For more than twenty years as a piano teacher and a pianist, I was able to see the great emphasis on piano repertoire mostly from the eighteenth, nineteenth and early twentieth century both for learning and performing. In this way, the...
moreFor more than twenty years as a piano teacher and a pianist, I was able to see the great emphasis on piano repertoire mostly from the eighteenth, nineteenth and early twentieth century both for learning and performing. In this way, the student is exposed to the canonical repertoire of the baroque, classical and romantic stylistic historical period and experiences the repertoire of the twentieth century through the works of some French and Russian composers such as C. Debussy, S. Prokofiev and A. Scriabin. Therefore, students and professionals do not experience a playing that differs from the contact of the fingers on the keys.
However, in twentieth century the instrument piano was one of the main source for timbre, rhythm and dynamics experiments that can be exemplified in works by Henry Cowell, John Cage, George Crumb, Karlheinz Stockhausen, among others.
Some of the reasons for the lack of interaction with the contemporary repertoire during the pianist's educational process are the lack of knowledge of the compositions themselves due to the lack of access to the scores and the inability to reproduce different pianistic techniques specific to this type of repertoire. Both Brazil (Ferreira, 1996 e Oliveira, 2014).and Portugal (Lima, 2014 e Moreira, 2015) face an even greater problem regarding the repertoire of recitals, concerts and curricula from / to piano: the scarcity of national repertoire in the programs and, more specifically, the privation of national repertoire from 21st century.
The purpose of this research proposal is to map the state of the art in which the pianistic experiments in the Portuguese-Brazilian in the last 30 years (1988-2018) and to instigate a comparative debate pointing out approximations and dissimilarities regarding the practice of unconventional techniques in the use of the piano. Such mapping will take place in loco since access to newly composed scores is generally available locally and that the presence in an important musical center such as Lisbon brings the possibility to know composers and, in this way, add valuable information to this study. The survey of this repertoire will serve as the starting point for vertical research on specific topics such as works by composers, types of extended techniques most used, pedagogical applications and performative implications.
The methodology of the present research project foresees two distinct phases of repertoire survey for solo piano composed between 1988 and 2018: an in loco survey in Portugal for a repertoire composed by Portuguese composers (Azevedo, 1998; Fernandes, 2015; Harper, 2013; Moreira, 2015) and the return to Brazil to continue the survey of the repertoire composed by Brazilian composers.
The criteria for selecting the pieces to be investigated will be: 1) to be for piano solo 2) To contain some kind of extended piano techniques or have some kind of pianistic "impropriety"; 3) To be the work of a Brazilian or Portuguese composer and have been composed between 1988-2018. The parameter for classification of extended pianistic techniques will be those classified in the studies of Luk Vaes (2009).
