Digital Commons Network^™

Musical Introductions To Cavalleria Rusticana: Giuseppe Perrotta's "Bozzetto Sinfonico" And Pietro Mascagni's "Preludio", Ronaldo Augusto Teles Dos Santos

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Giovanni Verga’s Cavalleria rusticana has inspired a variety of musical works, among them Giuseppe Perrotta’s “Bozzetto sinfonico” (an overture to Verga’s play), and Pietro Mascagni’s Cavalleria rusticana (a one-act opera based on a libretto by Giovanni Targioni-Tozzetti and Guido Menasci). Each composition represents a genre on which scholarship is scarce: late nineteenth-century incidental music and the late nineteenth-century operatic prelude. Considering both Perrotta’s “Bozzetto sinfonico” and Mascagni’s “Preludio” as musical introductions to stage works, this study undertakes a complete hermeneutic analysis of both works (chapters 2 and 3). The analysis of Perrotta’s “Bozzetto sinfonico” is guided by a letter in …

Performers As Teachers: A Case Study On How Two El Sistema-Inspired Teaching Artists' Performance Identities Manifested During Instruction, Alicia J. Monroe

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Kids’ Orchestra (KO) is an afterschool El Sistema-inspired program in Baton Rouge, Louisiana with a Title I school district, which employs a high percentage of musicians who identify strongly as performers. During the 2017-2018 school year, 52 of 59 KO teaching artists were considered professional musicians with training in music performance, with no educational background and/or prior experience in music education.

The recent development of ESI programs across the United States has fostered claims of using music education as a way to bring social change to the community it works in. Research exploring the specific nature of the pedagogy …

A Conductor's Guide To Gabriel Jackson's To The Field Of Stars, Joshua Glenn Cheney

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Gabriel Jackson is one of Great Britain’s most performed living composers. He is a prolific writer, having composed choral and instrumental works for ensembles and performers around the world. Currently, commissions include a setting of the Stabat Mater for the tenth anniversary of the Marian Consort, an English professional ensemble under the direction of Rory McCleery. Other recent commissions include The Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ (completed for the 750th anniversary of Merton College, Oxford in April, 2014), In Nomine Domini (for the BBC Proms in 2010) and To the Field of Stars, the subject of this dissertation.

The …

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 Performance Guide To New Studies For Clarinet By Louis Desantis, Samuel Schreiber

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Louis DeSantis (1893-1940) was a prominent Italian-American clarinetist during the twentieth century. His musical training began in Naples and after immigrating to America in 1912, he held principal clarinet positions with the Chicago Civic Opera Company (1914-1917), St. Louis Symphony Orchestra (1925-1926), Cleveland Orchestra (1926-1929), Philadelphia Orchestra (1930) and the CBS Symphony Orchestra (1931-1940).

Louis DeSantis’s New Studies for Clarinet offers the clarinetist a chance to further familiarize himself with selected orchestral excerpts while also exploring the beautiful aspects of the Italian “bel canto” singing style. The orchestral excerpts come from Ambroise Thomas’s Mignon, Franz Liszt’s Second Hungarian Rhapsody …

Concerto For Violin And Percussion Orchestra By Lou Harrison: A Study Guide, Deborah Sophia Carneiro Ribeiro

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Lou Harrison is an American composer whose importance has been somehow overlooked. Amidst the modernist composers of the early 1940’s he was one of the most individualistic, which in turn, made him one of the most unique composers to come out of that era. Harrison’s name is mainly associated with percussion and the gamelan. However, he wrote for much more than just that. The purpose of this dissertation is to facilitate an understanding of Lou Harrison and his Concerto for Violin and Percussion Orchestra, in the hopes of making his music accessible to the more conservative musician.

My research starts …

A Performer’S Guide To Poema De Sete Faces, Song Cycle By Jeffrey Perry, Paulo Henrique Campos Silva

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The American composer Jeffrey Perry composed the song cycle Poema de sete faces (Poem of seven faces), for tenor or soprano and piano, based on the poem of the same name by Carlos Drummond de Andrade, one of the greatest Brazilian modernist poets of the 20th century. Both Drummond’s poem and Perry’s music were written to be open to multiple interpretations. Together, the possibilities for their interpretation are even broader. This dissertation discusses the art that emerges at the intersection of the poem and the music from the perspective of the singer. I present a biography and an overview of …

Generating Audio Using Recurrent Neural Networks, Andrew Pfalz

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Long Short Term Memory cells are a type of recurrent neural network that perform well when predicting sequence data. This works presents four approaches to modeling audio data. The models are trained to predict either raw audio samples or magnitude spectrum windows based on prior input audio. In a process called sampling, the models can then be employed to generate new audio using what they learned about the data they were trained on.

