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Beethoven's Dolce : interpretation, performance, and description - The case of music

Publication . Eckerson, Sara Ellen; Tamen, Miguel Bénard da Costa

This dissertation aims to describe the role of Beethoven’s dolce indications in the staves of a musical score. We will thus explore Beethoven’s dolce in contexts of theoretical interpretation, performance, and critical descriptions of meaning in music. We first will examine performance practice and Beethoven’s dolce indications in a symphonic setting (Symphony No. 3 in E-flat Major, Op. 55, “Eroica”) and in piano sonatas. We will highlight historical and current performance practice to find grounds for the unique way Beethoven uses expressive indications (for example, dolce, cantabile, and espressivo) in the staff. The second part of this dissertation will investigate nineteenth century hermeneutics and Friedrich Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher’s hermeneutic theory to show the resonances between the critical activity of interpreting texts and the activity of interpreting and performing music. In the final part of this dissertation, we will discuss a critical method developed by the theorist, pedagogue, and music historian Adolf Bernhard Marx (1795-1866). Marx determines this critical method in the context of how to explicate meaning in instrumental music, which is namely through simile, symbolism, and psychological coherence. We will conclude this dissertation by describing the importance of material considerations in A. B. Marx’s theory of a musical Idee. Furthermore, we will comment on the role of the Idee as a bridge between the material considerations required for performance practice and the “spiritual” activity that is needed to explore deeper meaning in music.

2016-06-28Doctoral thesis

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