The Twenty-Four Preludes of John Burge: Scholarly Notes to Accompany a Performance and Recording Project

Abstract

The full thesis for this degree consists of three components: a recording of John Burge’s Twenty-Four Preludes for solo piano, scholarly notes to accompany this recording, and a final solo piano recital presenting this work. The recording was produced in May, 2016 at the University of Alberta’s Convocation Hall on a Hamburg Steinway Model D-274 concert grand piano, while the recital was presented at the same venue on September 11, 2016 at 8:00 p.m. The scholarly notes represent the first academic evaluation of Canadian composer John Burge’s Twenty-Four Preludes (2015), and seek to position this recent composition within a historical context spanning over three centuries. The notes analyze the preludes both as a set and individually, and explore the technical challenges (including various extended techniques), extra-musical associations, pedagogical applications, and theoretical and compositional features of this music. The scholarly notes also reflect on the challenges of performing the complete set of preludes in a live concert, and discuss the nature of the keyboard idioms found in the work. Finally, by considering large-scale connections within the Twenty-Four Preludes, and by comparing the work to other piano works in the same genre or of a similar scale, this essay evaluates the significance of Burge’s composition, both within the landscape of Canadian piano music, and within the broader piano literature as a whole. Supplemental material containing audio and video files related to this thesis is available at https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/r/j678s4kw8b