Four methods for sampling are presented. The first has the model predict a vector for each vector in the input. The second has the model predict one …

Mari Folk Music Influences On Andrei Eshpai's Viola Concerto, Vengerskie Napevy (Hungarian Tunes), And A Transcription Of Hungarian Tunes For Viola In The Viola Repertoire, Anna Petrovna Ivanova

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Andrei Eshpai was one of the most renown composers who drew on the Mari folk music traditions, within the confines of Western classical music. One of the main purposes of the research is to show how the Mari folk music was applied in Eshpai’s compositions for the viola. In the current research, I will explain the similarity between folk music of Mari and Hungary because the researched composition Hungarian Tunes by Eshpai is based on Mari tunes, however is called Hungarian Tunes. Another purpose of this research is to provide musical analysis and a performance guide for the compositions, where …

The Interval Dissonance Rate In Chopin’S Études Op. 10, Nos. 1-4: Dissecting Arpeggiation, Chromaticism, And Linear Progressions, Nikita Mamedov

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Chopin’s twenty-seven piano études display the composer’s poetic musical language, uniting keyboard techniques, virtuosity, and artistic imagery, while preserving Romantic lyricism and songfulness. Each of these studies is unique in its set of pianistic challenges, compositional processes, and difficulty level. Schenkerian analysis provides an interpretation of relationships between the notes that constitute the harmony and the melody. This type of analysis allows one to understand the theoretical aspects that are necessary to play Chopin’s études. The Schenkerian theories can be used to amalgamate pianism and performance with harmony and analysis. Furthermore, the Schenkerian understanding of these études provides an analytical …

Paul Hindemith's Cello Concerto (1940): A Short History And An Ongoing Personal Quest Toward Its Comprehension, Mastery, And Performance, Eunbi Kim

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

ABSTRACT

I was introduced Paul Hindemith’s Cello Concerto (1940) in 2015, my first year as a Doctoral Student. Admittedly, this piece was not very attractive to me. However, I tried to embrace this work, and experience it as a new adventure in ear training, technical challenge and style. Several weeks later, after many frustrating hours of practice, I closed this music because so many elements of this composer’s sound were unfamiliar and foreign to me, to which I could not easily relate. Even though I had listened and examined this work for these initial weeks, I felt horribly under-prepared, musically …

A Conductor's Guide To Ariel Ramirez's Misa Por La Paz Y La Justicia, Andrew David Alegria

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The purpose of this monograph is to establish that Ariel Ramírez Misa Por La Paz y La Justicia is a significant choral work of the twentieth century that expresses the idea of peace during a time of disorder. My study will focus mostly on an analysis of the work, but will also provide additional information on the life of the composer. This will afford future conductors a resource on the Mass. My hope is that with this in-depth study of the work, conductors and/or ensembles will be more willing to perform this Mass. The parallels between the historical period in …

A Rhythmic Transcription And Spectral Analysis Of Luciano Berio's Thema (Omaggio A Joyce), Christopher C. Mccardle

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Thema (Omaggio A Joyce), composed by Luciano Berio resides within a tempo of 80 beats per minute. The discovery of a constant tempo allowed for a precise rhythmic transcription to be created which found musical structures including large formal sections, subsections, phrases, rhythmic and melodic motives, layers, and dialogue. Analysis of the rhythmic phrases shows that electroacoustic music can have a controlled structure and that these structures earned Thema an enduring legacy of masterpiece. The transcription provides a road-map to compare and contrast different elements that reoccur throughout Thema. The work was composed with a well thought-out and …

An Annotated Bibliography Of Percussion Works By Stanley Leonard, Kyle Douglas Cherwinski

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Timpanist, pedagogue, and composer Stanley Leonard has written over one hundred and twenty pieces for percussion, including solos, ensemble pieces, and method books. Several musical techniques are represented in his body of work, including traditional harmony, twelve-tone technique, graphic notation, and improvisation. The purpose of this document is to catalog all of these items into one source as a reference for other percussionists.

