Musicology Commons^™

The Theory Of Silence, David R. Kauffman

Musical Offerings

It is quite possible that no piece of music has ever generated the conversation and debate as 4’33.” Written in 1952, this three-movement piece, in which the performer makes no audible sounds, opened up a brand new debate over what elements constitute music. Many musicians, disgusted at the lack of sound, have dismissed Cage’s landmark piece as a joke, something Cage himself was fearful of. It is assumed that a piece like 4’33” is a mindless stunt designed to bring attention to a composer while undermining the Western music tradition. Instead of advancing musical ideas, 4’33” has taken away all …

Randall Thompson's Requiem: A Text Setting Analysis And Recommendations For Performance, Zachary J. Vreeman

Student Research, Creative Activity, and Performance - School of Music

Randall Thompson is a well-known composer of some of the most familiar and accessible American choral music of the twentieth century. His conservative harmonic language and idiomatic writing for voices has made many of his works popular with both amateur and academic choirs. They are particularly admired for their sensitive setting of English text.

In 1958, Thompson wrote a large work titled Requiem, inspired by a young terminally-ill choral conductor, and commissioned by the University of California. Though positively reviewed, it received only a handful of performances, and is little known today outside of a few extracted movements. The …

Bluegrass Nation: A Historical And Cultural Analysis Of America's Truest Music, Leslie Blake Price

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.

Gyorgy Kurtag's Kafka Fragments, Op. 24 : Fragment As Form., Kaitlin Cavanaugh Doyle

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This paper discusses the Kafka Fragments for Soprano and Violin, a work of forty movements composed by Hungarian composer, Gyorgy Kurtag, in 1985 through 1987. The piece is based Kurtag's own compilation of fragments written by Franz Kafka, which were taken from Kafka's diaries, personal letters, and Blue Octavio Notebooks. They are some of the most personal and intimate examples that exist within Kafka's body of writing. The paper primarily addresses Kurtag's compositional process as illustrated through the Kafka Fragments and attempts to provide insight about his especially unique qualities as a composer. The main topics of the paper include …

Metrical Theory And Verdi's Midcentury Operas, William Rothstein

Publications and Research

Both historical and recent theories of meter have tended to assume that meter is a single phenomenon, definable in a single (though perhaps complex) way. Most U.S. theories of meter have been based on a limited repertoire: instrumental music by German composers. Examination of Verdi's mid-century operas, from Macbeth through La traviata (1846–53), suggests that different theoretical approaches may be appropriate for different repertoires. National traditions of composition, depending often on national poetic traditions, may require different ways of hearing and counting, and thus different ways of modeling meter. The metrical theories of Fred Lerdahl and Ray Jackendoff, David Temperley, …

An Intricate Simplicity: Contraries As An Evocation Of The Sublime In Mozart’S Jupiter Symphony, K. 551, Emily Michelle Wuchner

Masters Theses

This thesis explores the eighteenth-century aesthetic of the sublime in application to Mozart’s Symphony No. 41 Jupiter, K. 551. Using Immanuel Kant’s definition of the mathematical sublime and Johan Georg Sulzer’s idea of the sublime, I argue that Mozart achieves this aesthetic through the synthesis of stylistic opposites: the learned and the galant. The culmination of such is best articulated in the fugue found in the Coda of the fourth movement. In this segment, Mozart combines five galant motives into a learned fugue; this intricate combination of stylistic opposites creates an elevated effect, one in keeping with eighteenth-century philosophies …

Defining Englishness In Ralph Vaughan Williams's On Wenlock Edge, David Rugger

Music Graduate Theses

No abstract provided.

The Wdr Big Band: A Brief History, Gabriela A. Richmond

Student Research, Creative Activity, and Performance - School of Music

The years following World War II brought new broadcasting stations to a divided Germany, government regulated radio stations in the East and state regulated stations in the West. Radio broadcasts were a significant cultural source for the Germans in times of reconstruction. Broadcasting stations played much of the familiar Tanz- und Unterhaltungsmusik, reminiscent of earlier times of happiness and prosperity. However, with changes in a new generation’s musical tastes the demand for swing bands declined. Radio stations began to rework their in-house “dance bands” into “jazz bands.” The West Deutscher Rundfunk (WDR), and other broadcast stations, employed jazz musicians …

David Maslanka's Desert Roads, Four Songs For Clarinet And Wind Ensemble: An Analysis And Performer's Guide, Joshua R. Mietz

