Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Strauss And The City: The Reception Of Richard Strauss’S Salome, Elektra, And Der Rosenkavalier Within New York City, 1907–1934, Christopher G. Ogburn

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

New York City at the beginning of the twentieth century was growing into its status as one of the world’s great cultural centers. At the same time, across the Atlantic, Richard Strauss was emerging as Germany’s preeminent composer. The city and Strauss, although seemingly unrelated, were more intertwined than it would at first appear. This study examines this connection through a reception history of Strauss’s Salome, Elektra, and Der Rosenkavalier in the city, beginning in 1907 with the New York City premiere of Salome and concluding in 1934 when the opera returned to the Metropolitan’s stage. The reception …

Rachmaninoff And The Flexibility Of The Score: Issues Regarding Performance Practice, Tanya Gabrielian

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Sergei Rachmaninoff’s piano music is a staple of piano literature, but academia has been slower to embrace his works. Because he continued to compose firmly in the Romantic tradition at a time when Debussy, Stravinsky, and Schoenberg variously represented the vanguard of composition, Rachmaninoff’s popularity has consequently not been as robust in the musicological community. He left a rich legacy of recorded material which provides a first-hand account of his approach to musical interpretation. Few have analyzed Rachmaninoff’s recordings in great detail, and there are even fewer studies addressing Rachmaninoff’s performances of works by other composers.

The aim of this …

Analyzing Genre In Post-Millennial Popular Music, Thomas Johnson

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation approaches the broad concept of musical classification by asking a simple if ill-defined question: “what is genre in post-millennial popular music?” Alternatively covert or conspicuous, the issue of genre infects music, writings, and discussions of many stripes, and has become especially relevant with the rise of ubiquitous access to a huge range of musics since the fin du millénaire. The dissertation explores not just popular music made after 2000, but popular music as experienced and structured in the new millennium, including aspects from a wide chronological span of styles within popular music. Specifically, with the increase of …

Sunken Ii Chords And Inwardness: A Correspondence Complex In Robert Schumann’S Liederjahr Songs, Alexander J.J. Martin

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation advances a new approach to text-music relationships with a view to identifying and exploring a specific, recurring text-music relationship in Schuman’s Liederjahr songs. Chapter 1 proposes to update and restructure the taxonomy of possible text-music relationships. I argue that there are four categories of text-music relationships: two conjunctions, viz., correspondences and Widersprüche; and two disjunctions, viz., Gleichgültigkeiten and Eigenständigkeiten. I am principally interested in exploring how structures and tonal archetypes native to Schenkerian theory may function as musical metaphors for themes, ideas, and imagery in the text; a survey of extant literature reveals that Schenkerian analysts …

Unusual Accidental Signs, Microtonal Inflections, And Marchetto Of Padua, Alan D. Richtmyer

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis addresses the question of how an interval roughly half the width of the minor semitone could be incorporated into the otherwise strictly diatonic framework of the medieval gamut and then asks whether certain unusual accidentals signs found in fourteenth- and early fifteenth-century sources were meant to signal such inflections.

It demonstrates that when a tone is subdivided so as to produce a microtone, the chromatic part that remains must either be made explicit, or must be transferred elsewhere in the scale so that the encompassing framework of the gamut will remain intact. It shows that when the former …

Resonant Texts: The Politics Of Nineteenth-Century African American Music And Print Culture, Paul Fess

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Resonant Texts: the Politics of Nineteenth-Century African American Music and Print Culture, investigates musical sound as a discursive tool African American writers and activists deployed to contest enslavement before the Civil War and claim citizenship after Emancipation. Traditionally, scholars have debated the degree to which nineteenth-century African American music constituted evidence of black culture and marked a persistent African orality that still abides within African American textual production. While these trends inform this project, my inquiry focuses on the ways that writers placed elements of musical sound—such as rhythm, melody, choral singing, and harmony—at the center of their …

