Musicology Commons^™

Connection Between Visual Arts And Music: The Painting And Music Of I-Uen Wang Hwang, Yining Jenny Jiang

Dissertations, 2014-2019

This document explores the connection between the visual arts and music, particularly focusing on the similarity between visual and aural artistic expression by analyzing two sets of piano pieces composed by I-Uen Wang Hwang, a contemporary Taiwanese-American composer and artist. The piano pieces are Dream Garden, Series I and II (2000-2004) and Preludes for Piano (2016). Series I of Dream Garden contains two piano solo compositions based on a series of Hwang’s own watercolor works. Each composition has an analogous painting: “The Horn of the Plenty” and “Butterfly Orchid”. Series II includes two compositions written for two pianos: “Red and …

Villa-Lobos's Compositional Techniques And Treatment Of Folk Melodies In Cirandas For Piano, Gustavo Schafaschek

Dissertations

Despite his significance as the most important Latin American composer of the twentieth century, serious analytical studies on the music of the Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos are still few and far between. Recent scholarship has started to demystify the figure of Villa-Lobos as an intuitive composer with no technique, revealing an artist that strove to develop an idiosyncratic musical language. The present document aims to contribute to this new trend in Villa-Lobos’s scholarship by analyzing pieces from the piano cycle Cirandas, W220, considered one of the most important works from the composer’s mature style. Each of the sixteen pieces …

Audio Mastering As A Musical Competency, Matthew T. Shelvock

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

In this dissertation, I demonstrate that audio mastering is a musical competency by elucidating the most significant, and clearly audible, facets of this competence. In fact, the mastering process impacts traditionally valued musical aspects of records, such as timbre and dynamics. By applying the emerging creative scholarship method used within the field of music production studies, this dissertation will aid scholars seeking to hear and understand audio mastering by elucidating its core practices as musical endeavours. And, in so doing, I hope to enable increased clarity and accuracy in future scholarly discussions on the topic of audio mastering, as well …

A Musical Crusade: Reviving The Music Of Berlioz’S Benvenuto Cellini Through A Comparative Statistical, Pedagogical, And Theoretical Analysis, Jessica R. Spafford

Dissertations, 2014-2019

Abstract

Much of the operatic music of the eccentric French composer Hector Berlioz (1803-1869) is overlooked, especially from his first full opera Benvenuto Cellini. This is due in part to many misconceptions surrounding Berlioz’s vocal compositional style, which stem from the political atmosphere at the time of the opera’s premiere in 1838 Paris when ill-willed critics renamed it Malvenuto Cellini. A general ignorance of this work and its music pervades the world of vocal pedagogy, having been excluded from the standard repertoire anthologies, where it can ironically be the most useful. The research presented in this project comprises …

A Study Of Nikolai Medtner's Compositional Technique: Form And Narrative In Tales, Oliver H. Markson

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation delves into the compositional approach of Russian-born composer Nikolai Medtner. A discussion of Medtner’s own words on composition from his book The Muse and Fashion: Being a Defence of the Foundations of the Art of Music is followed by original analyses of four Tales. Focus is placed on the composer’s philosophy regarding the relationship between form and narrative, in association with his expressed warnings of the dangers behind shifting compositional dominance from pure music to extra-musical narrative. The analyses are followed by a discussion of the vital importance of Medtner’s music and writings for future generations of composers. …