Musicology Commons^™

Heinrich Schenker’S Early Approach To Form, 1895–1921: Implications For His Late Work And Its Reception, Jason A. Hooper

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation constructs Heinrich Schenker’s early approach to form and traces its development as his organic theory of transformational voice leading emerged in the early 1920s. Schenker’s late approach to form is then briefly reconsidered from this newfound perspective.

Chapter 1 defines the nineteenth-century Formenlehre tradition established by A. B. Marx and passed down to Anton Bruckner through his studies in model composition, leading to Schenker himself. Chapter 2 presents Schenker’s early approach to form in a generative fashion, demonstrating how a single motive can grow into a large thematic group unified by a single key area or an economy …

The French Enlightenment And Two Men: Napoleon Bonaparte And Beethoven, Kate Pisarczyk, Zach Hall, Nelle Conley

2017 Festschrift: Beethoven's <em>Symphony No. 3, Op. 55</em>

Many of the philosophies developed during the French Enlightenment circulated around nature and human emotions. These philosophies were written by men, such as Diderot, in the Encyclopedia. Both Napoleon Bonaparte and Ludwig van Beethoven were able to exemplify the French Enlightenment through their representations of self-determination and expertise at their crafts; however, both men experienced pitfalls that greatly affected their careers. Napoleon’s was so detrimental to his career that he was exiled to a small island; whereas, Beethoven took the negativity surrounding the Heiligenstadt Testament and used these feelings to write the Eroica. This symphony was able to exemplify …

The Psychology Of Beethoven And The Eroica Symphony, Sean P. Harty, Rebekah K. Gohl, Dana J. Burhorn, Joshua S. Morano

2017 Festschrift: Beethoven's <em>Symphony No. 3, Op. 55</em>

As a concert pianist and chapel organist, Beethoven rose to a fame in Vienna which allowed him patrons and friends who would support his compositions. One such patron was Count Waldstein, who claimed that Beethoven would inherit the spirit of Mozart in his famous prediction of Beethoven’s success. To study composition Beethoven turned to two prominent Viennese composers: Haydn and Salieri. As his fame grew, his health decreased until he was diagnosed with deafness and moved to Heiligenstadt. Here Beethoven wrote a letter to his brothers called the Heiligenstadt Testament, which was never sent but expressed his troubled mental …

Beethoven's Eroica Sketchbooks: From Scribbles To Symphony, Victoria R. Kleeman, Katelyn Thurlby, Caitlin A. Thom, Monica Gil

2017 Festschrift: Beethoven's <em>Symphony No. 3, Op. 55</em>

This paper will help readers to gain new insights on Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3 in E-flat Op. 55, also known as Eroica, by exploring the sketches related to this symphony. The background of the piece is discussed, and the sketches have been compared to the completed symphony. Beethoven’s sketching process was dramatically different from other composers of his time, and his sketches included even more musical material than was eventually included in the symphony.

Benefactors, Bonds, And Beholders: The Beliefs And Reality Behind Beethoven’S Behavior, Olivia M. Weismann, Abigail L. Smith, Moira R. Dunn, Kathryn E. Krajewski

2017 Festschrift: Beethoven's <em>Symphony No. 3, Op. 55</em>

This paper will explore the relationships which Beethoven had during the years he composed and premiered his Eroica Symphony. Some of the individuals who will be discussed in this paper include Prince Lobkowitz, Ferdinand Ries, and Franz Wegeler. After learning about the nature of these relationships, the reader should begin to realize that Beethoven’s notoriously irrational or ill-tempered behavior was only one facet of his life.

