroughly the composer-performer identity and place my own experiences as a

composer-performer, in dialogue with those of others composer-performers.

1.2 Methodology

Narrative methodology is the study of experience understood narratively.9 This

methodology produces and provides an account of “people, places, and events and the

relationships that hold between these elements”.10 Because of the qualitative nature of my

research question as well as its focus on the accounts of current, living musicians, my thesis will

use narrative methodology to efficiently recount the rich content these musicians will share. The

primary research question at hand requires exploration of a creative process that is unique to

each individual. The creative aspect of narrative methodology will help garner insight from

these individuals’ experiences.

After the interviews with two, selected composer-performers have been completed and

transcribed, I will document the information in a chronological story format and analyze for key

9 D. Jean Clandinin and Janice Huber, “Narrative Inquiry,” in International Encyclopedia of Education (3rd ed.),

ed. Barry McGaw, Eva Baker, & Penelope Peterson (New York, NY: Elsevier, 2010), 436. 10

Margaret Barrett and Sandra Stauffer, “Narrative Inquiry: From Story to Method,” in Narrative

Inquiry in Music Education (London: 7-18. Springer, 2009), 7.

10

themes, notable elements, and common or juxtaposing trends between the two accounts, and my

own narratives of experience. I will also compare these accounts of modern composer-

performers with those of historical composer-performer figures, such as Wolfgang Amadeus

Mozart, Felix Mendelssohn, Franz Liszt, Dmitri Shostakovich, among others.

Barrett and Stauffer express the importance of relaying the past and present in order to

better understand the future through narrative methodology.11 As this thesis will both share the

accounts of the interview candidates as well as assemble thoughts of change in recent times,

narrative methodology is an organized method of exploring the timeline of experiences in music

questioned in this thesis.

1.3 Purpose for the Study

The purpose of this study is twofold: to collect narrative data in order to address the lack

of research on the phenomenon of modern-day composer-performers, as well as explore the

possible catalysts for change in the musician’s identity that have created a separation between

“composer” and “performer”, in turn resulting in the development of the modern-day identity of

“composer-performer”. This study will explore insights on the general motivations and trends in

the development of a composer-performer, equally as a performer and a composer; it will also

tackle a question that has not yet been specifically addressed in academic writing: why and

when a chasm developed between composing and performing in musicians’ professional

practice.

1.4 Need for the Study

11

Ibid., 7.

11

Modern composer-performers comprise of a small niche in the modern music world and,

as a result, are underrepresented in research literature. This lack of representation is particularly

evident in the scarce to nonexistent narrative inquiry currently available on composer-

performers. Narrative inquiry is a way of understanding and inquiring into experience through

“collaboration between researcher and participants, over time, in a place or series of places, and

in social interaction with milieus”.12 This process will illuminate the experiences, education and

professional engagement of active composer-performers. Not only will this dissertation provide

a narrative source and insight on this subject, but it is possible that the conclusions of this

dissertation might identify significant social factors and key developments in music history that

have not previously been identified as contributing factors to the divide between the fields of

composition and performance.

1.5 Limitations of the Study

Though the purpose of this thesis is to provide an account of the careers, experiences,

and motivations of composer-performers, it is important to note that each individual’s case is

unique. Therefore, the common themes and conclusions that may be reached through the

interview process may not apply to every composer-performer.

A sub-question of this thesis addresses the factors in modern professional music practice

that encourage the separation of the composition and performance fields; however, as an

exploratory study, no generalizable conclusions will be reached. As there are also countless

musicians of the past who composed and performed, it is impossible to consider every historical

12

F. Michael Connelly and D. Jean Clandinin, Narrative Inquiry: Experience and Story in Qualitative Research

(San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, Inc., 2000), 20.

12

figure. I will, however, focus on the most well-documented and relevant historical figures,

drawing on information directly related to the interview questions that will be asked of the

modern composer-performers.

In the world of jazz, where musicians are always inherently composing in the moment

and engaging in musical dialogues with fellow musicians as well as themselves13, being a

composer-performer remains a crucial part of the modern jazz tradition and the definition of

being a jazz musician. This is also the case for singer-songwriters of all genres, from Edith Piaf

to Taylor Swift; the duty of being a composer-performer is evident in the “singer-songwriter”

title alone. Because this thesis is delimited to modern classical musicians involved in the

creation of concert music and both historical and modern classical traditions, the broad and

equally rich history and traditions of jazz composer-performers and singer-songwriters will only

be briefly mentioned throughout this thesis.

I will endeavor to foreground my own biases in order to be as transparent as possible

with my assumptions and influence on the data generated by the interviews.

1.6 Overview of the Dissertation Design

Chapter One introduces the context of my research as well as my own personal story in

the context of the topic. It also states the purpose, need, and limitations for this study as well as

my intentions for this thesis. Chapter One also introduces the research questions for this thesis.

Chapter Two provides a review of the literature pertaining to the discussion of

composer-performers, both past and present, as well as the topic of identity and related

dissertations on the topic of modern composer-performers.

13 Paul Berliner, Thinking in Jazz (Chicago, Illinois: University of Chicago Press, 1994), 192.

13

Chapter Three further defines the characteristics of qualitative methodologies,

explaining their benefits for this particular study and how I came to decide upon this particular

methodology for my research. It also details the qualitative process I undertook during this

study, my experience as the interviewer, the process of adding my own personal narrative to the

data, and the procedure of analyzing the research participants’ stories.

