Musicology Commons^™

The Battle Between Impeccable Intonation And Maximized Modulation, Timothy M. True

Musical Offerings

Equal temperament represents a way of completing the musical circle, and systematically compensating for the Pythagorean comma. Pythagoras discovered this acoustical problem around 550 B.C., and since that time music theorists have debated how to deal with it. The problem is that no perfect solution exists—something must be compromised. As musical styles developed, specific factors and harmonic tendencies led to the gradual adoption of equal temperament. Early in music history, theorists preferred systems which kept acoustical purity relatively intact. Pythagorean intonation and just intonation serve as two examples. However, the move from modality to tonality decentralized the melody ...

The Federal Music Project: An American Voice In Depression-Era Music, Audrey S. Rutt

Musical Offerings

After World War I, America was musically transformed from an outsider in the European classical tradition into a country of musical vibrance and maturity. These great advances, however, were deeply threatened by the Wall Street crash of 1929 and the consequent Great Depression. The nation that, for the first time, was developing an international reputation in the arts now faced a crisis of how to support them. Government sponsorship of the arts through the New Deal Federal One projects allowed struggling artists to survive economically during this era. In the realm of music, however, the Federal Music Project (FMP) had ...

Physicality And Devotion In Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber’S Rosary Sonatas, Roseen Giles

Yale Journal of Music & Religion

The Rosary Sonatas of Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber (1644–1704) for solo violin were likely composed in the late 1670s, and were dedicated to the composer’s patron, the Archbishop of Salzburg Maximilian Gandolph von Kuenburg. The sonatas in this remarkable set of fifteen are preceded by copperplate engravings, each depicting one of the mysteries of the rosary. The pieces display Biber’s extensive use of scordatura, an unusual “discordant” tuning, notated with a semi-tablature in which the visual contours of the notation on the page are at odds with the audible contours of the phrases. Biber’s sonatas are ...

The Material Of The Servant: Theology And Hermeneutics In Handel’S Samson, Sara E. Eckerson

Yale Journal of Music & Religion

George Frideric Handel’s Samson oratorio (HWV 57, 1743) has posed critical difficulty for scholars because of its libretto. The librettist, Newburgh Hamilton, is often accused of making a poor adaption of John Milton’s Samson Agonistes (1671). One of the main points of criticism centers on how Hamilton removed much of Samson’s deliberation from the source text. In this article, however, it will be argued that the way ideas and commentary pass through different voices (namely, from Samson and Micah to the Chorus of Israelites) contributes to the unique interpretation the oratorio puts forward of the Samson narrative ...

1981: One Or Several Aesthetics?, Jacob Norris

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Gilles Deleuze’s monograph on Francis Bacon, The Logic of Sensation (1981), proposes a theory of aesthetic experience that prioritizes the material depths of sensation over stable, identifiable forms. Deleuze’s key references in The Logic of Sensation to playwright Antonin Artaud arouse the suspicion that Artaud’s schizophrenic experience of language, wherein words are reduced to phonetic ramblings, illuminates how Deleuze interprets this chaos of sensation in Bacon’s art. My work therefore calls back to The Logic of Sense (1969) and the first section of his book on Masochism (1967) to explore the waves of consistency between Deleuze ...

Analyzing Genre In Post-Millennial Popular Music, Thomas Johnson

All Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation approaches the broad concept of musical classification by asking a simple if ill-defined question: “what is genre in post-millennial popular music?” Alternatively covert or conspicuous, the issue of genre infects music, writings, and discussions of many stripes, and has become especially relevant with the rise of ubiquitous access to a huge range of musics since the fin du millénaire. The dissertation explores not just popular music made after 2000, but popular music as experienced and structured in the new millennium, including aspects from a wide chronological span of styles within popular music. Specifically, with the increase of digital ...

