Recorded interpretations of Chopin Preludes: Performer’s choice of score events for emphasis and emotional communication

What structural features characterize individual performers’ styles? To what extent do eminent pianists agree on segmentation and rendering of musical phrases? How much do they agree on selection of score events (accents) for local emphasis, and how to emphasize them? How do these choices influence the emotional responses of listeners? How musical expertise and cognitive style of listening influences listeners’ responses? Our hypothesis is that the location of the particular points emphasized by performers by mean of expressive deviations in timing and dynamics can provide some clues as to a performer’s interpretation and communication of emotions. By asking 24 expert musicians to listen to 16 eminent interpretations of two Chopin Preludes op. 28 (no. 7 and no. 11), and provide information about perceived segmentation and emphasis on local events, as well as on the main emotions associated to these pieces, we extract similarities in the segmentation and emphasis on local events (phrases’ climaxes and accents), and discuss striking differences across the performances. We group performances by cluster analysis and consider each cluster as an interpretative style. We also correlate interpretative styles with intended emotion. Finally, we discuss results in the light of participants’ musical expertise and cognitive style of listening.