Splendid Disarray: The Music Of Andrew Mckenna Lee, Nina Berman

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The music of composer Andrew McKenna Lee spans multiple genres and styles, and does so in a way that draws parallels to the New York City downtown new music scene as well as the progressive and experimental rock scenes. These connections are especially apparent when looking at his 2013 song cycle The Knells, written for Lee’s ensemble, also called The Knells, which he assembled expressly for the purpose of performing this work. The band consists of three female singers singing without vibrato, backed by a rock group, plus percussion and string quartet. Lee deploys these forces to create a sound …

The Son Jarocho Revival: Reinvention And Community Building In A Mexican Music Scene In New York City, Emily J. Williamson

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation analyzes the ways son jarocho (the Mexican regional music, dance, and poetic tradition) and the fandango (the son jarocho communitarian musical celebration), have been used as community-building tools among Mexican and non-Mexican musicians in New York City. Since the late 1970s, the participatory elements of son jarocho have been revitalized for not only the preservation of the fandango, but also for the purpose of creating a community-building tool that can be adapted and applied to create musical communities. Across the U.S. and in Mexico, son jarocho communities have formed, using similar methods of musical instruction, communitarian music making, …

Leonard Bernstein's Piano Music: A Comparative Study Of Selected Works, Leann Osterkamp

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Much of Leonard Bernstein’s piano music is incorporated in his orchestral and theatrical works. The comparison and understanding of how the piano works relate to the orchestral manifestations validates the independence of the piano works, provides new insights into Bernstein’s compositional process, and presents several significant issues of notation and interpretation that can influence the performance practice of both musical versions.

The chronological and historical significance of his piano music has been sometimes inaccurately recorded and/or generalized. In understanding the factual chronological, social, and political relationships behind the piano works and their orchestral manifestations, I argue that the piano works, …

Cellist, Catalyst, Collaborator: The Work Of Charlotte Moorman, Saisha Grayson

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

When classically trained cellist Charlotte Moorman (1933-1991) moved to New York City in 1957, she swiftly positioned herself at the intersection of experimental music, performance, video, and the visual arts. She interpreted works by composers like John Cage, collaborated with artists such as Nam June Paik, and founded and organized the New York Avant Garde Festival from 1963 to 1980. This dissertation argues that Moorman’s career sheds new light on what it meant to be an artist in this post-medium-specific moment and proposes that Moorman’s deterritorialization of authorship exerts pressure on traditional art histories. The generative dynamics of her collaborations …

Party On, Derrida!: A Queer, Deconstructionist Look At Wayne's World, Glam, And The Losers Of Rock And Roll, Michelle A. Arp

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

What do you get when you mix a girl from Long Island, critical theory, a movie based on a Saturday Night Live sketch, David Bowie, and alternative rock of the early 2000s? A lot of losers, a lot of queerness, and plenty of room for deconstruction.

Part performance studies, part queer studies, and part memoir, this study is a cross-genre and experimental analysis of postmodern ideologies, rock and roll, and comedy. More specifically, I use Jacques Derrida’s notion of “the slash” (Of Grammatology, 1967) in relation to high and low culture via comedies, such that of Wayne’s World …

Dancing, Mindfulness, And Our Emotions: Embracing The Mind, Body, And Sole, Alisha M. Collins

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This capstone project examines dance, as an intervention and mindfulness practice that assists with managing our emotions. There is a need for dance therapy in social institutions such as, healthcare facilities, schools, and community centers. Dance therapy has the potential to reduce negative emotions, create mindfulness, improve self-expression, and promote a healthy well-being. I am proposing that dance therapy is applied as a regular practice in social institutions to develop mindfulness and promote emotional stability.

In this study, I argue that dance therapy can contribute to our well-being long term. In addition to this written thesis, a visual component of …

Climax Structure In Late Romantic Opera, Ji Yeon Lee

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

When people listen to music, they tend to perceive dynamic rise and fall, often without preliminary knowledge of musical structures and mechanism. This perception of musical dynamism has long been assumed too intuitive and natural to merit serious academic attention. The present dissertation aims to address this neglect by approaching musical dynamism as a logical, systematic process. A formal analytical model, the climax archetype, is proposed for understanding the workings of musical dynamism; to this end, the dissertation focuses on late Romantic operas, especially the works of Wagner and verismo composers, which are characterized by intense musical, dramatic, and emotional …