The document begins with biographical information, including his impressive performing career, his years as an educator, and the circumstances that led to his composition career. This required interviewing Leonard as well as reading several of the articles …

The Well-Rounded Musician: A New Degree Path For Horn In Jazz, Lauren M. Braud

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The following document will examine the question of whether horn players should be trained in jazz at the collegiate level. Should research prove that teaching horn players to play jazz is a viable degree, how should it be done? How should it be taught? Should classical training be dropped from the curriculum for these students?

A brief history of jazz and horn players who were well known for their performance and study of jazz are discussed. The main research portion contains a survey of current jazz professors and performers. The survey looks into the formal training of these professors and …

Perceptions Of Religious Music In A Southern U.S. Public Middle School: A Case Study, Emily Marie Mercado

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Intercultural experiences can result in increased knowledge of and positive attitudes towards unfamiliar cultural groups (Neto, Pinto, & Mullet, 2016; Vuoskoski, Clarke, & DeNora, 2017). Deardorff’s (2006) intercultural competence process framework provides a method for exploring and categorizing elements of intercultural competence including attitudes, knowledge/skills, internal outcomes, and external outcomes.

This narrative instrumental case study examined the perceptions of one middle school choir teacher, choir students, the student teacher, the parents, and the vice principal when implementing a researcher-designed unit titled: Religious Choral Music from the Christian, Jewish, and Muslim Worlds. The choir teacher offered a unique perspective as an …

A Cycle Of Giving: Transforming Individuals, Transforming Community In A Louisiana Children's Choir, Jason Paul Bowers

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Kids’ Choir, a community children’s choir in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, formed in 2014 as part of the Kids’ Orchestra organization. The organization, founded in 2011, is El Sistema-inspired—a model developed in 1975 by Venezuelan orchestra conductor, José Abreu. The model’s mission is “to effect social change through music for children with the fewest resources and the greatest need” (Mission Statement, 2017).

El Sistema's focus on social change through musical excellence may hold great promise in the United States where neighborhoods are becoming increasingly diverse. Moreover, the El Sistema philosophy responds directly to issues of segregation still present in the Baton …

Concerto For Horn And Orchestra And Sofia Gubaidulina's Serialism, Michael Paul Mitchell

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This work is in two parts. The first is a composition for horn and orchestra by the author, using a variety of styles that I have learned while at Louisiana State University and inspired by the pieces I have played on the horn. The second part is an analysis of Sofia Gubaidulina’s works that include twelve-tone serial techniques and the devices she uses in them and how her style changed through composing these three pieces, Piano Sonata (1965), Five Etudes for Harp, Double Bass, and Percussion, and Night in Memphis composed in 1968. After these pieces Gubaidulina leaves the …

A Pedagogical Approach To The Waltzes And Tangos For Piano By Francisca Gonzaga, Ana Paula Machado Simoes

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Francisca (Chiquinha) Gonzaga (1847–1935) was an important composer in the development of Brazilian music. She was also a remarkable female personality and broke paradigms in a society dominated by men. In spite of that, her works are not widely performed and studied yet. The goal of this dissertation is to provide a pedagogical approach to her works. This research explores her waltzes and tangos for piano, analyzes their musical, reading and technical difficulties, and provides a graded level for half of them to stimulate their use as repertoire for piano students and performers.

Chiquinha composed 37 waltzes and 30 tangos …

Extended Techniques For Intermediate Violin Students, Mariana Krewer

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

As we reach the end of the second decade of the 21st century, the performance of contemporary music is not a novelty in any concert hall. American orchestras frequently include contemporary works in their programs, and music schools offer specialized classes, ensembles, and even full degrees dedicated to contemporary music. However, for the violin, there are very few resources explaining extended techniques and other recent aesthetic innovations in a didactic manner. Most of the available material is directed at the advanced student or professional player. On the other hand, traditional instructional material often barely glosses over the 20th century repertoire, …

Klezmer Elements In Paul Schoenfield’S Trio For Clarinet, Violin, And Piano: A Violinist’S Perspective, Hannah Phyllis Urdea Marcus

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Paul Schoenfield’s Trio for Clarinet, Violin, and Piano draws extensively on the traditional Klezmer music of the Ashkenazi Jewish people of Eastern Europe. The blending of three very different instruments, as well as the Klezmer elements, unusual for the classically trained musicians, creat difficulties, as well as opportunities, for the composer and for the performers alike.

Music is often considered a language. As with any language, in order to be fluent, one must understand the cultural aspects that shape that language and the people who speak it. The way the performers present a piece greatly influences the way it is …