Mozart's Piano Sonata Research Articles

Enhancement of spatial-temporal reasoning after a Mozart listening condition in Alzheimer’s disease: A case study

Several recent studies have investigated the effectiveness of various behavioral interventions on the cognitive performance of subjects with Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Simulations of Shaw’s structured model of the cortex led to the predictions that music might enhance spatial-temporal reasoning. A subsequent behavioral study in college students documented an improvement in scores on a spatial-temporal task after listening to a Mozart piano sonata. In this study, we investigated the enhancement of scores on a spatialtemporal task after a Mozart listening condition in a set of twins who are discordant for AD. After listening to an excerpt from a Mozart piano sonata, the AD twin showed considerable improvement on the spatialtemporal task when compared with pretest scores. Furthermore, no enhancement of scores was seen .following either of the control conditions (i.e., silence or 7930s popular tunes). This finding suggests that music may be used as a tool to investigate functional plasticity in Alzheimer’s disease and to better understand the underlying pathophysiology. [Neurol Res 1998; 20: 666-672]

Mozart's piano sonatas: contexts, sources, style

Mozart's piano sonatas form a richly diverse and significant part of his instrumental output, and span much of his mature composing career, thereby representing a microcosm of the composer's changing style. Part I examines the contexts in which the sonatas were composed and performed, and reviews likely sources of influence. Part II concentrates on the genesis of the sonatas and the surviving autographs, which reveal important information about Mozart's compositional process. In Part III the music is studied from the standpoint of rhetoric - a discipline featured in numerous contemporary aesthetic and theoretical textbooks on music - and proceeds through an investigation of the nature of the musical ideas, followed by a discussion of formal design and finally a consideration of the style. The resulting picture affords a cross-section of Mozart's compositional strategies.

Mozart's piano sonatas

Journal Article Mozart's piano sonatas Get access John Irving, Mozart's piano sonatas: contexts, sources style (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), £35 Simon P. Keefe Simon P. Keefe Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Early Music, Volume XXVI, Issue 2, May 1998, Pages 336–337, https://doi.org/10.1093/earlyj/XXVI.2.336 Published: 01 May 1998

Music training causes long-term enhancement of preschool children’s spatial–temporal reasoning

Predictions from a structured cortical model led us to test the hypothesis that music training enhances young children1s spatial-temporal reasoning. Seventy-eight preschool children participated in this study. Thirty-four children received private piano keyboard lessons, 20. children received private computer lessons, and 24 children provided other controls. Four standard, age-calibrated, spatial reasoning tests were given before and after training; one test assessed spatial-temporal reasoning and three tests assessed spatial recognition. Significant improvement on the spatial-temporal test was found for the keyboard group only. No group improved significantly on the spatial recognition tests. The magnitude of the spatial-temporal improvement from keyboard training was greater than one standard deviation of the standardized test and lasted at least one day a duration traditionally classified as long term. This represents an increase in time by a factor of over 100 compared to a previous study in which listening to a Mozart piano sonata primed spatial-temporal reasoning in college students. This suggests that music training produces long-term modifications in underlying neural circuitry in regions not primarily concerned with music and might be investigated using EEG. We propose that an improvement of the magnitude reported may enhance the learning of standard curricula, such as mathematics and sciencel that draw heavily upon spatial-temporal reasoning. [Neural Res 1997; 19: 2-8]

A Perceptual Analysis of Mozart's Piano Sonata K. 282: Segmentation, Tension, and Musical Ideas

The experiments reported here provide a perceptual analysis of the first movement of Mozart's Piano Sonata in Eb Major, K. 282. The listeners, who varied in the extent of their musical training, performed three tasks while listening to the piece as it was reproduced from an expert performance. The first task determined how the music is perceived to be segmented, the second task determined how the experience of tension varies over time, and the third task determined what listeners identify as new musical ideas in the piece. These tasks were performed first on the entire piece and then on smaller sections from the beginning. These three aspects of music perception are coordinated with one another and correlate with various musical attributes. Judgments of section ends co- occurred with peaks in tension and slow tempos. Judgments of new musical ideas co- occurred with low tension levels and neutral tempos. Tension was influenced by melodic contour, note density, dynamics, harmony, tonality, and other factors. Judgments of large-scale section ends were less frequent than judgments of new musical ideas, but these were more nearly one-to-one on smaller time scales. A subsidiary experiment examined the extent to which tension judgments were influenced by performed tempo and dynamics. Listeners made tension judgments for four different versions of the piece: as performed, constant dynamics (with tempo as performed), constant tempo (with dynamics as performed), and constant tempo and dynamics. The tension curves were generally very similar, deviating only in a few regions containing major section ends. The results are considered in light of the metaphor of tension applied to music and the analogy between music and linguistic discourse.

