Musicology Commons^™

Claude Debussy: Harmonic Innovations In Historical And Musical Context, Ford Joseph Forqurean

Theses and Dissertations

Claude Debussy's music developed as a product of his environment and culminated in the creation of a unique harmonic vernacular that permeates the twentieth century's tonal language. Through a historical and musical context, his early life through his formative years as a composer will be examined as a natural progression of his environment. The first section of this work will discuss these developments while the second part will analyze the structure and form of the Premiere Rhapsodie for clarinet and piano to illustrate the culmination of this trajectory.

Late Romanticism pushed tonality to its breaking point. Composers were forced to …

Deconstructing David Lang's The Anvil Chorus, Brandon M. Smith

Theses and Dissertations

Usually, when a piece of music is taken out of context, that is, when it is learned and performed without studying the piece, the composer, the musical genre, or the historical significance, the understanding of it for the performer is narrow and limited and the performance is less than ideal. This leads to a substandard realization of the music. Contrarily, a musician should integrate research with the learning process as to enhance the comprehensive understanding of the piece, which ultimately results in a high level of performance. This idea is important for the complex and extensive musical repertoire of the …

Analysis Of Toccata And Fugue In D Minor, Isela Guerra

A with Honors Projects

This analysis will not be given as your typical analysis which is made to makes sense mathematically. We could attempt to do this but at times the very soul of music is sucked out and we lose the imagination and spirit behind it. I know this because I attempted to do this same; for that very reason this analysis will be given as a story. There will be a girl, creatures and fairies. The creature will appear when the sound and feel of the music is ominous. The fairies will appear when the sound and feel is playful. This story …

Was That A Song?, Donald J. Herzog

Articles

Jazz constantly spins off new possibilities, seizing on fusion with rock, new rhythms from Brazil and then "world music," astringent harmonies and atonal combinations from "new" music or twentieth-century "classical," and more. [...]jazz musicians have been relaxing constraints since the beginning. Piano players might keep "comping" or accompanying the soloists with well-chosen chords, but they might roam free or just stop playing.\n Again you can wonder how much of this was deliberately plotted out before the trio hit the stage, how much developed on the spot.

Pierrots Fâchés Avec La Lune: Debussy, Fauré And Ravel During World War 1, Arun Rao

Dissertations

This dissertation proposes to consider the music of French composers Claude Debussy, Gabriel Fauré and Maurice Ravel written during the Great War, under tremendous professional, personal and cultural pressures. These pressures are examined largely through these composers’ correspondence and the writings of contemporary critics, composers and artists in the first two chapters; a selection of their output from the war years, in particular their piano works and their chamber music, is the subject of the third chapter. The aim of the dissertation is to reveal certain aspirations common to all three, aspirations that were motivated, dictated even, by the political …

""A Suitable Soloist For My Piano Concerto": Teresa CarreñO As A Promoter Of Edvard Grieg's Music." Notes. 70.1 (2013): 37-58., Anna E. Kijas

Published Works

Teresa Carreño (1853–1917) first performed Edvard Grieg’s (1843– 1907) Pictures from Folk Life, op. 19 [Folkelivsbilleder] and Piano Concerto in A Minor, op. 16, during her tours in the United States in the early 1880s. She continued to perform his works in the United States and abroad through 1914. Previously overlooked correspondence, reviews, and other primary sources, such as concert programs, housed in the Edvard Grieg Collection in the Bergen Offentlige Bibliothek, and the Teresa Carreño Collection in Archives and Special Collections of the Vassar College Libraries, are examined in this article in order to provide fresh …

Redesigning A Performance Practice: Synergising Woodwind Improvisation With Bespoke Software Technology., Seán Mac Erlaine

Doctoral

This research examines how the designing of a new performance practice based on the incorporation of custom digital signal processing software impacts on solo improvised woodwind performance. Through the development of bespoke software, I investigate how these new technologies can be integrated into solo woodwind performance practice. This research presents a new improvised music practice as well as a suite of new software tools and performance techniques. Through a workshop and performance-­‐based research process, a suite of software processors are developed which respond, and are complementary, to a personalised style of improvised performance. This electronic augmentation of the woodwind instrument …

Performing Jonathan Newman's "Symphony No. 1: My Hands Are A City", Joseph Corey Francis

Dissertations

The purpose of this document is to provide analysis for interpretation of and rehearsal suggestions for Jonathan Newman’s Symphony No. 1: My Hands Are a City (2009). This document serves as the first significant scholarly work on the entire composition and is intended to be a resource for musicians seeking to gain information about the work. Included in the document is a biography of Jonathan Newman, as well as history concerning the commissioning of Symphony No. 1, a formal analysis of the work, and insight to conducting concerns. Information was gathered through formal interviews with Jonathan Newman, Jeff Gershman (Associate …

The Influence Of Plainchant On French Organ Music After The Revolution, David Connolly

Doctoral

The period after the 1789 French Revolution was one of turbulence, musically, socially, culturally and politically. The violence against both people and property meant that the nineteenth century was a time of renewal and regrowth. At all times this was uncertain as numerous political upheavals took place as the French attempted to define their future direction. As with all aspects of culture, organ music experienced a slow regrowth over the course of the long nineteenth century, perhaps being at a particular disadvantage due to its role in the church, an institution which also went through a period of difficulty from …

