A study of Thomas Ades's selected piano works

Park, Young Hee

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/114320 Copy

Description

Title

A study of Thomas Ades's selected piano works

Author(s)

Park, Young Hee

Issue Date

2012

Director of Research (if dissertation) or Advisor (if thesis)

Taube, Heinrich

Doctoral Committee Chair(s)

Hobson, Ian

Committee Member(s)

• Ward, Tom
• Heiles, William

Department of Study

School of Music

Discipline

Music

Degree Granting Institution

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Degree Name

A.Mus.D. (doctoral)

Keyword(s)

• Thomas Ades
• piano
• analysis
• Darkness Visible
• Traced Overhead
• Mazurkas

Language

en

Abstract

The objective of this project is to provide a theoretical and structural analysis of the piano works of the British composer Thomas Ades (b.1971). Thomas Ades has composed five pieces for solo piano: Darkness Visible, Still Sorrowing Op. 7, which is a prepared piano piece, Traced Overhead Op. 15, Mazurkas Op. 27, and Concert Paraphrase on Powder Her Face, which is based on his opera Powder Her Face, Op. 14. Compared with his other large-scale works, his solo piano music has not received much attention from musicians and critics. Although his piano music represents a relatively small body of his lists of works, they are profoundly expressive and colorful compositions. My doctoral project consists of a recital and a research paper regarding selected solo piano works of Thomas Ades. This paper will provide stylistic analysis of Darkness Visible (1992), Traced Overhead Op. 15 (1995-6), and Mazurkas Op. 27 (2009) by examining formal design, melodic structure, rhythmic features, and compositional techniques. After a brief biographical sketch of Ades in Chapter 1, Chapter 2 compares Ades's Darkness Visible to Dowland's lute song In darkness let me dwell, with this comparative study helping us to understand how Ades reworked Dowland's piece in order to make a new solo piano work. Chapter 3 and 4 are analyses of Traced Overhead, Op. 15 and a more recent work, Mazurkas Op. 27, respectively. In all three works Thomas Ades creates melodic layers and rhythmic motives which repeat throughout the entire works and he shows them by using octave displacement, voice interweaving and wide range of keyboard. Since there has been little scholarly attention paid to Thomas Ades' piano music, an important aim of this project will be to bring a new analytical focus to this small but impressive body of piano music.

Type of Resource

• text
• still image

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http://hdl.handle.net/2142/114320

Copyright and License Information

© 2012 by Young Hee Park

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