Commentary

The preceding papers about the first movement of Mozart's Piano Sonata in B Major (K. 282) raise a number of interesting questions. These are considered in a series of relatively independent sections on hierarchic structures; experience and explanation; implication; methodology; performance, scores, and traditions; primary versus secondary parameters; classification; and form, process, and style.

Melodic Anchoring

Unstable tones in a tonal context demand resolution to stable pitch neighbors. The stable tones serve to anchor unstable tones in their pitch neighborhood. Two constraints characterize this process of melodic anchoring: the anchor and the anchored tones are close in pitch (proximity), and the anchor always follows the anchored tone (asymmetry). Given these two constraints, anchors function like cognitive reference points, and melodic anchoring can be thought of as a special case of a more general cognitive phenomenon. This paper represents an attempt to understand the cognitive mechanisms underlying this phenomenon. The pervasiveness of these constraints is demonstrated by analyzing the use of nonchord tones in the exposition of Mozart's Piano Sonata in Eb Major, K. 282. Nonchord tones were almost always followed by a chord tone at an interval of two semitones or less, and no such stricture held for how these tones were approached or for how chord tones were followed or approached. The proposed model postulates that an unstable tone attracts auditory attention to its pitch neighborhood. The focus of frequency-selective auditory attention accounts for the pitch proximity constraint. The most active representational units in that neighborhood—typically the most stable tones—then drive the expectation. This process is inherently asymmetric. The expectation underlying melodic anchoring is modeled as a vector, called the tonal force vector. The strength of the tonal force vector in each direction is proportional to the activation of the nearest anchor in that direction and inversely proportional to the distance to that anchor. The overall directional expectation, modeled as the sum of all possible expectation vectors, including the tonal force vector, is called the yearning vector.

Anatomy of a Performance: Sources of Musical Expression

Research on music performance often assumes that a performer's intention to emphasize musical structure as specified in a score accounts for most musical expression. Relatively unstudied sources of expression in performance include notational variants of compositional scores, performer-specific aspects, and the cultural norms of a particular idiom, including both stylistic patterns that exist across musical works and expectations that arise from a particular musical context. A case study of an expert performance of a Mozart piano sonata is presented in which influences of historical interpretations of scores, performer-specific treatments of ornamentation and pedaling, and music- theoretic notions of melodic expectancy and tension-relaxation are revealed. Patterns of organization internal to the performance expression transcended the coarsegrained information given in scores, suggesting that performance is a better starting point than a musical score for testing theories of many musical behaviors.

Listening to Mozart enhances spatial-temporal reasoning: towards a neurophysiological basis

Motivated by predictions of a structured neuronal model of the cortex, we performed a behavioral experiment which showed that listening to a Mozart piano sonata produced significant short-term enhancement of spatial-temporal reasoning in college students. Here we present results from an experiment which replicates these findings, and shows that (i) ‘repetitive’ music does not enhance reasoning; (ii) a taped short story does not enhance reasoning; and (iii) short-term memory is not enhanced. We propose experiments designed to explore the neurophysiological bases of this causal enhancement of spatial-temporal reasoning by music, and begin to search for quantitative measures of further higher ognitive effects of music.

Reply to David Beach

In his recent article The Cadential Six-Four as Support for ScaleDegree Three of Fundamental Line (1990), David Beach offers an analysis of opening ten measures of Mozart's Piano Sonata K. 283 that differs from one I published 1979 (the passage and graphs of both analyses appear Examples 1, a and b). Although we agree that descent D-C-B-A-G measures 8-10 is crucially important bringing this passage to its conclusion, our analyses place that descent at different structural levels. Beach regards descent as a structural background for passage, whereas I regard descent as a middleground motion connecting and filling two separate structural melodic registers. An important factor both our decisions is status of cadential 6 supporting B m. 9. Because I hear cadential 6 syntactically as a collection of nonharmonic tones on arrival on dominant,' I do not hear this B as being supported strongly enough to participate a fundamental line. Beach regards cadential 6 as one of two representing a single harmonic function (V), and he writes that the common bass note is root of both chords (p. 81). I leave it to reader to evaluate inconsistency treating cadential 6 as two chords, one of which resolves into other, yet both of which are equal fundamental line, a contradiction that Beach openly displays; his remark that in reality there is no conflict, since six-four must still lead eventually to five-three over same harmony (p. 82) both denies and asserts contradiction.

