Open Collections

Abstract

Contemporary composer Michael Nyman is well-known and admired for his film scores. The Piano Concerto (1993), adapted from the score of the film The Piano, exemplifies Nyman’s distinctive style through post-minimalist rhythmic drive and melodic lyricism. Despite its artistic merit, the work has received limited attention from music presenters, performers, and scholars. Establishing this concerto in the concert repertoire not only enriches contemporary orchestral programming but also broadens audiences’ exposure to innovative, film-inspired concert music. This project seeks to revitalize the concerto’s potential for impactful, broadly appealing performance by offering detailed interpretative and technical analyses of the work’s form, narrative, and piano writing, creating a guide that is relevant to skilled pianists and piano pedagogy professionals. My analysis of The Piano Concerto is centered around the work’s vast potential for communicating musical narrative, a concept which stimulates meaningful performance for performers and listeners. This dissertation reveals significant musical and thematic underpinnings that I reached through methodical analysis of the music’s form, semantic connotations, and stylistic variety, revealing a work that simultaneously expands the scope of the concerto genre and is rooted in the Western classical tradition. This narrative analysis is primarily inspired by Almén (2008), who classifies the narratives of musical pieces into Frye’s (1957) four mythological genres: romance, tragedy, irony, and comedy. This dissertation argues The Piano Concerto to be a narrative comedy, wherein transgressive musical elements overcome other elements that initially seem more significant. The concerto’s form and narrative are analyzed in conjunction with folk music references, the nature of the piano’s relationship with the orchestra, the usage of different keys and modes, minimalist typology after Leydon (2002) and Eaton (2008), and the progression of affective qualities influenced by all the above. The Piano Concerto’s thematic material is comprised entirely of music from the film score. The concerto’s narrative arc imitates that of the film, confirming their parallel conception. The performance guide in this dissertation advises the soloist how to musically portray the narrative through varying methods of stylistic and technical execution. In general, my findings reveal how narrative interpretation can significantly inform musical execution.