Origem e consolidação do pianismo: expressão e cognição no desenvolvimento da performance solo

Abstract

In the so-called classical period, music for an emerging piano developed a homophonic style that kept the textural functions of melody and accompaniment linked, generally, to the right and left hands, respectively. In the present study, I identify the emergence of the primary means by which composers and performers of that period expressively distinguished the aforementioned textural components within the repertoire for solo keyboard. Based on this, I discuss how the classical tradition of piano music bequeathed to romanticism the proce-dures of rubato (a concept originated in the textural pattern of two “layers”) and the treatment of Alberti’s bass (a performative device that introduced the textural pattern of three layers), main expressive resources of European written music for the instrument. The partial results of the research show the changes in the repertoire for piano, which made possible the defini-tive overlapping of harmonic-polyphonic components—of rhythmic-tonal events—consoli-dated in the same period in which the expressive resources of a highly touch-sensitive key-board started to demand from the performer the use of an increasingly severe cognitive load compatible with the complexity of the new compositional and expressive patterns.