Chapters Four, Five and Six present narratives developed from my interviews with

Norbert Palej, Jessie Montgomery, and my own self-study, respectively, as well as an analysis

of noticeable key themes that emerge in the individual narratives.

Chapter Seven summarizes and discusses the findings of the study, identifying emerging

themes from all three personal narratives, and proposes answers to the research question. It also

presents questions for future study.

14

Chapter Two: A Review of the Literature

2.1 Identity

As will be observed in subsection 2.2 Past Composer-Performers, the identity of a

musician used to imply someone contributing to music as both a composer and a performer.

Today, “musician” serves as an umbrella term under which specialized categories fall:

composers, performers, and a new identity to replace the past “musician”: composer-

performers. In order to begin the conversation on the “composer-performer” label, the

development of the identity should be discussed. There are several layers to this discussion:

first, defining “identity”; next, taking a deeper look at the “musician” identity and the influence

of music on one’s identity; and lastly, a deeper discussion on how identity is defined on an

individual level.

2.1.1 Defining and Categorizing “Identity”

Charles Taylor’s Sources of the Self defines identity as “the commitments and

identifications which provide the frame or horizon within which I can try to determine from

case to case what is good, or valuable, or what ought to be done, or what I endorse or oppose. In

other words, it is the horizon within which I am capable of taking a stand.”14 Philosopher Amy

14

Charles Taylor, Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard

University Press, 1989), 36.

15

Gutmann’s Identities: Time, Difference and Boundaries defines identity from a semantic point

of view: “derived from ‘idem,’ the word’s semantic field ranges from ‘the sameness of a person

or thing at all times or in all circumstances; the condition or fact that a person or thing is itself

and not something else; individually, personally’ to its use in logic and mathematics and asks

the question, how something can remain the same despite time and inevitable change.”15 The

complexity of identity has been classified in multiple ways. Gutmann’s Identity in Democracy

categorizes identity into two groups: ascriptive and affiliative. While ascriptive identity groups

are organized around characteristics that are beyond the person’s ability to choose (for example,

race, gender, class, etc.), affiliative identities are within the person’s choice.16 Dan McAdams

constructs the study of identity through a “life-story model”, viewing identity as integrated with

the content of a person’s life story;17 Hermans and Kempen use a “dialogical model”, proposing

that self-representation is structured as dialogue among contrasting voices and shifting I-

positions;18 and Gary Gregg organizes the study of identity through a generative model that

considers self-representation to be structured by key symbols, metaphors, and binary

oppositions.19 For this particular study, I find that Gutmann’s definition of “identity”, as well as

her categorization of affiliative identities, and McAdam’s “life-story” organizational model are

most congruent with my work.

2.1.2 Identity of the “Musician”

Through a more in-depth discussion of the past musician in subsection 2.2 Past

15

Heidrun Friese, ed., Identities: Time, Difference and Boundaries (New York: Berghahn Books, 2002), 1. 16

Amy Gutmann, Identity and Democracy (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2004). 17

Dan McAdams, Power, Intimacy, and the Life Story: Personological Inquiries into Identity (New York:

Guilford, 1988). 18

Hubert Hermans and Harry Kempen, The Dialogical Self (San Diego, CA: Academic Press, 1991). 19

Gary Gregg, Self Representation (New York: Greenwood Press, 1991).

16

Composer-Performers, the documented research provides accounts of past composer-

performers and their world in which musicians shared their work and ideas through performing

their own pieces, dedicating pieces to each other, and offering advice to each other as fellow

composer-performers. Because this was the familiar lifestyle of the past musician, the word

“composer-performer” was rarely used in the context of their lifetime: their identity was

essentially and simply the “musician”. How, then, did the composer-performer identity become

a necessary distinction?

To explore the nature of this change, the identity of the “musician” must be addressed as

well. Pianist-composer Erik Satie once defined the musician as “perhaps the most modest of

animals, but he is also the proudest.”20 Liszt addressed the musician identity as “mournful, yet

grand.”21 In his chapter “Music and Identity,” in Questions of Cultural Identity, Simon Frith

states that “music constructs our sense of identity through the direct experiences it offers of the

body, time and sociability, experiences which enable us to place ourselves in imaginative

cultural narratives.”22 Frith offers a thoughtful discussion on how music plays a crucial role in

constructing a subjective and/or collective identity, as it “offers so intensely, a sense of both self

and others.”23 According to Frith, the narrative, social, aesthetic and ethical aspects of music-

making help identify and define those who interact with it: “Music, like identity, is both

performance and story, describes the social in the individual and the individual in the social, the

mind in the body and the body in the mind; identity, like music, is a matter of both ethics and

aesthetics.”24 While Frith takes a stance of assuming free choice in the influence of music on

20

Robert Orledge, Satie the Composer (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 7. 21

Hall-Swadley, The Collected Writings of Franz Liszt, 90. 22

Simon Frith, “Music and Identity,” in Questions of Cultural Identity, eds. Stuart Hall and Paul Du Gay (London:

Sage Publications, 1996), 124. 23

Ibid., 110. 24

Frith, “Music and Identity,” 109.

