Digital Commons Network^™

Rachmaninoff And The Flexibility Of The Score: Issues Regarding Performance Practice, Tanya Gabrielian

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Sergei Rachmaninoff’s piano music is a staple of piano literature, but academia has been slower to embrace his works. Because he continued to compose firmly in the Romantic tradition at a time when Debussy, Stravinsky, and Schoenberg variously represented the vanguard of composition, Rachmaninoff’s popularity has consequently not been as robust in the musicological community. He left a rich legacy of recorded material which provides a first-hand account of his approach to musical interpretation. Few have analyzed Rachmaninoff’s recordings in great detail, and there are even fewer studies addressing Rachmaninoff’s performances of works by other composers.

The aim of this …

A Translation And Analysis Of Japan’S Seminal Lesbian Studies Work, Indiana Scarlet Brown

East Asian Studies

I translated Kakefuda Hiroko’s seminal lesbian studies book “‘Rezubian’ de aru to iu koto” 「レズビアン」である、ということ (On Being a ‘Lesbian’) in order to critically analyze her assertions and theories. This publication made a great impact in Japan during the 1990s by alleviating feelings of isolation and catalyzing the expansion of media specifically geared toward sexual minorities. I chose to analyze this text as well as Judith Butler’s Gender Trouble for each author’s nuanced interrogation of how their readers can reconsider and challenge the realities we may take for granted. In this project, I seek to add to my understanding of what …

An Exploration And Analysis Of The Unaccompanied Viola Sonatas Of Günter Raphael, Gregory K. Williams

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Günter Raphael (1903–1960) was a skillful German-Jewish composer, organist, pianist, violinist and violist largely unknown outside of Europe. Although he is best known for his sacred choral and keyboard music, he was prolific in composing for strings, especially for his beloved viola. Raphael's unaccompanied viola sonatas are particularly fascinating to study and perform because of their complex harmonies and sonorities, and rhythmic and technical challenges.

This dissertation offers the first significant English-language biographical account of Raphael’s life, a thorough analysis of his unaccompanied viola literature, and performance issues through annotated passages and notes on interpretation. This dissertation also examines the …

The Significance Of Aram Khachaturian And His Piano Concerto, Sarah M. Dardarian

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Aram Khachaturian, a Soviet-era Armenian composer, wrote his Piano Concerto in D♭ major in 1936. He was born in Tbilisi, Georgia to an Armenian family and moved to Moscow for his musical training at the age of nineteen. As a child, he was exposed to Eastern music of the Transcaucasus, which remained a lasting influence in his music. He created a unique musical sound that includes Eastern and Western elements. Khachaturian’s music achieved success early in his career. The Piano Concerto, written during his time as a post-graduate student under Myaskovsky, remains one of his best-known works.

Khachaturian is one …

The Logic Of Internal Relations, Jake S. Cardillo

Senior Projects Spring 2018

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Social Studies of Bard College.

A Pedagogical Analysis Of Select Etudes From Jakob Dont’S 24 Etudes And Caprices, Op. 35, Daniella Greene

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

The study of etudes is essential for all musicians to learn and practice the technical challenges of their instrument in a practical way. There is a large selection of etudes for the violin, created and collected by numerous composers targeted for all levels of playing. This document will focus on a select number of etudes from the first half of “24 Etudes and Caprices, Opus 35,” by Jakob Dont. The analysis of the etudes will include descriptions of the technical challenges in the left and right hands, recommended practice sequences, and variations on the etude to further challenge the student …

Designing The Teacher: Applying 'Design Thinking' To Improve Composition Pedagogy And Practice, Jordan Nicole Newman

Online Theses and Dissertations

College composition courses have conventionally relied on alphabetic, print writing as the primary method for constructing meaning, but contemporary communication practices are increasingly multimodal and media-based (Palmeri, 2012; Yancey, 2011). While many teachers and scholars advocate that students benefit from engaging in the production of multimodal texts, fewer educators create digital and new media products themselves. Through a meta-analytical approach, this project explores the potentials that the act of design offers teacher-scholars for improving their pedagogy and practice. Utilizing a design thinking framework, the generative analysis of established scholarship, primary research, and authentic experiences provided significant insights into the cognitive, …

Compositional Craft And Theory Across Tonal Languages, Liam Butchart

Honors Theses

This paper accompanies Liam Butchart's senior honors voice recital and his composition for the Colby Symphony Orchestra, Genevan Overture. The essay examines how form and cadence, two integral components of compositional craft, have been utilized by composers who either were included in the voice recital or were major influences on the composition. Specifically, the paper analyzes how different composers end their musical sentences similarly and differently through the lens of structurally-relevant cadences.

Exploring The Past, Present, And Future Of Romanticism: Analyses With Brief Biographies Of Works Performed In A Senior Recital, Jordan Langberg Hastings

Honors Theses and Capstones

A melodic and harmonic analysis of four instrumental works performed in a senior recital is presented in this thesis with brief biographical outlines of each composer. Three of the works, Johann Wenzel Kalliwoda's Morceau de Salon, Edmund Rubbra's Sonata in C, and Robert Schumann's Three Romances are written for oboe and piano. The remaining piece, Paul Hindemith's English Horn Sonata, is written for English horn and piano. The author provides a detailed and methodical approach for understanding the functionality of each piece.