Borrowings and Original Music: A Dilemma for the Ballet-Pantomime Composer

Parisian audiences of the 1830s and 1840s were well acquainted with the custom of musical borrowing. In vaudevilles, they heard melodies taken from folk-songs along with the original tunes vaudeville conductors composed for such works.' In melodramas, they heard the strains of familiar arias in the overtures and instrumental refrains.2 At the concerts given by virtuosos, they heard, buried under the arpeggios and flourishes, wellknown tunes from both operas and folk-songs.3 At the Opera, in performances of foreign operas, they heard both the music of the opera itself and a pastiche of borrowings from other works: for the Opera's staging Don Giovanni in 1834, for example, Franqois Henri J. Blaze (better known as Castil-Blaze) was charged with the task of providing music for ' . .. the dance airs, marches, final chorus, entr'actes, in short, all of the accessories necessary for producing Don Giovanni at the Paris Opera'4 he did so by borrowing from Mozart's piano sonatas, symphonies, masses, Die Zauberflite, and La Clemenza di Tito. Parisians during this era were also much taken with the opera pastiche, a genre which consisted entirely of borrowed music. Many such works were performed in the Boulevard theatres and at the Opera as well,5 though they did not always meet with the approval of critics (Hector Berlioz even calling Castil-Blaze a 'veterinarian' for his efforts in this regard). Opera audiences also encountered borrowed music in balletpantomime scores.6 Indeed, since the breaking off of ballet from opera with the first appearance of the ballet d'action at the Opera in the 1770s, Parisian ballet composers had made free use of music appropriated from other sources. So slight is the role of original music in some of the early scores, in fact, that in several cases the identity of the composer or arranger is today difficult, or impossible, to discern.7 Though composers began to contribute more original music to ballet scores around the beginning of the 19th century, they continued to make use of borrowed music well into the 1830s and 1840s.

Function and Structure of Transitions in Sonata — Form Music of Mozart

The transition, sometimes referred to as bridge, usually regarded as section of sonata form responsible for modulating from primary to secondary as well as for effecting a structural contrast between two thematic sections. Some sonata-form movements by Mozart have subsidiary and modulatory sections contrast with neighboring thematic sections, such as first movement of Serenade in C Minor, K. 388. However, many movements do not have such well-defined sections. I will explain great variety of functions and structures, accounting for usual strategies Mozart employs. These vary from movements without any apparent section, raising question of location of functions (if, indeed, there are any functions in these movements), such as in first movement of Piano Sonata in C Major, K. 545, to movements gradually ease into new area with a number of subsidiary sections, often combining thematic and transitional such as in first movement of Symphony in D Major (Haffner), no. 35.1 The subject of function and structure usually treated in a general way in most textbooks on musical form or, in more detail, in studies of sonata form, of classical period music, or of Mozart's music. I will summarize here one author's views of transitions in order to indicate typical sorts of statements made on this topic; reader will find a summary of various other views of transitions in appendix to present paper. Green (1979:195) categorizes possible functions of sonata-form as follows: 1. Modulation to new 2. Development of a motive or motives from first theme 3. Introduction of a mood which contrasts with of both first and second themes 4. Introduction of new material which contrasts thematically with both first and second theme 5. Preparation of listener for second theme by gradual change from one mood to another 6. Preparation of listener for second theme by anticipation of its characteristic rhythm or melodic motive Like most textbook summaries of transitions (or other aspects of form), this one not terribly useful because it so general. Green admits no single can perform all these functions, and no one function an indispensable feature of any transition (p. 195). He also notes transitions may not fully modulate to new or may not modulate at all, and there may not even be a (pp. 195-197). Green's discussion of modulation more detailed, especially in his analyses of various transitions. He concludes most transitions have three phases: first, that part before modulation begins to set in, second, the deflection away from tonic by introduction of leading tone, and third is marked by leading tone to V (i.e., #4) of new key (p. 190). Melodically, he classifies transitions as either dependent, if they are based on first theme material, or independent, if they are not. He uses Mozart's Piano Sonata K. 333 for discussion of these points, a discussion I will refer to below. Briefly, some of Mozart's transitions do have some of functions Green notes above, although there are other possible functions they may have, as I will discuss. Only a few of Mozart's transitions have all three of Green's harmonic phases; many have only first two, some have only second, and some have only second and third. In general, remarks on transitions by Green and others (as noted in appendix) are often useful, but there are other kinds of things to be said about transitions will lead to a more complete picture of their functions and structures. With respect to Mozart's works, I will describe patterning at various levels with aim of determining unique features and structures of transitions, and how functions operate in sonata form, even in absence of a distinct section. …

The first movement of Mozart's piano sonata in A Minor, K.310: Some thoughts on structure and performance

(1987). The first movement of Mozart's piano sonata in A Minor, K.310: Some thoughts on structure and performance. Journal of Musicological Research: Vol. 7, No. 2-3, pp. 157-186.

Motive and Structure in the 'Andante' Movement of Mozart's Piano Sonata K.545

Motive and Structure in the 'Andante' Movement of Mozart's Piano Sonata K.545