Analysis of sonority in piano pieces

Abstract

This paper presents an analysis of sonority in selected parts of two performances of a piano piece by the Brazilian composer Almeida Prado, extracted from the first volume of his cycle Cartas Celestes I (1974), and of this piece as a whole. The main goal of this analysis is to present a methodology where the performative decisions are understood as main sources of information, with specific attention to the sonic aspects of the piece. In this context, the musical work is understood as a process, since the score is only one of the elements that will influence the final result (Costa, 2016). The methodology consists of three main steps, and was based on the methodology of analysis of the sonority by Guigue (2009): (1) the first step is the artistic process, which gets up to the construction of two performances of the piece by the same pianist (the first author of this paper), with different and contrasting performative decisions, and their recordings; (2) then, the piece is divided into homogeneous sonic units, always having the performative decisions as guides; and (3) at last, these units are analyzed using the software Spear and Sonic Visualiser for audio files and Open Music for MIDI files. The methodology intends to include the performance in the scope of musical analysis, as performative decisions may lead to dramatic differences in the final perceived sonic layout of a musical work.