Song Reconsidered: Words And Music, Music And Poetry, Lawrence Kramer

Art History and Music Faculty Publications

This revised version of an essay first published in 1984 sustains the impetus of the original to upend the traditional understanding of song, in particular of art song, as a harmonious fusion of words and music. Song in general, and art songs or Lieder in particular with their generically mandated dependence on preexisting poetic texts, produces a much wider range of text-music relationships than mere fusion, many of them riddled with tension, cross-purposes, and even outright antagonism. Among song genres, the Lied stands out historically for giving prominence to the diversity of these relationships, starting in the early nineteenth century. …

“Young Men Of Erin, Our Dead Are Calling”: Death, Immortality And The Otherworld In Modern Irish Republican Ballads, Seán Ó Cadhla

Articles

Irish physical-force Republicanism has long been noted for its tendency to promote the tropes of martyrdom and immortality as core tenets of its ideological belief system. This essay sets out to examine the genre of Republican death ballads so as to identify how such essentialist concepts are represented and promoted within the attendant song tradition. Particular attention will be paid to works that deploy overtly supernatural tropes in order to articulate the key Republican concept of heroic immortality. The present research will demonstrate the consistency with which such narrative devices have been retained within the Republican song tradition into the …

Investigating Twenty-Five Volumes Of The Flutist Quarterly: A Content Analysis, Maile Delores Mills

Online Theses and Dissertations

This study examines scholarly articles in twenty-five volumes of The Flutist Quarterly, which is published by the National Flute Association. Articles were specifically examined for emerging categories, and frequency and percentages of each was noted. In addition, major trends that have occurred within the periodical over the past twenty-five years were examined. Using a content analysis, N = 391 articles were coded to fit into ten prominent categories: artist profile, career-related, composition, health, historical, instrument, interview, pedagogy, performance practice, and other. Results indicated that "Artist Profile" (21.99%, n = 86), "Interview" (18.93%, n = 74), and "Historical" (16.11%, n …

A Study Of Acculturation In Chinese-Mongolian Er’Rentai Folk Opera, Luyin Shao

Theses and Dissertations--Music

Er’rentai, or Mongolian dance and song duets, is a genre of folk opera in the Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region. Er’rentai performances can be categorized into two styles—the “western-style” and the “eastern-style.” The aim of this thesis is to explore the acculturation in Chinese-Mongolian er’rentai genre in the following ways. First, I address the historical background of the western-style er’rentai. Then, I draw on fieldwork with Huo Banzhu, a famous er’rentai musician, to introduce contemporary state of er’rentai's development. Finally, I employ musical analysis to demonstrate the borrowings of Mongolian music and culture in the formation and transmission …

The Relationship Between Lowell Mason And The Boston Handel And Haydn Society, 1815-1827, Todd R. Jones

Theses and Dissertations--Music

The relationship between Lowell Mason (1792–1872) and the Boston Handel and Haydn Society (est. 1815) has long been recognized as a crucial development in the history of American music. In 1821, Mason and the HHS contracted to publish a collection of church music that Mason had edited. While living in Savannah, GA, Mason had imported several recent British collections that adapted for church tunes works by Franz Joseph Haydn, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ludwig van Beethoven, and Ignaz Pleyel. His study with German émigré Frederick L. Abel allowed him to harmonize older tunes in standard counterpoint. In the historiography of American …

A Select Survey Of Choral Arrangements Based On The Songs Of Stephen Foster Tracing Developments In Music And Textual Changes Through The Twentieth And Twenty-First Centuries, Perry K. Ward

Theses and Dissertations--Music

Stephen Foster is acknowledged as America’s first composer of popular music. His legacy can be seen in the number of songs that are embedded in our cultural heritage – “Oh! Susanna,” “Beautiful Dreamer,” and “My Old Kentucky Home,” are but a very few of his most popular works. Stephen Foster’s songs have been incorporated into every facet of American culture including both popular and classical musical culture, television, and film. However, his legacy is complicated as it is tainted by connections to blackface minstrelsy in some works. This document seeks to trace the threads of racial sensitivity and cultural appropriation …

An Exploration And Application Of Lieder Performance Practices And Compositional Techniques Towards The Poetic And Musical Structures Of Robert Schumann's Mignon Lieder, Clarissa Noel Lewandowski