17

self, allowing the self to gravitate towards whatever is aesthetically or ethically pleasing, David

Hesmondhalgh disagrees. In his article “Towards a Critical Understanding of Music, Emotion,

and Self-Identity”, Hesmondhalgh claims that the dominant conception shared by scholars on

music being a “resource of active self-making” does not take into account the influence of

capitalism and limited or manipulated exposure to certain types of music.25

In Musical Identities, David Hargreaves, Dorothy Miell, and Raymond MacDonald

provide a substantial source on the exploration of identities within music. The book defines the

way musicians shape their tastes and preferences as well as interact with music - as a creator,

performer, listener, and appraiser - to inform their personalities and, in turn, their unique

musical identities.26 The book is organized in two parts: a discussion on Identities In Music

(IIM), dealing with the aspects of musical identities that are socially influenced and defined by

given cultural roles and musical categories, and on Music In Identities (MII), discussing how

one uses music as a tool for developing other aspects of their individual identities.27 The authors

view the development of musical identities from the perspective of social psychologists,28

organizing the book into chapters in the context of different social contexts, i.e. a family,

school, nationalistic setting. From this psychological standpoint, the authors believe that

musical identities are constructed and reconstructed through comparisons between themselves

and other people, from childhood on into adult life.29 Musical Identities also addresses musical

identities being equipped with a separate “performance identity”, a persona that professional

25

David Hesmondhalgh, “Towards a Critical Understanding of Music, Emotion, and Self-Identity,” Consumption

Markets & Culture 11 (2008): 329, accessed June 28, 2017, doi:10.1080/10253860802391334. 26

Raymond MacDonald, David J. Hargreaves and Dorothy Miell, Musical Identities (Oxford, New

York: Oxford University Press, 2002), 1-2. 27

Ibid., 2. 28

Ibid., 7. 29

Ibid., 15.

18

performers and composers embody in their professional setting, defined by their stature in their

career as well as comparisons with others in the same level of the field.30

Multi-instrumentalist and film composer Ali Jihad Racy’s chapter “Improvisation,

Ecstasy, and Performance Dynamics in Arabic Music” in the book In the Course of

Performance compares the views of two musicians of different time periods and musical genres

on their musical identity and the roles accompanied with it. He quotes Arnold Schoenberg, who

claims that a real composer writes music only to please the composer himself and not the public

masses.31 This is then compared with Sabah Fakhri’s view that musicians are people endowed

with ruh, “soul” or “feeling”, and must engage the listener ecstatically with their music as well

as possess the capabilities of improvising.32 Racy shares a similar opinion with the authors of

Musical Identities on the role of social influences on the musical identity. He concludes that

“musician’s articulations about their own pursuits bring to focus the aesthetic, stylistic, and

social systems these musicians belong to and identify with...musicians’ personal statements

provide insights into the complex and multifaceted nature of the creative musical process.”33

While this source provides interesting perspectives on contrasting musical identities and

provides insight on Arabic musicians and their value on improvisation, Racy does not explicitly

talk about the constructs of the musician’s identity.

One source that does tackle the musician’s identity directly is Robin Elliott’s article

“Constructions of Identity in the Life Stories of Emma Albani and Glenn Gould” for the

Journal of Canadian Studies. Elliott uses the biographies of Albani and Gould, both Canadian

30

Ibid., 11. 31

c 32

Ibid., 99. 33

Ibid., 110.

19

musical icons but contrasting in various ways (i.e. woman/man, French-Canadian/English

Canadian, singer/instrumentalist, to name a few) to explore different aspects of the construction

of identity through their life stories as Canadian musicians.34 Through analyses of what

constructed the musical lives of Albani and Gould, Elliott pieces together the information that

defined them in the context of being onstage, offstage, and behind closed doors. With these two

particularly eccentric people, Elliott mentions Albani’s apparent elitism and her likely practice

of continuing “performing” even off-stage, thus sheltering her private life from the public eye.35

Glenn Gould was also difficult to identify, in a rather literal sense: performing on and off-stage

under at least 24 aliases, Gould also kept his private life frustratingly quiet from the media.36

Elliot also takes into account not only what biographers have reported, but also what they chose

to leave unmentioned - an equally important source of information, as the intention of their

biographers was to manipulate the public perception of Albani and Gould’s identities. Elliott

also discusses how Albani’s and Gould’s identities reflect strongly on a national level to define

Canadian society.

Frith concurs, “Music … stands for, symbolizes and offers the immediate experience of

collective identity.”37 A shared consensus seems to be that music and musical identities are

shaped by and contribute to social experiences and social identities, and these identities are

agreed upon beyond the individual level to a cultural level, and even on a national level.

2.1.3 Beginning the Discussion on the “Composer-Performer” Identity

34

Robin Elliott, “Constructions of Identity in the Life Stories of Emma Albani and Glenn Gould,” Journal of

Canadian Studies (2005): 108, accessed June 28, 2017, doi:10.3138/jcs.39.2.105. 35

Ibid. 113.

36

Ibid., 114. 37

Frith, “Music and Identity,” 121.

