Colloquium

Free and open to the public.

Join us for our Fall Music Theory Colloquium with Dr. Alan Dodson, assistant professor of Music at the University of British Columbia.

The Contribution of Performance Expression to Meter and Rhythm in Paderewski's Recording of Chopin's Mazurka in A Minor, op. 17/4
This paper is about meter and rhythm in Chopin's Mazurka in A Minor, op. 17/4, and it concentrates on the effects of expressive details in Paderewski's 1923 recording of the piece upon the metric structures implied in the score.
The methodology is based mainly on Harald Krebs's taxonomy of metrical consonance and dissonance, to which some addenda are proposed, and it is also informed by William Caplin's theory of formal functions, by Robert Philip's categorization scheme for tempo rubato in early recordings, and by recent research in meter perception and empirical performance analysis.
Paderewski's performance practices are shown to enhance intensification processes that span entire phrases or sections, and to highlight the arrival of structurally important events. The paper demonstrates some of the ways in which a rhythmic-metric analysis can be informed and enriched by a consideration of expressive details in recordings, and it also provides a framework for a new appraisal of the rhythmic practices of Paderewski and other non-literalist performers of the past and present.

ALAN DODSON BIO
Prior to his appointment to UBC in July of 2005, Dr. Alan Dodson was a Killam Postdoctoral Fellow and Visiting Assistant Professor at the University of Alberta. Recently a participant in the Mannes Institute for Advanced Studies in Music Theory in New York, he completed the Ph.D. in Music at the University of Western Ontario with a dissertation on the question, "How can music theories designed to illuminate unperformed music (works) be adapted for the purpose of interpreting performances and recordings?" While continuing to ponder this question, Dr. Dodson is also pursuing research on aspects of rhythm and meter and on Schenkerian theory and its history.

He has published in Music Theory Online, Theory and Practice, and the Canadian University Music Review and spoken at conferences and in lecture series in Canada, the US, Scotland, and South Africa.

A committed teacher, he was recently awarded a grant from the University of Alberta's Fund for the Support of International Development Activities to offer three short courses in music theory at the University of Kwa Zulu-Natal in Durban, South Africa, and he has also taught a range of undergraduate and graduate courses at the University of Western Ontario and the University of Alberta.