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Abstract And Acknowledgments, Oliver Chandler

GFA Refereed Monographs

An overview of the contents of the book, plus the author’s acknowledgements.

Basic Pitch-Class Set Theory And Twelve-Tone Glossary, Oliver Chandler

GFA Refereed Monographs

An explanation of terms and symbols used throughout the monograph, together with an introduction to basic pitch-class set theory.

Introduction, Oliver Chandler

GFA Refereed Monographs

While the history of the formation of a modern British guitar repertoire around the central figure of Julian Bream is known in broad brushstrokes, we lack a thoroughgoing, technical understanding of the particular idiom that Bream’s composers developed. Important in the nascent stages of the guitar’s modernist evolution, for example, was its relationship to twelve-tone serialism. Through close readings of individual works by Reginald Smith Brindle (El polifemo de oro, 1956), Denis ApIvor (Variations, 1958), Thomas Wilson (Three Pieces, 1961; Soliloquy, 1969), and Richard Rodney Bennett (Impromptus, 1968; Sonata, 1983), I map the …

Bibliography, Oliver Chandler

GFA Refereed Monographs

No abstract provided.

The Music Of Sylvano Bussotti And Its Interpretation: Biopolitics, Intersubjectivity, And Modernist Canon Formation, Charles A. Rudig

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The music of Italian composer Sylvano Bussotti (1931–2021) presents intentional challenges to interpretation and canonization. These particular challenges and Bussotti’s reasoning for implementing them are interrogated in this dissertation by reading the score to Bussotti’s La Passion selon Sade (1966) through contemporaneous European social theory, philosophy, and political developments. La Passion selon Sade is a theatre piece for a chamber ensemble, with a primary vocal and dramatic role written for mezzo-soprano Catherine Berberian, with whom Bussotti frequently collaborated. Like much of Bussotti’s music from the 1950s and 1960s, the discourse surrounding the piece and its reception largely relates to its …

An Analysis Of György Kurtág’S Officium Breve In Memoriam Andræ Szervánszky For String Quartet Op. 28, Matthew S. Sandahl

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation provides a movement-by-movement analysis of György Kurtág’s third string quartet, Officium breve in memoriam Andræ Szervánszky op. 28. While the work is widely celebrated for its wealth of extra-musical associations and allusions, this analysis is primarily oriented towards the music’s internal relationships, with the contention being that such an approach can help clarify and refine the role that reference and allusion plays in the piece. A close reading is given for each of the work’s fifteen movements.

Gustav Mahler's Symphonies And The Search For Identity, Brian Hailes

Masters Theses

Throughout his life Gustav Mahler (1860-1911) was aware of his role as an outsider and had a deeply conflicted view of his identity. The challenges he faced as a Jew in an overwhelmingly Christian and increasingly anti-Semitic Central Europe, as a German speaker in predominantly Czech speaking Bohemia and Moravia, as a Czech in the Austrian empire, and as an Austrian in a highly militarized but rapidly declining empire in the face of increasing pan-German nationalism, all contributed to this status. At the same time, his diverse early background provided a rich variety of musical experience, leading to an openness …

La Ricarda, Mestres Quadreny I L'Experimentalisme Musical Català Dels Anys Seixanta: De Com L’Arquitectura Va Esdevenir Música I La Música, Arquitectura, Antoni Pizà

Publications and Research

Eren uns temps magnífics per a la creació: els concerts semblaven obres de teatre i les obres de teatre, concerts. Els músics feien d’actors i aquests havien de fer de músics. I la distinció entre el públic i els intèrprets també es diluïa, si és que no s’eliminava del tot. Els semiòlegs —o són semiòtics?— havien explicat que en tot acte comunicatiu hi havia un emissor, un missatge i un receptor; i precisament d’això es tractava, d’eliminar aquestes distincions. Ah, i en molts casos, tampoc no hi havia escenari, ni sala de concerts.

