Leopold Godowsky’s Fifty-Three Studies on Chopin’s Études

Leopold Godowsky (1870-1937) composed works that require pianistic fluency of an exceptional order, including fifty-three Studies based on twenty-six of Frédéric Chopin’s twenty-seven Études. The purpose of this dissertation is to examine the significance of these Studies and to reveal the compositional techniques that Godowsky used to create them. This dissertation consists of a foreword and seven chapters. The foreword describes the unique position that Godowsky’s Studies occupy in the piano literature and argues that they deserve further scholarly research. Chapter one discusses Godowsky’s life and the composition of the Studies, and it provides a review of relevant literature. Chapter two is divided into two sections. The first section proposes five compositional techniques that are used to create the Studies: switch, condensation, superimposition/addition, reconstruction and merging. The second section examines Godowsky’s classification of the Studies into five categories: Strict Transcriptions, Free Transcriptions, Cantus Firmus Versions, Versions in Form of Variations and Metamorphoses. Chapters three, four and five are case studies of selected Studies, arranged by the compositional techniques presented in Chapter two. Chapter three deals with Studies that are composed using switch, superimposition/addition and merging technique. Chapter four analyzes Studies that are written using reconstruction and superimposition/addition technique; the two works examined in detail stand out as two-hand Studies where switch technique is not used. Chapter five focuses on the left-hand Studies, in which condensation technique is predominant. Chapter six explores the increased difficulty caused by the compositional techniques and offers solutions to overcome them. Chapter seven surveys critical reactions not only to the Studies but also to officially released recordings of them. The chapter then concludes the dissertation with a review of earlier chapters and by engaging Godowsky’s stated objectives in writing the Studies, which were not to promote empty virtuosity but to create a new kind of piano texture based on modern counterpoint and harmonic language.

Department dc:contributor.department

Music

Year dc:date.issued

2017

Author dc:creator

• Kim, Younggun

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• McClelland, Ryan

• chopin
• etude
• godowsky
• studies
• study

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1807/79020

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:utoronto.scholaris.ca:1807/79020