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This thesis explores the piano music of Alfredo Casella. While there is much literature pertaining to Casella's position in Fascist Italy, much of it fails to utilise archival sources. Similarly, the literature offers little stylistic analysis of Casella's music, or discussion as to how performers might approach, interpret and perform his works. This thesis offers a tripartite insight into Casella. Part 1 reviews Casella's biography and compositional process: Chapter 1 repositions the pianist-composer within Fascist Italy, reviewing archival sources including diaries, letters and personal artefacts and emphasising Casella's importance as a pianist. Chapter 2 utilises sketchbooks and scores to outline his three-step compositional process. Part 2 of the thesis offers a theoretical interrogation of the pianist-composer. Chapter 3 gives a comparative and descriptive stylistic analysis of Casella's piano works, based on LaRue and Keller models for analysis. Tactility, and tactile means of stylistic analysis is also discussed. Casella's compositional style borrows tonality, form and structure, and style of other composers. Casella's writings on music, and specifically interpretation and performance, are used to form a method for interpreting his works in Chapter 4. In the pianist-composer's own words, interpretation is a form of construction, building on historical and contextual understanding, score analysis, and the performer's own response to the work being performed. Part 3 of the thesis comprises case studies, applying the stylistic and interpretative approaches outlined in part 2 to five works: Toccata Op. 6 (1904), Sonatina Op. 28 (1916), Undici pezzi infantili Op. 32 (1920), Sinfonia, arioso e toccata Op. 59 (1936) and Sei Studi Op. 70 (1942-44). These are supplemented with recordings (found in the appendices). This thesis argues the case for Casella as an original and innovative composer whose works offer many interpretive opportunities for performers.

The tuning of keyboard and zither instruments is tempered, that is, the system of tuning their intervals pragmatically approximates that of just (or pure) intervallic tuning. This has certain advantages, but results in a rigid, cyclic, closed system of tuning (and by extension, harmony). By comparison, non-tempered tuning is an open system requiring a flexible approach to tuning each interval in turn. The resulting harmonies are sonorous and distinctive. Much music written using non-tempered tunings has an acute awareness of the phenomena arising from the interactions between the vibrations causing the sensation of sound, the physiology of our ears and the psychology of our hearing faculty. Without diminishing this awareness, my work also investigates the evocative potential of this approach to harmony, in part through visual analogies and tactile processes of sketching. Examples informing this investigation include Vija Celmins' drawings, Dan Graham's pavilion Double Exposure, the architectural concept terrain vague, the poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins, animated sound pioneers such as Arseni M. Avraamov, Percy Grainger's "free music machine" and the works of Giovanni Battista Piranesi. My portfolio spans works for chamber orchestra to pieces for ensemble or soloist with pre-recorded sound and image. Through composing, I grappled with recurring questions concerning my evolving approach to non-tempered tuning-questions arising out of a meeting of theory, practice and imagination. These include the place of melody in my works, the place of traditional acoustic instruments (including those tuned in -or tuning to-equal temperament) and the relationship between perceptual phenomena and a personal evocative world. My study is indebted to-and extends-the work of composers like James Tenney, Ben Johnston and Marc Sabat. The title Vanishing Points poetically encapsulates different aspects of this exploration.

This commentary reflects upon my search for sounds that emerge from within materials, rather than those imposed by structures from without. Through a discussion of the portfolio of works, I address how this led me to a renewed understanding of musical form. I document how an initial exploration of proportional structures became increasingly disrupted by the vitality of sound materials, and how my process evolved in recognition of this. Over time, a particular way of thinking about my compositional practice came into view. Braiding is conceived of as both a creative method and a way of thinking about form - a means of binding my craft with and within the flows of materials, and of creating sonic interdependencies in a work. My approach draws widely on both composers and theorists, including Eliane Radigue's treatment of time, James Tenney's harmonic trees, Tim Ingold's ecological anthropology and Siegfried Zielinski's medialities. In the first phase of research, a gradual drifting away from metered time is discussed through theories of rhythmic entrainment. Secondly, pure-ratio tuning systems are discussed as a means of creating frequential relationships. Lastly, the grain, spectrality and atmospherics of sound media are discussed in relation to theories of mediation.