Theses and Dissertations

The author has explored the poetic elements and musical settings of “Mignon Lieder” composed by Robert Schumann based on the text from Johann Wolfgang Goethe’s Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship. The author has compared the poetic and musical structures of each song from the “Mignon Lieder”, in order to capture the essence of Schumann’s compositional style as well as the performance practice needed specifically for his lieder. These topics are directly linked to the close relationship between text and music and the ability to blend the two for a meaningful performance. Also, an analysis of Mignon, the character of which the “Mignon …

Louden Hugely: The Piano Music Of Percy Grainger, Jackson Carruthers

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

Percy Aldridge Grainger (1882-1961) was an Australian pianist and composer. While highly esteemed during his lifetime, Grainger's music has largely fallen into neglect outside the world of the wind band. However, Grainger left a vast quantity of highly idiomatic and meritorious piano music which deserves greater acceptance. To this end, this paper makes a survey of Grainger's output for piano, to show the merit of his music and prove that it remains relevant even today.

NapoléOn Coste: Composer And Guitarist In The Musical Life Of 19th-Century Paris By Ari Van Vliet, Richard Long

Soundboard Scholar

Napoleon Coste: Composer and Guitarist in the Musical Life of 19th-Century Paris, by Van Vliet, Ari is reviewed.

La Guitare = The Guitar = La Chitarra, Paris, 1650-1950, Addendum, By Daniel Sinier And FrançOise De Ridder, Richard Long

Soundboard Scholar

La Guitare = The Guitar = La Chitarra, Paris, 1650-1950, Addendum, by Sinier, Daniel and Francoise de Ridder is reviewed.

Finding Home: Creating A Video Game Soundtrack, Samantha Chase

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this lecture recital was to reflect on the characteristics of video game music, how those characteristics were shaped through technological advancements in the industry, and how to apply them to composition. Due to the limitations of early video game technology and memory space, video game composers were extremely limited. Composers worked through these limitations by composing with limited range and timbres, looping, and extensive use of ostinato. Even though modern day composers are not faced with this challenge, many still rely heavily on these techniques as they have become iconic of video game music. Video game composers …

New Voices In Old Bodies: A Study Of “Recycled” Musical Instruments With A Focus On The Hahn Collection In The Deutsches Museum, By Panagiotis Poulopoulos, Richard Long

Soundboard Scholar

New Voices in Old Bodies: A Study of "Recycled" Musical Instruments with a Focus on the Hahn Collection in the Deutsches Museum, album by Poulopoulos, Panagiotis is reviewed.

The Russian Guitar 1800-1850 (Timofeyev And Schneiderman), Stanley Yates

Soundboard Scholar

The Russian Guitar 1800-1850, album by Oleg Timofeyev and John Schneiderman is reviewed.

A Newly Discovered Letter Of 1827 By Fernando Sor, Erik Stenstadvold

Soundboard Scholar

This article discusses a hitherto unknown letter, written by Sor in Saint Petersburg in April 1827. It provides new insight into the publishing and personal relationship between Sor and his Paris publisher, Antoine Meissonnier, to whom the letter was addressed. We learn about three airs with variations Sor was busy composing at the time; he was particularly pleased with the variations Meissonnier later published as op. 30. The letter also mentions some unknown Sor works, including a book of drafts at Málaga, and it reveals that Meissonnier had published, without Sor’s knowledge, music that he had received from sources other …

Guitar Music In Collections: A New Web-Based Index Is Launched, Ellwood Colahan

Soundboard Scholar

Is there any really good way to locate specific pieces of guitar music within published collections and anthologies? Might there be already a best way? Anyone who has taught or studied classical guitar is familiar with collections like Das Gitarrespiel or the Noad anthologies. But it is hard to remember with accuracy which pieces are in which of these editions or in dozens of others like them. Library and trade catalogs are not of much help. What is needed for this problem is in-depth indexing rather than traditional cataloging. These print indexes of song anthologies and collections have more recently …