20

On an individual level, many aspects of identity cause distinction from one person to

another. Dolloff makes the distinction between that of role versus identity, stating that the “role”

is what one does while the “identity” is who one is.38 Dolloff’s distinction between role and

identity suggests that while a modern musician might both compose and perform, one must

choose to identify as a composer-performer. The roles associated with that of the modern

composer-performer, composing and performing, were once associated with the musician’s

identity; now that the identity of the musician does not imply both of these roles, the identity of

the “composer-performer” emerged for those who identify as such. The fluidity of identity, as in

the case of the “musician” identity, has been explored on several occasions. In Dolloff’s (2007)

article “All the Things We Are,” she describes the general consensus of identity as “a complex

phenomenon, existing not as a unitary subjectivity, but in multiple layers, in webs, or as multi-

faceted.”39 Rhoda Bernard conceives of identity as “processual, as positions and contexts that

constantly shift, and as constructed on multiple levels...being constructed through personal

associations, meaning, and experience.”40 Dolloff concurs, proposing a complexity of identities

in a context that is fluid and constantly shifting.41

“Identity” is not only what we project of ourselves to others but also how we project

ourselves to ourselves.42 Through my personal experiences, I have found that in a world where

few composer-performers exist in relativity to the rest of the clarify classical music community

and professional world of conservatory and stage, it is not only difficult to be accepted as a

composer-performer by others, but sometimes equally challenging for the composer-performer

38

Dolloff, “‘All the Things We Are’: Balancing Our Multiple Identities in Music Teaching,” 3. 39

Dolloff, “‘All the Things We Are’: Balancing Our Multiple Identities in Music Teaching,” 3. 40

Rhoda Bernard, “Making Music, Making Selves,” Action, Criticism, and Theory for Music

Education 4, no. 2 (2005): 5, accessed April 17, 2017, http://act.maydaygroup.org/articles/Bernard4_2.pdf. 41

Dolloff, “‘All the Things We Are’: Balancing Our Multiple Identities in Music Teaching,” 17. 42

Ibid., 4.

21

identity to be accepted by his/herself. Often, the identity seems irrelevant, a feeling to which I

have responded by hiding the part of me that is “extraneous” in any given situation - whether it

is the composer “side” or the performer “side”. In Bernard’s “Making Music, Making Selves”,

she describes an instance when she introduced herself as a researcher, but purposely did not

reveal the other aspects of self with which she identified with:

The way that I think about my professional identity doesn’t fit the formula of

the academic introduction, which privileges only one layer of a person’s

professional identity: researcher...when I introduce myself at events like this, I

can present only one part of my identity. Only who I am as a researcher

matters. But who I am as a researcher is deeply and profoundly connected to

the other aspects of who I am. And I don’t want to forget that there are still

other aspects of who I am that may not appear immediately relevant to who I

am as a researcher, but are still important parts of my identity. I am a wife, a

sister, a friend, a kickboxer, a golfer, a Red Sox fan, a homeowner, and so

much more.43

Joanne Erwin and Kay Edwards address a similar conflict between performer and

teacher identities: “Perhaps you are sitting in this class trying to decide whether you should be a

music teacher or a performer. This question need not worry you at this time, because it is

possible to be both a teacher and a performer...you cannot be a good music teacher unless you

are a good performer. You see, it is not a question of being a teacher or a performer, because

great teaching is a performing art and a great performer is always teaching.”44 Through this

perspective, the two roles of the composer-performer would be seen as a supplement to each

other. Sociologist Brian Roberts provides a different view on the seemingly opposing identities

of musician and teacher in a music education setting: “[Music educators] acknowledge that to

be a fine music teacher there will always be a personal war between oneself as a musician and

as a teacher and that each individual must seek a balance which best suits both oneself and the

43

Bernard, “Making Music, Making Selves,” 4. 44

Joanne Erwin et al., Prelude to Music Education (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2003), 1.

22

teaching position that he holds”.45 Roberts points out that balance is a key factor in the

maintenance and success of this dual identity, also a relevant factor to the dual identity of the

composer-performer.

Often from my experience, the composer-performer identity is challenged by other

musicians, performers and composers alike. The data obtained through these narrative

interviews will hopefully shed light on the potential misconceptions that revolve around the

composer-performer, some I have personally experienced and that were addressed by

Gramophone’s blogger Kraggerud as well.46 These sources provide perspectives needed to

begin the discussion on the composer-performer identity.

2.1.4 Conclusion

While the mentioned sources do not directly address the identity conflict of the

composer-performer, the concepts behind identifying oneself, accepting identity, and conflict

and supplement between different facets of identity are relevant to the development of the

composer-performer identity. I hope the composition of the modern composer-performer

identity will further emerge through the eyes and voices of this thesis’ interview participants,

and a discussion will emerge on how the modern composer-performer identifies his/herself

along with a comparison and contrast between the modern composer-performer and the

musicians of the past.

45

Brian Roberts, “A North American Response to Bouij: Music Education Student Identity

Construction Revisited in Sweden. In R. Rideout and S. J. Paul, (Eds.),” On the Sociology of Music Education II

(2000): 73. 46

“Performer-Composers – A Time for Renewal?”