In Search Of The Original "Skewball", Seán Ó Cadhla

Articles

The well-known horseracing ballad ‘Skewball’ has been widely documented in oral tradition on both sides of the Atlantic, as well as on numerous English broadside printings. It recounts the tale of a mid-eighteenth-century horserace held at The Curragh of Kildare, in which a heavily-backed mare is comprehensively beaten by a relatively unknown skewbald gelding leaving the mare’s owner — along with much of the assembled onlookers — significantly out of pocket. The ballad became widely popularised in North America where it was first published in a song book in 1826 (Benton 1826:3-4). It was later subsumed into African-American song tradition, …

A New Kind Of National: Modified String Quartet Practices In Post-Soviet Eurasia, Adam Taylor Lenz

Masters Theses

This thesis examines the practices of string quartet modification implemented by three post-Soviet Eurasian composers: Franghiz Ali-Zadeh (Azerbaijan), Vache Sharafyan (Armenia), and Dmitri Yanov-Yanovsky (Uzbekistan). After an introduction to the geography of the region and the biographies of the composers, their works containing modified string quartet configurations are examined within three distinct modification practices. These practices consist of the addition of outside instruments, the addition of electronic components, and the alteration of performance practice. The evaluation of these techniques is carried out through musical analysis and examination of cultural context. After each work has been examined, the body of works …

A Study Of Music, Embodiment, And Meaning In The World Of Portal, Helen A. Rowe

Lawrence University Honors Projects

Interactive video game music is a relatively new and quickly expanding art form, incorporating elements of music history, cinema, and video game theory. This study explores how music functions, reveals meaning, and defines player experience within the interactive world of the video games Portal and Portal 2—and how the paradoxical, twisting essence of the Portal world is created and shaped musically. Ultimately, this is a study of the continued existence and relevance of classical music and traditional music history in the futuristic world of video games.

The Self-Fashioning Of A Consummate Musical Orator, Alexis A. Vanzalen

Lawrence University Honors Projects

In 1697 the organist and composer Dieterich Buxtehude (1637-1707) was deemed “world famous” by a guidebook to the German city in which he lived, Lübeck. Such public acclaim for a musician was unusual in this society where musicians were generally looked down upon and stereotyped as dishonorable and picaresque outsiders. In this context, Buxtehude’s situation begs the question, how did he come to have such an esteemed reputation?

As I will argue, Buxtehude actively fashioned his reputation as an adept member of his capitalistic society, a useful civil servant, and an accomplished and complete musician, throughout his life. In large …

Don Januario, Gustavo Leone

Department of Fine & Performing Arts: Faculty Publications and Other Works

Don Januario is a traditional song from Bolivia. It was collected by musicians from the ensemble Florilegium, and published on their CD, Música de las Misiones y de la Plata (Sucre). This is an original version of the song and a series of variations in the style of the local baroque.

The Carols Of The Ritson Manuscript, Bl Add. 5665, At Exeter Cathedral: Repertory And Context, Anastasia S. Pilato

Honors Scholar Theses

The fifteenth century saw the development of a substantial body of English songs known as carols, characterized by a strophe (multiple stanzas of text set to the same music) and refrain. While late medieval carols enjoyed great popularity, the occasions for their performance remain obscure. Carols on both sacred and secular themes abound, written in Latin, vernacular languages, or a mixture of both. Partially as a result of this fluidity, scholars have proposed widely varying theories about the origins and use of these pieces.

This thesis approaches the question of performance contexts for carols of the late Middle Ages through …

Mary In Three Movements, John E. Accola, Jr

Master of Liberal Studies Theses

Mary in Three Movements is an imagined account of how Mary might have felt and observed her experiences through the three most important events of both Christian and human existence, the conception, the birth, and finally the death of her son. I have attempted to remain true to the biblical Marian references which primarily speak to Mary as a young woman in a first century patriarchal Roman Jewish society. Therefore, I have taken these three events and put them to verse for mezzo-soprano with piano accompaniment. The accompanying paper outlines both the historical and musical context in which this project …

The Effects Of Totalitarian Regimes And The Individual On Russian And Soviet Music, Tyler Christian Mills

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

This paper addresses the development of Russian and Soviet music from the 1860’s through Stalin’s terror in the late 1930’s. It focuses on the constraints placed on the composers by the totalitarian regime and how these individual composers were able to not only survive, but leave a greater impact on the development and style of music than the state that was constraining them. The paper focuses on how individual composers were able to use their innovation and talent to create unique material that captivated audiences both at home and abroad.

From Unsung To High-Strung: The Development Of The Viola Through The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, As It Is Used To Introduce Fugues, Anthony Vincent Dell'osso

Music

This paper looks at the development of the viola through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and considers why it has been used to introduce fugues more and more often. The viola has historically been an unimportant filler instrument, but beginning in the nineteenth century, and continuing to the present day, it has been given an increasingly important role in contrapuntal orchestral and chamber music. This study considers twelve pieces in which a fugue is launched by the viola.

Django's Caravan: The Journey Of The Gypsy King, Patrick Ray Monson

Music

The life and musical contribution of Django Reinhardt including musical and visual examples.

Adapting J.S. Bach's Solo Violin Sonatas And Partitas For The Marimba: Broken Chord And Arpeggio Performance Practices, Jason Eugene Mathena

Dissertations

This purpose of this study is to provide the keyboard percussionist with information and examples for breaking chords and properly executing arpeggio passages in J. S. Bach’s solo violin Sonatas and Partitas. Primary sources included Baroque treatises on performance practice and recent scholarship of the past one hundred years. Various editions of the Sonatas and Partitas were surveyed for this document but, in the end, only Bach’s autograph manuscript and Gunther Hausswald’s critical edition were used for the musical examples as well as the marimba transcriptions included in appendices.

Topics covered are appropriate places to break chords and the various …