This research focusses on the technical and aesthetic issues surrounding the creation of piano reductions of the orchestral scores of two twenty-first-century piano concertos. It sets out a number of principles that might be applied more generally when producing comprehensive and musically convincing piano reductions of a range of contemporary orchestral scores. Two-piano versions of piano concertos enable performers to learn the content of the work before they have a chance to rehearse it with a full orchestra and thus to gain a better understanding of the solo piano's position within the overall texture. At their best, these arrangements can provide a satisfying alternative to the full orchestral performance. Since the early nineteenth century, piano arrangements of orchestral works have been instrumental in the process of studying and disseminating not only symphonic music but also other orchestral genres such as operas and concertos. In the first half of the twentieth century composers including Stravinsky, Ravel and Bartók produced their own piano reductions, of their instrumental concertos and symphonic works. By the late twentieth century, major changes in both musical language and orchestration complicated the straightforward 'reduction' of melodic, harmonic and rhythmic elements for piano. For example, percussion has become a far more prominent element of the musical fabric, and the use of extended techniques on string, woodwind and brass instruments is now practised widely. It is thus becoming increasingly challenging and time-consuming to transcribe orchestral scores of contemporary works for piano in such a way that convincingly captures their essential aural features. Inevitably, fundamental properties of the original, such as timbral and dynamic variety, are easily lost in the process of transcription. In my research, I investigate the possibilities of overcoming the acoustic and technical limitations of the piano as a vehicle for representing the modern orchestra and of creating practicable reductions that are both playable and faithful to the original acoustic impression. General observations and principles are demonstrated through the two case studies: full transcriptions of two stylistically contrasting twenty-first century piano concertos, by Mark-Anthony Turnage and James Dillon.

This doctoral portfolio and commentary thesis constitute a practice-led research into 'immersive' musical experiences, both from the perspective of the spectator and the composer. Specific parallels are drawn between immersive experiences, the concept of 'mise-en-abyme' (placing copies of an image within the same image, or placing a story within a story) and how this concept can be developed as a process for creating musical materials. Interdisciplinary art forms, collaborative methods and the novel approaches to using multimedia tools are explored for their potential in creating conditions for engaged listening and composition techniques. After an introduction to the 'mise-en-abyme' concept in Chapter One, the main body of the commentary thesis is divided into three main sections (Chapters Two, Three and Four). The first part (Chapter Two) explores specific musical devices that draw on installation art forms to provoke heightened experience of musical works. The second part (Chapter Three) explores two major collaborative projects, investigating detailed working methods, the role of the composer-performer and the evolving role of authorship in modern music making. The third part (Chapter Four) explores new methods of composing with digital media, that draw on the 'mise-en-abyme' concept as a process for generating new materials and musical structures. This is accompanied by a portfolio of eleven original works for acoustic instruments and electroacoustic media. Scores, audio and video recordings, digital performance materials (Max patches and Ableton Live sessions) and an appendix of supplementary materials are included in print form and on an accompanying USB flash drive.

The following commentary details ways in which I have enriched my own compositional language by exploring the integration of elements from Chinese musical culture within the context of Western Contemporary music. This commentary accompanies a portfolio of compositions and sets out to articulate the means by which I have attempted to develop and to enrich my personal musical language through the integration of certain, in my view, key elements from Chinese musical culture within the context of Western contemporary musical thought. My focus is on three elements which are shared between both Chinese and Western cultures, used in each with very different effect and intent: glissandi, modality and micro-tonality. The commentary explores the role each of these plays in my own work, how their practice and use derive from Chinese musical traditions and how I have set out to re-think that practice in terms of a musical language derived from a contemporary 'Western' art-music context.

Ferdinand Rebay (1880-1953) was a pioneer among the non-guitarist composers who started to write for the guitar in the 1920s. However, in spite of having composed close to 400 guitar works, he is today undeservedly obscure. This thesis examines his more than 30 sonatas or sonata-structured works for guitar, most of which is made of chamber music for combinations that range from duos to a septet. In Part 1, I situate Rebay's chamber sonatas within the guitar repertoire, understanding it as a reaction to the lighter repertoire of the guitar clubs, the turn-of-the-century's main guitar niche in German-speaking territories. After investigating the guitaristic context, I look at Rebay's career and interactions with the Viennese guitar circles, highlighting the work of his main champion and niece-guitarist, Gerta Hammerschmid. Later, I analyse his compositional style and demonstrate that, by associating the guitar with the Austro-German Romantic sonata prestige, Rebay may have intended to elevate the instrument's status in the eyes of the mainstream Viennese audiences. His exploration of the guitar in chamber music is equally paradigmatic, as he frees the instrument from its typical accompaniment roles and explores a fully-balanced texture in his sonata writing. In Part 2, I approach a selected group of seven chamber sonatas from a performer's point of view. Faced with the lack of a continuous performance tradition of Rebay's guitar music, I propose to incorporate an extended stylistic and technical mindset largely supported by historical investigation, which helps understand Rebay's meticulous notation and realize it convincingly. Finally, I trace Rebay's collaborative steps through the layers of information available in his manuscript sources, also proposing a "posthumous collaboration" to deal with score-based issues and make problematic passages-or in some cases, full works-playable and idiomatic. By initially situating Rebay's guitar music and later addressing some of its most important performance aspects, I hope to provide secure historical and interpretative grounds for the modern guitarist interested in his music.