Strauss And The City: The Reception Of Richard Strauss’S Salome, Elektra, And Der Rosenkavalier Within New York City, 1907–1934, Christopher G. Ogburn

All Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

New York City at the beginning of the twentieth century was growing into its status as one of the world’s great cultural centers. At the same time, across the Atlantic, Richard Strauss was emerging as Germany’s preeminent composer. The city and Strauss, although seemingly unrelated, were more intertwined than it would at first appear. This study examines this connection through a reception history of Strauss’s Salome, Elektra, and Der Rosenkavalier in the city, beginning in 1907 with the New York City premiere of Salome and concluding in 1934 when the opera returned to the Metropolitan’s stage ...

The Political Power Of Carlos Chávez And His Influence Upon Silvestre Revueltas And Blas Galindo, Yolanda Tapia

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This monograph examines the political power of Mexican composer Carlos Chávez (1899–1978) during the first half of the twentieth century in Mexico, and his influence upon the careers and lives of composers Silvestre Revueltas (1899–1940) and Blas Galindo (1910–1993). I show how Carlos Chávez acquired institutional power through various cultural organizations such as the Orquesta Sinfónica de México, the Conservatorio Nacional, Departamento de Bellas Artes, and the Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes, and how his desire to bind music and culture with politics positioned him as the head of the cultural committee of Miguel Aleman’s presidential ...

Orchestra Machines, Old And New, Jonathan De Souza

Jonathan De Souza

Foreword And Front Matter, Nota Bene Editors-In-Chief

Nota Bene: Canadian Undergraduate Journal of Musicology

No abstract provided.

Discriminating Ears: Critical Receptions Of Blackness In The Music Of George Gershwin And William Grant Still, Hannah Edgar

Nota Bene: Canadian Undergraduate Journal of Musicology

At the apex of their careers, composers George Gershwin and William Grant Still produced what they believed were their finest works: respectively, Porgy and Bess (1935), an opera by a white American composer about African American subjects, and Troubled Island (1949), an opera by an African American composer about Haitian subjects. However, both works fared poorly upon their premiere, with critics decrying Porgy and Bess and Troubled Island as “unoperatic.” Besides providing historical context to both operas, this paper argues that the critical rhetoric surrounding them was tinged by racialized notions of what musical “blackness” sounded like, or should sound ...

Cover Songs And Tradition: A Case Study Of Symphonic Metal, Benjamin Hillier

Nota Bene: Canadian Undergraduate Journal of Musicology

This paper examines the role of cover songs in the continuation of tradition, and in the formation of a musical canon. It explores the connections between ‘classical’ and heavy metal music as expressed by musicians of said genres, specifically those who partake in both. Furthermore, I argue that the practice of covering works from the Western art music canon in the metal genre, evinces the consequent development of the symphonic metal sub-genre. An embedded investigation attests to Western art music having inspired numerous metal musicians, who have in turn covered said music as a means to show their respect for ...

A Mythic Heroine In Der Rosenkavalier , Bridget Ramzy

Nota Bene: Canadian Undergraduate Journal of Musicology

This paper explores the Allomatische—Strauss and Hofmannsthal's concept of transformation by means of taking risk—through its application to Der Rosenkavalier's Marie-Therese (the Marschallin). The Allomatische’s very apparent presence throughout Strauss and Hofmannsthal’s collaborations in their “mythic” operas, urges its examination in Der Rosenkavlier. This paper explores the Marschallin's risk in context of gender, arguing that her self-acceptance as an ageing woman is an exceedingly brave act, that in-turn transforms her. In this paper, a character study of the Marschallin in Act I before the transformation, and after in Act III is presented and ...

Not To Be Born Were Best? A Review Of Henry Zajaczkowski's Article On Tchaikovsky's Hidden Program Within The Pathétique Symphony, Céleste Pagniello

Nota Bene: Canadian Undergraduate Journal of Musicology

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s death and final symphony have long been shrouded in mystery. The well-known myth of the symphony’s program suggests that Tchaikovsky left behind a program for his Sixth, to whose existence he hinted throughout his letters and diaries. However, his original program has not been found and divulged after his death. Musicologists have since attempted to reconstruct it from the clues available, although his vague description of it has led to a wide range of speculations. This task is further complicated by the questionable legitimacy of much of the early scholarship surrounding the issue at hand ...