Ethnic Irony In Melvin B. Tolson's "Dark Symphony", Elizabeth Newton

Publications and Research

This article historicizes musical symbolism in Melvin B. Tolson’s poem “Dark Symphony” (1941). In a time when Black writers and musicians alike were encouraged to aspire to European standards of greatness, Tolson’s Afro-modernist poem establishes an ambivalent critical stance toward the genre in its title. In pursuit of a richer understanding of the poet’s attitude, this article situates the poem within histories of Black music, racial uplift, and white supremacy, exploring the poem’s relation to other media from the Harlem Renaissance. It analyzes the changing language across the poem’s sections and, informed by Houston A. Baker Jr.’s study of “mastery …

Quan Barcelona Era ‘Absolument Moderne’, Antoni Pizà

Publications and Research

Talment com París i Berlín, la Barcelona d’entreguerres (c. 1920-1936) va ser un destacat centre internacional de creativitat musical. Arnold Schoenberg, installat en una bella casa modernista al barri de Vallcarca, hi va compondre part de la seva òpera Moses und Aron i l’opus 33b per a piano; Anton Webern, Igor Stravinski, Richard Strauss, Serguei Prokófiev i Béla Bartók hi van dirigir l’Orquestra Pau Casals; i s’hi van estrenar el Concert per a violí i orquestra així com fragments de l’òpera Wozzeck d’Alban Berg.

Gustav Mahler The Protomodernist, Austin M. Doub

Musical Offerings

Steeped in a cultivated European tradition and burdened by several personal tragedies, Gustav Mahler undeniably shaped the course of classical music leading into the twentieth century. Holding fast to late Romantic stylistic conventions including complex rhythmic concepts, emotional and expansive melodies, and a strict adherence to form allowed the forward-thinking composer to seamlessly introduce modern elements into his symphonies. Through Mahler’s commanding symphonic output, the composer successfully maintained strong Austro-German stylistic principles while propelling the genre forward. In these symphonic writings, modern techniques of tonal decentralization, chromaticism, quotation, and paraphrasing are met with cohesive and compelling narratives to create balanced …

The Evolution Of Modern Music: Tradition And Innovation In Bartók, Schoenberg, And Stravinsky, Dan Viggers

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Despite their reputations as musical revolutionaries, Béla Bartók, Arnold Schoenberg, and Igor Stravinsky continually asserted that their styles were not revolutionary, but evolutionary. For each composer, stylistic evolution implied a continuation of the musical traditions and techniques they inherited from their predecessors. While much has been written about the innovative—or revolutionary—aspects of these three composers, less has been written about how their styles connected to the classical tradition. This dissertation attempts to capture the evolutionary aspects of the styles of Bartók, Schoenberg, and Stravinsky. In each chapter, I analyze the interaction of innovative and traditional musical structures. Chapter one discusses …

Music For A New Era: Selected Works Dedicated To Flutist Louis Fleury (1878-1926), Lydia Carroll

Dissertations, 2014-2019

Louis Fleury (1878-1926) was a skilled flutist, respected writer and critic, prolific music editor, and new music enthusiast in France at the turn of the twentieth century. Unfortunately, Fleury’s legacy has been overshadowed by figures such as his teacher Paul Taffanel (1844-1908), as well as his contemporaries, including renowned flutists Philippe Gaubert (1879-1941), Marcel Moyse (1889-1984), and Georges Barrère (1876-1944). Fleury studied with Taffanel at the Paris Conservatoire from 1895-1900. Today Taffanel is regarded as having established the modern French Flute School, which is a tradition of flute playing and pedagogy. The legacy of the French Flute School of the …

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’s understanding of language and …

Frank Zappa And His Conception Of Civilization Phaze Iii, Jeffrey Daniel Jones

Theses and Dissertations--Music

When Frank Zappa died in 1993, he left Civilization Phaze III as a last testament to both his musical and thematic purpose. The work received a handful of reviews in the popular music press, and has subsequently been ignored by both the popular press and, with few exceptions, academia.

Many are the composers whose careers have been thought describe a mid-period mastery, followed by later decline. This presumption seems to have fallen upon Frank Zappa, apparently due to his retirement from the concert stage, and final years writing music on the Synclavier. This thesis seeks to demonstrate that Zappa's compositional …

Tres Danzas Cubanas By Alejandro García Caturla: A Transcription For Wind Orchestra With Accompanying Biographical Sketch And Transcription Method, Darrell Brown