This thesis considers the act of music performance quality evaluation as a performance in itself, examining the processes as well as the products of evaluative decision-making. It provides new understanding of performance evaluation through two experimental studies, two field surveys, and the development of a new mode to study and train evaluative skills. In the first study (Chapter 3), 42 musicians provided continuous quality evaluations of five piano works by Chopin and a twentieth-century composer varying by length and familiarity. Three of these pieces had been manipulated to contain performance errors in the opening material, and two of those the same error at the recapitulation. Results showed that familiarity had no effect within works of a well-known composer, but times to first and final decision were significantly extended for an unfamiliar work of an unfamiliar composer. A shorter piece led to a shorter time to first decision. An error at the beginning of a performance caused a shorter time to first decision and lower initial and final ratings, where the same error at the recapitulation did not have a significant effect on the final judgement, despite causing a temporary negative drop. In the second study (Chapter 4), 53 musicians and 52 non-musicians gave continuous quality evaluations of one of five randomly assigned videos manipulated to include an inappropriate stage entrance, aural performance error, error with negative facial reaction, or facial reaction alone. Results showed that participants viewing the 'inappropriate' stage entrance made judgements significantly more quickly than those viewing the 'appropriate' entrance. The aural error caused an immediate drop in quality judgements that persisted to a lower final score only when accompanied by the frustrated facial expression from the pianist; the performance error alone caused a temporary drop only in the musicians' ratings, and the negative facial reaction alone caused no reaction regardless of participants' musical experience. The two survey studies comprised custom questionnaires delivered to large audiences (300 & 433) in live professional settings. The first survey (Chapter 5) examined the relationship between self-reported mood and anxiety states before and after performance with perceived quality and enjoyment of the music. The second (Chapter 6) expanded this to incorporate individuals' perceptions of the social and physical environment. Results from both studies found high correlations of enjoyment and quality ratings, with familiarity with the music not predictive of either outcome. Mood states following the performance were more predictive of judgements than those reported prior. Seat location was not predictive of perceptions, although ratings of the building's acoustic and appropriateness were moderately predictive. Concertgoers assumed their own ratings to be marginally higher than those of their fellow audience members. Based on the challenges faced in studying performance evaluation in ecologically valid settings, and the parallel difficulties in training the skill of performing evaluations, the principles of Immersive Virtual Environments and distributed simulation are discussed as potential solutions through the proposal of the Evaluation Simulator (Chapter 7). All results of the thesis are then discussed concerning their implications for musicians, teachers, and organisations, as well as domains beyond music, in executing and training effective evaluations of human performance. A new research agenda is posited that examines the act of performance evaluation with the same rigour and consideration of complexity given to the performances themselves.

In recent decades, the pianism of Robert Schumann's compositions has increasingly gained recognition. What was previously seen as dense and mid-keyboard centric is now recognised as ground-breaking in terms of sonorous invention, informed by an intimate understanding of the instrument and its playing techniques. Yet, as pianist Schumann has received little credit, primarily due to a short-lived and relatively unsuccessful career. This thesis aims to explore this seeming paradox. I shall argue that Schumann developed rarely discussed concepts of imagined sound and tactile feedback during his days as aspiring pianist (1828-1831), and that these became integral to the pianistic style of his earliest published compositions. Following a general overview of the historical and biographical contexts for this study, I will trace Schumann's piano practice to establish his overall artistic aims and the primacy of sonority in this regard. This leads to an investigation of his ideals of tone to locate Schumann within prevailing schools of piano playing and of piano making around 1830. Acknowledging his comprehension of playing mechanics, I observe that during an 1831 crisis which preceded his much-debated hand injury, his technique suffered from a series of insurmountable issues relating to the right hand. Disabled as performer, Schumann realised his virtuoso aspirations in his capacity as composer. Two case studies featuring the Abegg Variations op. 1 and Papillons op. 2 demonstrate his use of sound-audible and imagined-to elevate the mechanical virtuosity of piano playing into a virtuosity of the imagination. Not only does this demonstrate a transfer of sound concepts from performance to composition; it offers a timely reassessment of Schumann's pianistic merits and presents new interpretational paths for future performances of his piano music.

