The objective of this dissertation is to review the discrepancies between the first edition, Stradal’s edition and Marzocchi’s edition of Reubke’s piano sonata, providing assistance for performers by clarifying inconsistencies between the three editions. Information in reference to major aspects such as fingerings, pedaling, phrasing, tempo markings is presented. Examples of discrepancies found throughout the first movement are discussed in Chapter 3. Detailed assessment of these discrepancies, accompanied by the author’s comments are listed in the comprehensive comparison table in Appendix A. Additionally, directions are given in cases of presumptive errors, and discrepancies are addressed with possible variant solutions. In conclusion, the relative merit of the three editions is assessed in Chapter 4.

As new musical styles have emerged in the twentieth century with characteristic sounds, chords, forms, meters, and intervals, teachers need to broaden and re-define the way they introduce musical concepts to beginning piano students. The purpose of this study is to offer different instructional possibilities aside from conventional methods of teaching beginning pianists. This is accomplished through a comparison of the two different approaches of the Hungarian composer Béla Bartók and the American composer Ross Lee Finney. Bartók’s Mikrokosmos, a graded set of 153 pieces, and Finney's 32 Piano Games are examined through this paper.

Johann Nepomuk Hummel was a noted Austrian composer and piano virtuoso who not only wrote substantially for the instrument, but also transcribed a series of important orchestral pieces. Among them are two transcriptions of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 2 in D Major, Op. 36- the first a version for piano solo and the second a work for piano quartet, with flute substituting for the traditional viola part. This study will examine Hummel’s treatment of the symphony in both transcriptions, looking at a variety of pianistic devices in the solo piano version and his particular instrumentation choices in the quartet version. Each of these transcriptions can serve a particular purpose for performers. The solo piano version is an obvious virtuoso vehicle, whereas the quartet version can be a refreshing program alternative in a piano quartet concert.

The Concierto Romántico for Piano and Orchestra is one of Manuel M. Ponce's outstanding compositional accomplishments from his Romantic period, reflecting both the state of Mexican music at the turn of the 20th century, and his early nationalist tendencies. However, it remains the only concerto in Ponce's output in need of a more comprehensive analysis. This treatise focuses on a global investigative that examines descriptive and analytic references to the work, as well as a comparison and clarification of the existing score sources. An analytical and stylistic musical study using conventional theoretical techniques leads to a musicological interpretation of the work's extra-musical meaning, based on close assessments of Ponce's compositional practice and social principles.

The relationship between piano manufacturer and composer is interactive, and consequently both compositions and performance styles evolved organically due to this relationship. Early on, the instrument had more influence on the composer, whereas with the instrument’s establishment, composers began to exert more influence on the subsequent development of the instrument through their requests of manufacturers. The relationship between pianist-composers and manufacturers is important for pianists to study and understand, as well as the actual sound of a composer’s fortepiano and the way he performed on it. Through studying the development of the piano and the relationship between manufacturers and composers, pianists can reinterpret compositions before the mid nineteenth century, such as Mozart, Beethoven, Dussek, Chopin, and Liszt, using their knowledge of the aforementioned to bring a different perspective to their performances on the modern piano. There are numerous manufacturers and composers who made important contributions to the development of the piano. This dissertation focuses on selected pianist-composers and fortepiano manufacturers, and the impact of their relationship on piano literature before 1860.

Disputes concerning the origin of the term bambuco persist among scholars in Colombia, as well as controversies regarding the process of notating the traditional bambuco (3/4 or 6/8), when it penetrates the written tradition of popular music. Composers writing popular and salon bambucos increasingly perceived the advantage of notating it in 6/8. This study investigates the traditional bambuco and its assimilation into nineteenth and twentieth-century cultivated tradition, with emphasis on piano pieces by representative Colombian composers of art music. I include specific analyses of Cuatro preguntas (ca. 1890) by Pedro Morales Pino (1863-1926), ChirimÍa y bambuco (1930) by Antonio MarÍa Valencia (1902-1952), Bambuco en si menor by Adolf o MejÍa (1905-1970), El bambuco by Manuel MarÍa Párraga (c. 1826-1895), and Trozos Nos. 6 and 158 (1927-1970) by Guillermo Uribe HolguÍn (1880-1971).