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Alejandro García Caturla was a Modernist Cuban composer of the early 20th Century. In his compositions and orchestrations, Caturla predominantly featured woodwind, brass, and percussion instruments (and incorporated Afro-Cuban percussion instruments). Caturla’s musical vernacular is a hybridization of styles, not just of the colloquial idioms of Cuba and the music of the European avant-garde, but of the unification of the island’s musical cultures. One of Caturla’s earliest, international successes was his orchestral work Tres danzas cubanas written in 1929. This document includes the creation of a new transcription for wind orchestra of the three-movement work. A biographical sketch of Caturla’s …

Choros N. 10 By Heitor Villa-Lobos: Analyzing The Themes And Compositional Techniques Of Brazilian Modernism, Andre Oliveira Campos-Neto

Master's Theses

Heitor Villa-Lobos (b. March 5, 1887 - d. November 17, 1959) can be considered the most important composer in Brazilian music history. Although the composer is listed as one of the most influential composers in the history of the guitar, he reached his peak in his works for piano and symphonic groups. Works such as A Prole do Bebê (1 and 2), and the series of Chôros, came out during an extremely convoluted time, where Brazilian artists engaged in seeking an artistic representation of a unique Brazilian identity. Those works not only satisfied the hunger, but pushed the movement …

Digital Expressionism And Christopher Wheeldon’S Alice’S Adventures In Wonderland: What Contemporary Choreographers Can Learn From Early Twentieth-Century Modernism, Kelly Oden

Butler Journal of Undergraduate Research

How can classical ballet adapt to a world that is in an ever more rapid state of flux? By uncovering an example of the kind of interdisciplinary artistic collaboration that contributed to the thriving artistic environment of the early twentieth century, a model for artistic success emerges. By examining modernism and Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes in relation to Christopher Wheeldon’s groundbreaking 2011 ballet Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, a correlation between the success of the Ballets Russes and the success of Wheeldon is exposed. I argue that by applying the modernist practice of interdisciplinary interaction to his own productions, Wheeldon …

Toward A Postmodern Avant-Garde: Labour, Virtuosity, And Aesthetics In An American New Music Ensemble, John R. Pippen

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This dissertation examines the aesthetic beliefs and labour practices of the American new music ensemble eighth blackbird (lower-case intentional). Drawing on ethnographic research conducted with the ensemble for the past six years, I show how the ensemble responds to specific cultural pressures endemic to the classical music scene, its new music vanguard, and to the contemporary United States. eighth blackbird, I argue, has created an ensemble identity and performance style designed to satisfy numerous audience positions, from experts well-versed in the intricacies of musical techniques to lay-persons unacquainted with the values and practices of new or classical music. This attempt …

At The Threshold: Edgard Varese, Modernism, And The Experience Of Modernity, Robert Jackson Wood

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The writings of composer Edgard Varese have long been celebrated for their often ecstatic, optimistic proclamations about the future of music. With manifesto-like brio, they put forth a vision of radically new instruments and sounds, delineate the parameters for spatially oriented composition, and initiate the discourse of what would become electronic music. Yet just as important for understanding Varese is the other side of the coin: a thematics of failure concerning the music of the present--a failure of old instruments to transcend their limitations, a failure of technique to achieve certain compositional ideals, and a failure of music to connect …

Australia’S Microtonal Modernist: The Life And Works Of Elsie Hamilton (1880-1965), Talisha Goh

Theses : Honours

This dissertation represents the most complete account to date of the life and works of Australian composer Elsie Hamilton (1880-1965). Through examining the theories of the Anthroposophical movement, I demonstrate how her music feeds from this belief system, and also demonstrate how Hamilton’s stance is congruent with the modernists of her generation. In addition, I position Hamilton’s modal system within the complex mathematics of Greek musical theory (as conceived by her collaborator, Kathleen Schlessinger). Finally, I provide modern editions and electronically manipulated sound files to all of Hamilton’s surviving compositions. Elsie Hamilton’s story is fascinating. This dissertation welcomes her into …

In Autumn Rhythm, Daniel Joseph Thompson

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In Autumn Rhythm is a twelve-minute work for orchestra inspired by the improvisational processes and artistic outlook of American painter Jackson Pollock (1912 - 1956). Pollock's work Autumn Rhythm manifests itself in this piece as a web of dense, improvisatory counterpoint that emphasizes aggregate texture over clear linear designs. The form is delineated by a metric palindrome extrapolated from the symmetrical rhythmic design of the opening section.

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 …