Throughout the eighteenth century Italian violinists were praised and admired by London audiences. Though never as feted as the Italian castrati and sopranos, the Italian violinists in eighteenth-century London played a prominent role, featuring as leaders and soloists in every context where music was required. This dissertation focuses on the role the 'Solo' played in the careers of these Italian violinists, and how these artists and this genre fitted in socially, culturally and aesthetically. The 'Solo' was an important tool for them in promoting their careers: it was the repertoire they performed and subsequently published in order to enhance their fame. As a genre, the 'Solo' was uniquely suited to exploring a violinist's artistic invention. Exploring the repertoire provides a new understanding of these artists and the important role they played in eighteenth-century London. First, the Italian violinist is considered through a discussion of the historical and cultural context of eighteenth-century London into which these artists arrived. The cultural scene (including the Italian Opera, the theatres and the emerging public concert scene) is studied, as are various forms of patronage and the tradition of private pupils. The prominence and longevity of the 'Solo' is examined through a consideration of surviving catalogues from the publishers active in London during the century. Concert and publication advertisements support the argument. To understand further why the 'Solo' and the Italian violinist were appreciated, eighteenth-century treatises on aesthetics and musical performance are discussed, exploring the concept of 'Good Taste' and in the process revealing the 'aesthetic of moderation'. Finally, the Solo repertoire itself will be explored, focusing both on contemporary aesthetics and performance practice issues. This will be done both through a general survey of the Solo genre as well as a couple of case studies.

This thesis explores how voice, the body, and gender interact to characterise the eponymous leading roles in Richard Strauss's Salome (1905) and Elektra (1909). Approaching the vocality of the two title characters from the perspective of a performer, I use vocal line as notated in the score as a basis for exploring constructions of women at the time these two operas were composed. Because these operas were created during the fin-de-siècle, they occupy a crucial transitional point between Romantic and Modern vocal writing, when, in contrast to the practices of the bel canto era, the singer was expected to demonstrate ever-greater fidelity to the notated score. Therefore, the voice is largely manipulated by another (the composer) to perform sounds that construct her identity, and hence, her gender. I expand upon this absolute to show how in these operas, gender performativity is manifested in the musical notation. The operatic soprano voice, when manipulated for certain effects, performs 'conventional' aspects of a female character's gender (for example, its pitch range), but I argue it also has the ability to communicate something more visceral, something that transcends gender norms, and also language itself. Building on a wide range of analytical and critical discourses ranging from gender theory to vocal technique, my thesis explores how a soprano singer navigates the extreme vocality present in these two operas, and in the process articulates a range of constructions of identity of women in the fin-de-siècle. In analysing the vocal writing of these two works, it becomes apparent that gender dichotomies are effectively voided in passages within these seminal operas, which nevertheless comment directly on fin-de-siècle 'femininity' or 'masculinity'. My research analyses vocal gestures from a technical standpoint and, in so doing, suggests that gender norms become obsolete at those crucial moments in which voice and body are pushed to physical and expressive limits.

In recent decades, historical concert programmes have emerged as a fascinating resource for cultural study. As yet, however, little detailed work has been done on the programme notes that these booklets contained. This thesis concentrates on the notes written for the Crystal Palace Saturday Concerts between 1865 and 1879. The series held an important place in London concert life during this period, and featured a number of influential authors in the programmes, such as George Grove, August Manns, James William Davison, Edward Dannreuther, and Ebenezer Prout. Grove in particular made use of his notes as part of entries in the first edition of the Dictionary of Music and Musicians. Close critical readings of the Saturday Concert booklets illustrate the complex combination of context, content, and function that the programme notes represented. These readings are supported by short histories of the series, the programme note, and the various authors, along with a study of the audience through booklet construction and advertising. A database covering the repertoire performed and programme note provision during the case-study period is included on the attached CD. Programme notes that outlined pre-existing or newly-invented plots make it clear that one of their functions was to give music a narrative. Even notes that did not contain stories per se were filled with material that served a very similar purpose. The most obvious examples were explanations of how the work was created, and it's place in history. However, all of the language used to describe a piece could signal wider meanings, which then became part of the story being told. References to gender, families, education, morality, religion, politics, or race imbued the works with a wide variety of pre-existing 'texts' (in the broadest sense of the word), and formed social and cultural narratives for music.