23

2.2 Past Composer-Performers

The label “composer-performer” is a modern development; technically speaking, there

were no “composer-performers” in the past, simply musicians who both composed and

performed. Études were written by musicians in order to aid their own students in the

development of technique. For example, Francesco Geminiani featured his own compositions as

teaching tools in The Art of Playing on the Violin, accompanied by descriptions of how to play

them and what techniques the pieces will strengthen.47 At the end of his book, Geminiani

provides twelve pieces for violin and harpsichord for the musicians’ pleasure with no directions,

as the exercises before will have prepared them to enjoy playing the twelve pieces. Leopold

Mozart’s A Treatise on the Fundamental Principles of Violin Playing provides a brief history of

the beginning of music, describing Pythagoras’ discoveries through hanging different weights

on equal strings to sound different octaves.48 Pythagoras’ discovery led to the eventual

development of instruments, upon which musicians continued expanding the possibilities and

usages. Through experimentation on these instruments, musicians found more notes and strung

them together in different combinations: the beginnings of composition. While The Art of

Playing on the Violin and A Treatise on the Fundamental Principles of Violin Playing date back

to the 18th century, Béla Bartók kept the tradition of composing etudes for student instruction

alive even in 1931, producing his 44 Duos for Two Violins Sz. 98, BB 104, a volume of skill-

building duets for teacher and student to play together.49

In order to better understand the modern composer-performer, it is important to explore

47

Francesco Geminiani, The Art of Playing on the Violin, 1751 (Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 1952). 48

Leopold Mozart, A Treatise on the Fundamental Principles of Violin Playing, 1756 (Oxford, England: Oxford

University Press, 1951), 21. 49

C. S. Leafstedt, “Béla Bartók, ‘44 duos für zwei violinen’,” Notes, 52, no. 4 (1996): 1302.

24

musicians of the past who set a precedent for composing and performing. The tradition of

studying and imitating the stylings of old masters has been practiced for centuries; for example,

the interpretation for the music of well-known composers was informed best by how the

composers themselves would have played it. Hans von Bülow stated after watching

Mendelssohn perform his own compositions that “the master [Mendelssohn] was committed,

above all, to the strict observance of meter...he despised, furthermore, all arbitrary

arpeggiation...he permitted the use of the pedal only for certain tonal effects...he also protested

against that ‘thrilling’ haste, against the rushing and forcing of his pieces by players who

believed that the best way they could meet the charge of ‘sentimental’ interpretation was

through this kind of speeded-up, summary behavior…if one wants to play Mendelssohn, one

should first play Mozart [to prepare]...”50 In order to teach his piano students the correct styling

of pieces, Franz Liszt provided the following summary through his knowledge of and respect to

the composers’ own performance styles: “Schumann especially must be phrased well in details;

and played very compact - rhythmically well-articulated. With him ritenutos should be very

great, as with Mendelssohn the accelerandos and animatos are great; Mendelssohn dashes out

bright and quickly. Schumann has breadth, but Chopin has greater height.”51 With a more in-

depth understanding of the traditions of past composer-performers, we can discuss further what

composes the identity of the modern composer-performer.

2.2.1 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

When discussing classical musicians with careers as both composers and performers,

50

Hans von Bülow, “Felix Mendelssohn,” in Mendelssohn and His World, ed. Larry Todd (Princeton, N.J.:

Princeton University Press, 1991), 392-393. 51

Carl Lachmund, Living with Liszt: From the Diary of Carl Lachmund, ed. Alan Walker, Franz Liszt Studies

(Stuyvesant, N.Y.: Pendragon, 1995), 231.

25

certain musicians come to mind: young Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s career, for example, was

representative of a career trajectory for successful musicians in his day, equally active in both

composition and performance, and gaining the nobility’s approval. From a young age, he toured

Europe to impress the nobility by performing both other composers’ and his own compositions

on multiple instruments. At the age of six, his performances were documented as an “utter

amazement...seeing a boy aged 6 at the clavier and hear him, not by any means toy with sonatas,

trios and concertos, but play in a manly way, and improvise moreover for hours on end out of

his own head...producing the best ideas according to the tastes of today…”52 His continuous

relationship between composition and instrumental performance was easily noted from the very

beginning of his music studies. At the age of three, Mozart would listen to his sister’s

harpsichord lessons and afterwards pick out chords on the instrument; by five years old he was

writing down his own compositions in his music-book.53 This urge to compose that came so

naturally to young Mozart grew with his harpsichord studies, and he frequently composed at the

instrument. On top of this amazing talent, he found that, without formal training, he was also

able to play the violin and organ well.54 In one of his attempts to gain public recognition for

young Wolfgang and his sister, Leopold Mozart sent his children to spend two weeks at the

Schonbrunn Palace in Vienna with the Emperor, where Wolfgang performed improvisations on

the themes requested by his audience and also entertained with his own compositions.55 It is

also strongly believed that Mozart’s singing lessons with Giovanni Manzuoli were the secret to

his early mastery of writing for voice,56 another example of his resourcefulness as a performer

52

Otto E. Deutsch, Mozart: A Documentary Biography (Stanford University Press, 1966), 43. 53

E.S. Tchernaya, Mozart: His Life and Times, trans. Yuri Sviridov (Neptune City, NJ: TFH Publications, Inc,

1986), 12 - 13. 54

Ibid., 15. 55

Ibid., 17-18. 56

Ibid., 31.

