In 1895, Emil Georg Conrad Sauer (1862-1942), a world-renowned German pianist and former student of Franz Liszt wrote his first piano concerto, which was published five years later in 1900. Sauer performed it extensively to enthusiastic crowds in Europe and the United States while on tour during the next several years. Then it vanished from the concert repertoire. It is no longer performed and has only been commercially recorded once. The purpose of this dissertation is to establish why it might have disappeared, and why there is value in bringing it back to the standard piano repertoire.

The purpose of this document is threefold. First, it demonstrates what Grieg contributes to the musical text compared with the original Peters edition, particularly, those additions that refer to expression, interpretation, and style. Second, this document focuses on presenting Grainger's changes that were approved by Grieg. Third, the document evaluates Grainger's own suggestions for pedaling, hand redistribution and fingering, addition of notes, tempo markings, and other performance guidelines.

Belgian composer Joseph Jongen (1873-1953) was an eclectic composer who successfully maintained his own unique musical vocabulary—particularly in his piano compositions. Jongen composed very little between 1940-1941—the period in which he and his family fled to the countryside of Mazères, France, living as refugees for several months before returning to Sart-lez-Spa, Belgium, due to the outbreak of WWII. Reflective of this time in his life, Vingt-quatre petits préludes dans tous les tons pour piano, op. 116 is composed in a particularly intimate and despairing way. Through a complete Schenkerian analysis and outline of the musical framework of op. 116—Jongen's last collection of piano pieces—this dissertation sheds light on the technique, imagination, and uniqueness of Jongen's WWII-period piano compositions. More specifically, this research outlines the deep-level tonal and formal structures, investigates the cryptic semantic meaning and intimate personal expression, and defines the aesthetic achievements of Jongen's Twenty-four Little Preludes in All Keys for Piano, op. 116.