An analysis of timing microstructure in Mozart’s piano sonata K.331

Abstract

It is known that a phrase‐final lengthening, including a pause, plays an important role both for the intelligibility and the naturalness of speech. This fact is likely to hold true for performance of music. The present study investigates (a) how the phrase‐final lengthening appears in performances of Mozart’s piano sonata in A Major (K.331) and (b) what are common and individual features of the performances by five groups of pianists, European professional, Chinese student, Korean student, Japanese professional, and Japanese student pianists. One hundred and twelve pianists’ performances of the first eight measures are analyzed in terms of the inter‐onset intervals (IOIs). The data are averaged for the respective groups. The IOI patterns indicate (a) the final notes of the first half measures as well as the final notes of the second half measures are lengthened, (b) final note lengthening is more prominent in the fourth measure where the first phrase ends than in the other measures, and (c) Japanese student pianists play the rhythm of dotted eighth note and the sixteenth note differently from the pianists of other countries. [Work supported by JSPS and 21st Century COE, Kyushu University.]