Student Research, Creative Activity, and Performance - School of Music

Known primarily as a composer for the wind band, few American composers have received the notoriety and widespread acclaim that David Maslanka has since 1970. His works for wind ensemble are now considered standard repertoire and are played frequently by high school, college-level, and professional ensembles alike. Additionally, his works for chamber groups and soloists have continued to gain in popularity. As of the writing of this document, Maslanka has composed concertos for saxophone, euphonium, flute, marimba, trombone, and piano. Early in 2005, he completed his first large-scale work for solo clarinet with wind ensemble accompaniment: Desert Roads. Desert …

Review: Anthology Of Eighteenth-Century Spanish Keyboard Music, Edited By Susanne Skyrm, With Calvert Johnson And John Koster, Oscar E. Macchioni

Oscar Macchioni

University Of South Florida, Tampa. March 6, 2011, Oscar E. Macchioni

Oscar Macchioni

Socialist Realism And Soviet Music: The Case Of Dmitri Shostakovich, Michael Robert Tirman

Undergraduate Honors Thesis Collection

Dmitri Shostakovich was one of the few Soviet musicians able to balance his creative perceptions while adhering to the party‟s needs. Through socio-musical trial and error, Shostakovich was able to become an honest, modernist composer in one of the most difficult environments to be a progressive artist. Each of Shostakovich‟s works contain a piece of his emotional and compositional struggle during his life. He was an honest musician because he valued a variety of different opinions and beliefs that circulated throughout the Soviet Era, and his music vividly reflects this wide array of inspirational material. Although it would be short-sighted …

Progress Report-The Robert Helps Collection, Mahn-Hee Kang

Mahn-Hee Kang

No abstract provided.

Ruth Crawford's "Spiritual Concept": The Sound-Ideals Of An Early American Modernist, 1924-1930, Judith Tick

Judith Tick

This article investigates the musical thought and stylistic evolution of the American modernist composer Ruth Crawford Seeger (1901-1953) in her formative years. It shows the relationship of style and idea to what she termed "spiritual concept": the core of her transcendental modernism. The sources of Crawford's spiritual aesthetics are Theosophy, Eastern religious philosophy, nineteenth-century American Transcendentalism, and the imaginative tradition of Walt Whitman. Thus Crawford drew on an eclectic legacy of ideas that had been linked in American intellectual life since the turn of the century. Documentation of her thought is based on unpublished diaries, poems, and correspondence. The mediation …

The Development Of English Choral Style In Two Early Works Of Ralph Vaughan Williams, Currie Huntington

Music Department Honors Papers

The late 19th century was a time when England was seen from the outside as musically unoriginal. The music community was active, certainly, but no English composer since Handel had reached the level of esteem granted the leading continental composers. Leading up to the turn of the 20th century, though, the early stages of a musical renaissance could be seen, with the rise to prominence of Charles Stanford and Hubert Parry, followed by Elgar and Delius. By 1910, the work of Ralph Vaughan Williams—particularly, the large choral works Toward the Unknown Region and A Sea Symphony—was beginning to be performed …

Influence Of Rap And Hip-Hop Lyrics On Male Body Image And Attitudes Toward Wwomen, Lorena Munoz

McNair Poster Presentations

Rap and hip-hop music are a widely popular and accessible genre of media. Its popularity and controversial lyrics raise questions as to the effects it may have on its audience. This study proposes to investigate the influence of rap and hip-hop music will be correlated with higher mean levels of thin-ideal appearance internalization (INT-GEN), negative attitudes towards women, and cultural expectations of masculinity compared to published normative data. Participants will complete online measures addressing questions about their body image (e.g. drive for muscularity) and attitudes toward women (e.g. objectification and misogyny). Future research should compare the influence of rap and …

Encyclopedia Of Music In Ireland: John Mclachlan, Adrian Smith

Articles

Encyclopedia of Music in Ireland entry on the Irish composer John McLachlan

Encyclopedia Of Music In Ireland: Deirdre Gribbin, Adrian Smith

Articles

Encyclopedia of Music in Ireland entry on the Irish composer Deirdre Gribbin

Encyclopedia Of Music In Ireland: Siobhán Cleary, Adrian Smith

Articles

Encyclopedia of Music in Ireland entry on the Irish composer Siobhán Cleary

Encyclopedia Of Music In Ireland: Michael Holohan, Adrian Smith

Articles

Encyclopedia of Music in Ireland entry on the Irish composer Michael Holohan