26

aiding his development as a composer. It was not until his father fell ill that Mozart began to

lean more primarily towards composition, as he feared he would disturb him with his

instrumental practicing.57 However, though Mozart’s and many historians’ focuses turned more

towards his composing endeavors in his later years, Mozart remained active as a performer and

composer throughout his life. He was documented to have performed at least once a month of

each year since the age of 15; his last concert was on March 4, 1791, the year of his death.58

2.2.2 Felix Mendelssohn

Felix Mendelssohn’s career as a composer, pianist, organist, and violinist/violist is well

documented in biographies and historical accounts. Mendelssohn in Performance for example,

provides a rich source focusing on Mendelssohn’s career equally as an instrumentalist and as a

composer. Divided into chapters such as “Mendelssohn and the Piano”, “Mendelssohn and the

Organ”, “Performance of Chamber and Solo Music for Violin”, and “Mendelssohn and the

Performance of Handel’s Vocal Works”, the authors of this book compile an all-encompassing

image of Mendelssohn as a whole musician. Kenneth Hamilton writes:

“Even during Mendelssohn’s lifetime, three distinct images of him as a pianist-

composer had begun to develop that served to categorize his musical style for

over a century after his death: his own playing and performance-practice

presented the picture of a serious, conscientious, and intensely musical

performer…through [his] Songs Without Words, he was considered to be an

‘effeminate’ musician: one whose piano music was suited to be trotted out in

the bourgeois parlor by affected amateurs of shaky technique and saccharine

taste. The last image, rather different but almost equally harmful, was derived

from the widening reputation of the Leipzig Conservatory, which Mendelssohn

had helped to found and in which he had taught both piano and composition.

This center of learning supposedly fostered - at least to those avant-garde

artists disaffected with its aims - a dry, pedantic, and conservative performance

57

Ibid., 35. 58

Peter Dimond, A Mozart Diary: A Chronological Reconstruction of the Composer's Life, 1761-1791 (Wesport,

Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1997), 208.

27

style.”59

Mendelssohn’s distorted association with the strict and conservative Leipzig

Conservatory was fought and disputed by his pianist friends Liszt, Bülow, and Ferruccio

Busoni. His piano playing was described by Henry Chorley of the Philadelphia National

Gazette as “more poignant, more intense, more glowing than ever the author dreamed of”60 as

well as “eminently manly”.61 The pianist-composer himself, however, never considered himself

a virtuoso and admired musicians who showcased musical sensitivity rather than technique.62

Despite the images described as attached to his musical style, Mendelssohn certainly grew to be

a well-regarded pianist, having established himself with a fine enough reputation that pianos

were gifted to him to perform on and try.63 He performed so frequently as a pianist that he knew

the instrument builds of different makers intimately: Hamilton documents that “although on

many occasions Mendelssohn simply had to play on whatever piano was conveniently available,

he seemed to have considered only Broadwood instruments to be serious rivals to the

Erards...however, when he was explicitly given the choice between a Broadwood and an Erard

for the Birmingham premiere of his own D-minor Concerto in 1837, he decided in favor of the

latter.”64 Mendelssohn shared in a letter to his family of his anxiety as he prepared to perform

on a brand new Clementi grand piano in “the [same] concert-room where my symphony had

been performed and which now echoed with every footstep…”65

Mendelssohn’s fundamental approach to writing for the pianoforte was strongly

59

Hamilton, “Mendelssohn and the Piano,” 19. 60

Henry Fothergill Chorley, Music and Manners in France and Germany (London: Longman, 1841), 275. 61

Hamilton, “Mendelssohn and the Piano,” 30. 62

Hamilton, “Mendelssohn and the Piano,” 29. 63

Ibid., 24. 64

Ibid., 24 65 Rudolf Elvers, ed., Felix Mendelssohn: A Life in Letters, trans. Craig Tomlinson (New York: Fromm International Pub. Corp., 1986), 50.

28

influenced by the repertoire he performed as a pianist: his “almost monastic attitude to

contemporary keyboard styles was a counterpart to his strictness in performing the music of the

masters he most admired”.66 His principal piano teacher, Ludwig Berger, trained Mendelssohn

through the compositions and etudes of Field, Clementi and Cramer. The Clementi and Cramer

etudes helped developed Mendelssohn’s piano technique, while Field’s nocturnes and his

teacher Berger’s own compositions would influence Mendelssohn’s later compositions,

particularly his Songs Without Words.67 The impacts of the more traditional stylizings of these

compositions would, for example, reveal themselves in the piano writing of his D minor piano

trio. Composer Ferdinand Hiller recalls listening to Mendelssohn as he played his freshly

finished trio for him; his account states that he “was tremendously impressed by the fire and

spirit, the flow, and in short the masterly character of the whole thing. But I had one small

misgiving. Certain pianoforte passages in it, constructed on broken chords, seemed to me - to

speak candidly - somewhat old-fashioned...we discussed it and tried it on the piano over and

over again, and I enjoyed the small triumph of at last getting Mendelssohn over to my view.

With his usual conscientious earnestness when once he had made up his mind about a thing, he

now undertook the lengthy, not to say wearisome, task of rewriting the whole pianoforte part.”68

Although Mendelssohn was known to be a purist as a performer - and taught his pupils

accordingly - he also contradicted this characteristic at times through certain composition

endeavors, like his famous revival of J.S. Bach’s St. Matthew Passion, which he liberally cut

and re-orchestrated, as well as composing a piano accompaniment for Bach’s unaccompanied

Chaconne.

66

Hamilton, “Mendelssohn and the Piano,” 33. 67

Ibid., 23. 68

Roger Nichols, Mendelssohn Remembered (London: Faber, 1997), 64.