Critical review of performance is today one of the most common professional and commercial forms of music written response. Despite the availability of representative material and its impact on musicians' careers, there has been little structured enquiry into the way music critics make sense of their experience of performances, and no studies have to date broached the key question of how music performance is reviewed by experts. Adopting an explorative, inductive approach and a novel combination of data reduction and thematic analysis techniques, this thesis presents a systematic investigation of a vast corpus of recorded performance critical reviews. First, reviews of Beethoven's piano sonata recordings (N = 845) published in the Gramophone (1923-2010) were collected and metadata and word-stem patterns were analysed (Chapters 3 and 4) to offer insights on repertoire, pianists and critics involved and to produce a representative selection (n = 100) of reviews suitable for subsequent thematic analyses. Inductive thematic analyses, including a key-word-in-context analysis on 'expression' (Chapter 5), were then used to identify performance features (primary and supervenient) and extra-performance elements critics discuss, as well as reasons they use to support their value judgements. This led to a novel descriptive model of critical review of recorded performance (Chapters 6, 7, and 8). The model captures four critical activities - evaluation, descriptive judgement, factual information and meta-criticism - and seven basic evaluation criteria on the aesthetic and achievement-related value of performance reliably used by critics, plus two recording-specific criteria: live-performance impact and collectability. Critical review emerges as a highly dense form of writing, rich in information and open to diverse analytical approaches. Insights gained throughout the thesis inform current discourses in philosophy of art and open new perspectives for empirical music research. They emphasise the importance of the comparative element in performance evaluation, the complexity and potentially misleading nature of the notion of 'expression' in the musical discourse, and the role of critics as filters of choice in the recording market. Foremost, they further our understanding of the nature of music performance criticism as a form of reasoned evaluation that is complex, contextual and listener specific.

This thesis investigates one of the key figures of Russian pianism in the twentieth century, Heinrich Gustavovich Neuhaus (1888 - 1964). Although Neuhaus is known, particularly in the West, as an important pedagogue of the Moscow Conservatory rather than a performing artist in his own right, this thesis seeks to address the tension between Neuhaus's identities as a pedagogue and his overshadowed conception of himself as a performer - thus presenting a fuller understanding of his specific attitude to the task of musical interpretation. The reader is introduced to aspects of Neuhaus's biography which became decisive factors in the formation of his key aesthetic, philosophical, pedagogical and performative beliefs. The diverse national influences in Neuhaus's upbringing - from his familial circumstances, European education and subsequent career in Russia - are investigated in order to help locate Neuhaus within the wider contexts of Russian and Central European culture at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In addition, this introduction will highlight ways in which Neuhaus's national identity has been oversimplified in recent literature by both Russian and non-Russian authors. Whilst this thesis draws on a range of contemporaneous and recent international sources throughout its investigation, it presents a substantial amount of Russian-language material that has previously been unavailable in an English translation: this includes many writings and articles by Heinrich Neuhaus, his colleagues and the leading musicologists and critics of his time. The core of the thesis traces Neuhaus's personal philosophical approach to the act of performance and explores the impact it had on his interpretations of Beethoven and Chopin. This will show that despite aspiring to a modern, Urtext-centred approach and sensibility to the score, Neuhaus's Romantic subjectivity meant that he was unafraid of making assumptions and decisions which often misinterpreted or transformed the image of the composer to reflect his own artistic identity. Thus, the investigation of Heinrich Neuhaus as a performing artist, alongside his role as a pedagogue, presents a powerful model of interpretation as a creative process, from which performers today can learn.

Hollywood film composers work within a complex process of film production, with limited control over the final outcome. Certain contextual agents have shaped the developing craft and caused recent Hollywood film music (since 1980) to depart from the symphonic neo-Romantic style that has traditionally and commonly been associated with Hollywood film scores. Developments in storytelling, changing demographics among filmmakers and composers, evolving business models, and the influence of television have altered the content and style of Hollywood films and film music. Furthermore, technological advances in film, soundtrack, and music production have contributed to changes in prevalent composer practice. Film music is always mediated by the films it accompanies and contemporary Hollywood films that speak a progressive language tend not to use conventional music of the classical Hollywood tradition. Film music must bow to commercial pressures that are often at odds with originality. An analysis of the workload distribution among composers in the 50 top-grossing Hollywood films each year between 1980-2009 reveals an uneven distribution skewed towards a select few individuals. These composers exert considerable influence on their field. Further findings summarized in this thesis also show a statistically significant increase in non-melodic minimalist writing as well as strong correlations between non-orchestral instrumentation and non-traditional musical styles over the past three decades. This thesis assesses recent Hollywood film music practice and the opportunities and challenges screen composers face. Acknowledging the role and influence of so-called contextual agents in film music composition means to consider film scores in the spheres of conceptualisation and compositional practice. The key research question addressed in this thesis is: 'What is the context in which Hollywood film composers actually work and how does this affect their creative practice and the musical outcome?'