Behind The Bandstand: Jay G. Sims And The Internal Workings Of The Sousa Band, Caitlin D. Mcalister

Nota Bene: Canadian Undergraduate Journal of Musicology

From 1919 to 1932 trombonist, Jay G. Sims, served as the personnel manager for the Sousa Band. The Harry Ransom Center at University of Texas at Austin holds Sim's business correspondences which divulge his crucial role in the band’s operations, shedding light on his contributions to the band's success as a touring group. Notwithstanding so, there is relatively little information about him in the existing scholarship on John Philip Sousa and the Sousa Band. This paper explores Sims’ position as personnel manager for the Sousa Band through an examination of his correspondences. There is particular focus on ...

The Horror Queen's English: Elisabeth Lutyens And The Paradoxes Of Twentieth Century British Music, Rebeca Ramos

Music Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this thesis is to illuminate the paradoxical work of British serialist Elisabeth Lutyens. Musical Englishness in the mid-twentieth century was mainly conceived of as tonal, narrative and folk or folk-inspired. Lutyens was an oddity in the English musical scene as a serialist, but she utilized many of the qualities of traditional Englishness while maintaining a modern, idiomatic sound. Although this combination seems paradoxical, Englishness can be understood in far more inclusive terms than simply tonal, narrative, or folk-like. I begin by defining Englishness as it was perceived and promoted through mainstream music festivals or radio broadcasts from ...

Soundscape Composition: Music As Environmental Activism, Megan A. Reich

Honors Program Theses

Soundscape composition is an emerging genre of experimental music that incorporates sounds from natural environments. While soundscape composers utilize a wide variety of mediums, techniques, and performance contexts, they share a common purpose of encouraging audiences to question and reflect on their relationship to the environment in the age of the “Anthropocene,” enabling listeners to re-connect to the places in which they live through sound. This study asks how soundscape composers use their music as a rhetoric that communicates environmental issues in ways that depart from typical portrayals in mainstream media. Drawing from the works, interviews, and writings of a ...

The Handmaiden Of Gnosis: Music In Esoteric Societies, Justin Andrew Owen

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Western esotericism, or the practice of trying to understand divinity through secret initiatic means, exists in several philosophical strains, which mystics through the ages have formalized into systems of teaching. One aspect that appears in many of the traditions is music. Music is a direct language of the consciousness within esoteric traditions because it does not rely on language to express higher concepts. Just as these societies teach truths mainly through symbolism, they use music, since it lends itself to interpretations beyond the connotation-laden nature of words. This dissertation focuses on three major strains of western esotericism: Rosicrucians, Theosophists, and ...

A Story Of Feminine Sacrifice: The Music, Text, And Biographical Connections In Amy Beach's Concert Aria Jephthah's Daughter, Clarissa E. Aaron

Honors Projects

Jephthah’s Daughter (Op. 53), a concert aria for soprano and orchestra written by Amy Beach (1867-1944) in 1903, has long suffered neglect due to the fate of its manuscript and the fate of Beach’s work in general. This investigation seeks to probe how Beach engaged the Biblical subject matter and mid-1800s French text in her setting. I discuss this engagement through stylistic comparison with the musical traits of her other work, translation comparison between the literal meanings of the original poem and Beach’s English rendition, and contextualization of Beach’s setting within the history of how this ...

Evolving Performance Practice Of Debussy's Piano Preludes, Vivian Buchanan

LSU Master's Theses

Between 1910 and 1912 Claude Debussy recorded twelve of his solo piano works for the player piano company Welte-Mignon. Although Debussy frequently instructed his students to play his music exactly as written, his own recordings are rife with artistic liberties and interpretive freedom. Interestingly, many of the interpretive gestures that Debussy employs in these recordings are consistent with playing techniques utilized by French Baroque keyboardists. This paper will situate Debussy’s own performance in this Baroque playing style. I will first discuss the recording technology used by Welte-Mignon to establish the reliability of these recordings. By studying harpsichord manuals, I ...