29

When performing his own compositions on the piano, Mendelssohn was reportedly

especially straightforward in style and detached, as if to deliberately refrain from anything

flashy or affected. According to friends, this approach was due to Mendelssohn’s wish that his

compositions would not gain in effect from any “unworthily superficial technical brilliance” or

from being overly sentimental.69 When playing his own compositions in concert, he would often

add an improvisation: in a concert in 1845 for example, Mendelssohn reportedly added a

prelude and modulating link between his two solo pieces, and the year later he improvised an

entire slow introduction to his Rondo Brillant in E-flat, op. 29.70 Carl Friedrich Zelter reported

that, as a skilled improviser, Mendelssohn could transform “a simple melody into a passionate

figure, which he took now in the bass, now in the upper part, weaving all manner of new and

beautiful thoughts into it in the boldest style...and evolving the most surprising contrapuntal

passages out of the stream of harmonies, though certainly without paying much regard to the

melody.”71 Mendelssohn was also renowned for his improvisations as an organist; though he

performed very few times on the organ in concert, he was remembered to have given highly

effective performances of Bach as well as contributed highly influential organ repertoire like the

Three Preludes and Fugues, op. 37 and the Six Sonatas, op. 65.72 He was unique as an organist

due to the fact that he was primarily a virtuoso pianist and could play both well; interestingly

enough, Hamilton refers to this in a tone familiar to how the composer-performer specialization

is discussed today: “the ‘universal’ keyboard player of the Baroque [declined] and gradually

yielded to specialization, both through the changing nature of keyboard instruments in the

69

Hamilton, “Mendelssohn and the Piano,” 34. 70

Ibid., 37 71

Clive Brown, A Portrait of Mendelssohn (New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 2003), 223-224. 72

Peter Ward Jones, “Mendelssohn and the Organ,” in Mendelssohn in Performance, ed. Siegwart Reichwald

(Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 2008), 41.

30

eighteenth century and through increasing musical opportunities for purely secular

employment.”73

Mendelssohn’s aptitude as a violinist and violist was the least documented of his

instrumental talents, but he was remembered as having given high-quality performances as part

of the first violin section for Beethoven’s Symphony in D minor, as well as playing the viola in

his own Octet and Spohr’s Double String Quartet in E minor.74 Clive Brown, author of the

chapter “Performance of Chamber and Solo Music for Violin” in Mendelssohn in Performance

believes Mendelssohn’s familiarity as a string player highly contributed to the quantity of rich

string writing he produced.75 In the original version of his violin concerto, “the solo part

contained very few bowing and articulation markings. The revised version, however, is much

more extensively supplied with such markings; these indicate that the 14-year-old Mendelssohn

was thinking as a violinist and that he was familiar with a considerable corpus of contemporary

violin music.”76

2.2.3 Dmitri Shostakovich

Though the majority of biographical sources for Dmitri Shostakovich focus on the

compositional side of his musical career, there are still quite a few sources who give a thorough

account of the pianist’s extensive performance career as well. Sofia Moshevich’s Dmitri

Shostakovich, Pianist begins with a claim that “Dmitri Shostakovich was not only a great

composer of the 20th century but also an outstanding Russian pianist, one of the best of his

73

Ibid., 43. 74

Louis Spohr, Selbstiographie (Cassel and Göttingen: George H. Wigand, 1860), 308. 75

Clive Brown, “Performance of Chamber and Solo Music for Violin,” in Mendelssohn in Performance, ed.

Siegwart Reichwald (Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 2008), 62. 76

Ibid., 63.

31

generation. His universal fame as a composer has tended to overshadow his significance as a

brilliant performer of his own works.”77 This sentiment was echoed by numerous artists at the

time: for example, Dmitri Tsyganov, first violinist of the Beethoven Quartet - with which

Shostakovich collaborated with frequently - praised Shostakovich after performing his Piano

Quintet, op. 57 with the composer as “an unsurpassed performer of his own solo and chamber

work, playing them, as a composer of genius, in his own unique way - his approach then

became the ideal for all performers. It was impossible to differentiate his compositions from his

interpretations…even the greatest of pianists cannot begin to approach Shostakovich’s genius as

a pianist.”78 Arnold Al’shwang praised Shostakovich’s performances of his own compositions

as “exceptional and merits further study”79, and cellist Arnold Ferkelman recalled

Shostakovich’s technical brilliance as well as his tendency to take very fast tempi.80

Shostakovich was also remembered as a sensitive accompanist by the vocalists with whom he

performed his own songs.81

Shostakovich deliberately composed away from the piano as to not be limited to the

physical keys;82 however, upon completing his pieces of any instrumentation, he would create a

piano reduction - often for four hands - in order to share the piece with friends.83 Valerian

Bogdanov-Berezovsky recalled listening to one such occasion as “extraordinary; after what we

had just experienced, words seemed superfluous...We were hypnotized by the close proximity

77

Sofia Moshevich, Dmitri Shostakovich, Pianist (McGill-Queen's University Press, 2004), 3. 78

Lev Grigor’yev and Yakov Platek, Shostakovich: About Himself and His Times, trans. Angus and Neilan

Roxburgh (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1981), 75. 79

Lev Grigor’yev and Yakov Platek, Shostakovich: About Himself and His Times, 76. 80

Elizabeth Wilson, Shostakovich: A Life Remembered (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1994), 104-

105. 81

Moshevich, Dmitri Shostakovich, Pianist, 127. 82

Ibid., 134. 83

Ibid., 164.

