The Pianist-Composer as Mediator: Performance, Pedagogy and the Work-Concept in the Nineteenth Century

Abstract

The nineteenth century witnessed a profound transformation in the musical landscape, marked by the concurrent rise of the work-concept and the pianist-composer. In Western art music, the work-concept, in which a composition is conceived as a “fixed,” self-contained entity written by a composer and faithfully reproduced by performers, was a relatively new construct that redefined the latter’s role.

Paradoxically, this shift coincided with the flourishing of the pianist-composer. They excelled in performance, improvisation and composition, making them an invaluable case study. This was enabled by the evolution of the piano’s mechanism, its centrality in domestic and concert music-making, its capacity to imitate orchestral sonorities, and its tactile/aural role in harmony pedagogy. However, their ethos was split between the fidelity to the “fixed” score and improvisatory traditions associated with a more “fluid” approach inherited from their teachers. Thus, they functioned as a mediating figure between these approaches.

This thesis asks how the work-concept shaped the ethos and training of the pianist-composer, and what the figure reveals about performance and compositional aesthetics within an institutionalised classical music culture. Chapter 1 traces their emergence, focusing on the Paris Conservatoire’s role in nurturing them, and on the piano/organ’s increasing versatility. Chapters 2 and 3 examine the period 1800–1870, exploring how evolving notions of the musical work shaped composition and performance aesthetics. Chapter 4 shows how harmony pedagogy, especially the Chant Donné and Basse Donnée, linked harmony to keyboard practice, shaping their ethos. Based on these historical models, the final chapter proposes a theory of performance that navigates the tension between the “fixed” and “fluid” score.

By reassessing the nineteenth-century pianist-composer, the thesis proposes a post-work-concept paradigm that expands performer agency in the twenty-first century.