The Combination Of Diverse Musical Styles: The Research On The Piano Sonata Op.26of Samuel Barber

This article is based on the piano sonata Op.26of Samuel Barber, an American composer,analysis on the feature of this work, such as the history of composer, musical structure, musicalelements and other musical traits, to discourse the diverse musical styles in the piano sonata.The body of the dissertation included three parts: The first part discusses the historicalbackground of American serious music in the end of19thcentury and the20thcentury, itsinfluences on the Barber’s musical style, and to introduce the biography, his creative staging,and the edition choosing of piano sonata Op.26. The second part is the analysis on the mainmusical elements of piano sonata Op.26, included musical forms of four movements; the usageof traditional rhythm, Polyrhythm and Ragtime in early jazz music; both homophonic musicalstyle in the1st,2nd,3rdmovement and polyphonic musical style in the4thmovement; meanwhile,fragments using of the twelve-tone lead to the highly chromatic tunes in the piano sonata thatintegrated the blood of atonality and the melody line of tonality. In the three part, writer set as aperspective of the pianist to research the different musical styles in each movement of Barber’spiano sonata, such as the Neo-Romanticism in the first movement, the Impressionism in thesecond movement, a retro style----Baroque in the third movement, and the Neo-Classicism in thefourth movement, to discuss the pedaling of diverse musical styles and the interpretation of thesticking point in each movement.