32

we felt to the creative process that is usually so mysterious and secretive, and by the absolutely

unique expressiveness and emotion of the composer’s performance. Such playing was endowed

with all of the rich resources of ‘Shostakovichian’ pianism and saturated with the excitement

and thrill of the composer’s inner emotional state.”84 In sharing his views about the role of the

piano in his compositional process, Shostakovich believed still that “one should not avoid the

piano. However, improvising at the piano is not the same as composing

something…nevertheless, sometimes a piano can be helpful. I myself had moments when I was

stuck in a certain place. Then, I would sit at the piano, play things that I had written, and,

approaching the ‘bewitched’ spot, literally shut my eyes as though I were preparing to plunge

into cold water. Sometimes, this helped.”85

By 1933, Shostakovich had limited his piano performances to his own compositions.86

Shostakovich was so dedicated to performing his own works on the piano that, after expressing

his desire to perform more, he composed a piano prelude every day until his Twenty-Four

Preludes, op. 34 was finished:87 he performed eight of them in concert only 18 days after

beginning the composition process.88 His first ensemble performance was with the Beethoven

Quartet in the premiere of his influential Piano Quintet, op. 57, which he wrote at the suggestion

of the Quartet so that he could perform with them; the success of the premiere was so great that

he couldn’t bring himself to go home after, but instead wandered the streets of Moscow that

night in bliss.89

84

Sofia Khentova, Dmitri Shostakovich v godi Velikoi Otechestvennoi voini [Dmitri Shostakovich

In the Years of the Great Patriotic War] (Leningrad: Muzyka, 1979), 56. 85

Yevgeniy Makarov, “Ya bezgranichno uvazhal yego” [I Respected Him Limitlessly], Muzikal’naya akademiya I

(1993): 149. 86

Moshevich, Dmitri Shostakovich, Pianist, 3. 87

Levon Atovm’ yan, “Iz vospominaniy” [Reminiscences], Muzikal’naya akademiya 4 (1997), 70. 88

Moshevich, Dmitri Shostakovich, Pianist, 70. 89

Marietta Shagynian, “50 pisem D.D. Shostakovicha” [“Fifty Letters by D.D. Shostakovich”], Noviy mir 12

33

Moshevich provides a thorough documentation of Shostakovich’s piano career in the

context of his life and work as a composer, offering detailed examination of his musical roots

from childhood, piano studies and repertoire, and concert career through his correspondences

with family and friends; there is even a chapter titled “Composer-Performer.” Moshevich

organizes the work chronologically, categorized by times during which Shostakovich worked on

certain compositions as well as his stance with the Soviet Union government, providing

information on each of Shostakovich’s piano performances during these times. The source

contains reviews and Shostakovich’s personal views on performing his own works; it also

compares recordings of Shostakovich’s performances of his own pieces in order to provide

performers with information on how the composer had interpreted his own pieces. Moshevich

pointed out certain tendencies of Shostakovich’s: For instance, Shostakovich often performed

his pieces at a slightly exaggerated tempo to his own markings: if he were playing a slow

movement, Shostakovich would perform at a slower tempo than marked, and vice versa.90 Also,

due to his rather small hands, he would often roll the chords that he wrote without any

indication of rolling.91 Although Shostakovich never indicated pedal markings, his virtuosic and

deliberate use of the pedals in his own performances suggest the necessity of pedal, particularly

for melodic material in the right hand and for his fugal works.92 His last public performance

occurred on May 28, 1966, as disease eventually deteriorated his ability to use his right hand;93

Moshevich ends Dmitri Shostakovich, Pianist with the following conclusion: “As for the history

of piano performance, with Shostakovich’s death, the galaxy of the century’s most important

(1982): 129-130. 90

Moshevich, Dmitri Shostakovich, Pianist, 136. 91

Ibid., 137. 92

Ibid., 140. 93

Ibid., 169.

34

composer-pianists lost its last star.”94

2.2.4 Frédéric Chopin

Shostakovich is among the many prominent composer-pianists in history, a category that

also includes Franz Liszt, Sergei Rachmaninoff and Frédéric Chopin. Upon reading many

historical sources recalling Chopin’s career, it seemed that Chopin enjoyed one of the more

well-rounded documentations through history as both a pianist and a composer. Jeremy

Nicholas, author of Chopin: His Music and Life describes the composer-pianist as “not only the

greatest and most original pianists in history, [but] he [also] used that experience in his own

compositions, creating something entirely new in the process.”95 Chopin was reported to have

privately printed his first composition, “Polonaise in G minor, dedicated to Her Excellency

Countess Victoria Skarbek, composed by Frédéric Chopin, a musician aged 8”, at the same time

he made his first public appearance as a pianist.96 Much like the praise given to Mozart, the

Warsaw Review of January 1818 described Chopin as “a real musical genius [who] not only

performs the most difficult pieces on the piano with the greatest ease and extraordinary taste,

but is also the composer of several dances and variations that fill experts with amazement…”97

As a composer-performer, Chopin’s piano playing, compositions, and personality were often

compared to one other: in the August 20, 1829 edition of the Wiener Theaterzeitung, a review of

Chopin stated: “His playing, like his compositions...has a certain character of modesty…”98

When composer-pianist Ignaz Moscheles was asked “what is Chopin like to look at?”, he

94

Ibid., 182. 95

Jeremy Nicholas, introduction to Chopin: His Music and Life, by Jeremy Nicholas (Naperville, Illinois:

Sourcebooks, Inc., 2007), ix–xi. 96

Jeremy Nicholas, Chopin: His Music and Life, (Naperville, Illinois: Sourcebooks, Inc., 2007), 10. 97

Ibid., 10. 98

Ibid.