A Pedagogical Study Of The "Four Lauds For Solo Violin" By Elliott Carter, Heesun Shin

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Elliott Carter was one of the most influential composers of the past century, leaving a diverse and prolific body of over 150 works to posterity. Along with the Violin Concerto and “Mnemosyné,” the Four Lauds are the only works written for solo violin. Literature on these pieces is not extensive thus far, and this dissertation will provide an introduction to any student who is interested in learning about Carter’s violin music. In the first chapter, I will discuss relevant aspects of Carter’s musical language such as his use of all-trichord hexachord, all-interval trichord, complement union property, and his ideas on …

An Exploration And Analysis Of The Unaccompanied Viola Sonatas Of Günter Raphael, Gregory K. Williams

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Günter Raphael (1903–1960) was a skillful German-Jewish composer, organist, pianist, violinist and violist largely unknown outside of Europe. Although he is best known for his sacred choral and keyboard music, he was prolific in composing for strings, especially for his beloved viola. Raphael's unaccompanied viola sonatas are particularly fascinating to study and perform because of their complex harmonies and sonorities, and rhythmic and technical challenges.

This dissertation offers the first significant English-language biographical account of Raphael’s life, a thorough analysis of his unaccompanied viola literature, and performance issues through annotated passages and notes on interpretation. This dissertation also examines the …

A Performance Analysis Of Scriabin’S Early Piano Works: Sonata-Fantaisie (1886), Allegro Appassionato, Allegro De Concert, And Fantaisie, Soyeon K. Lee

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The piano works of the fascinating and enigmatic Alexander Scriabin have become an integral part of twentieth-century concert repertoire. A prolific composer, these works span his entire compositional life beginning from his adolescent years. Scriabin’s output consists of more than a hundred works for solo piano, mostly miniatures in the form of mazurkas, poems, preludes, waltzes, etudes, nocturnes, impromptus, character pieces, and dances. The ten sonatas have found an enduring place in the repertoire, and have been championed by pianistic giants of the twentieth century, including Horowitz, Rachmaninoff, and Richter. There have been numerous recordings and research devoted to the …

The Musicality Of Salsa Dancers: An Ethnographic Study, Janice Mahinka

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This work analyzes the musical knowledge and aesthetics acquired by improvisatory social salsa dancers who hone close listening skills through corporeal means. The connections that these dancers construct between music, self, and partner make evident an engagement with musicality that can be seen through their demonstration of kinesthetic entrainment, structural feeling of hypermetric conventions, and enactment of expressive microtiming within beat and metric structures. I introduce the concept of timespace to explain how dancers manipulate this physiological experience to create different feelings in a dance, addressing issues that dancers raised in our feedback interviews such as feel, flow, and play. …

Musicking, Discourse, And Identity In Participatory Media Fandom, Aya Esther Hayashi

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In this dissertation, I study three forms of music-making within media fandom and their respective communities: filk, roughly, the folk music of the science fiction and fantasy fandom; wizard rock, a punk/DIY movement inspired by J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter novels; and the YouTube musicals of Team StarKid and AVbyte. I consider their individual histories and the popular music movements and genres that influenced their respective developments. Even though the practices of these three communities are very different, their participants use similar, if identical, discourses when discussing what they do and why they do it, including but not limited to: openness, …

A Performer’S Guide To Astor Piazzolla's Tango-Études Pour Flûte Seule: An Analytical Approach, Asis Reyes

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation aims to give performers deeper insight into the style of the Tango-Études pour flûte seule and tango music in general as they seek to learn and apply tango performance conventions to the Tango-Études and other tango works. Significant research elements of this dissertation include a complete analysis of phrasing, tonality, and formal structure and how these relate to performance in each of the six Tango-Études and an examination of Piazzolla’s compositional use of descending chromatic chords and implied descending lines; my reductions of this voice leading as it appears in the Tango-Études are exclusive to this dissertation. This …

Huérfanos De Orfeo: Poesía Y Música En La Cultura De Los Siglos De Oro, Lorena Uribe Bracho

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation is an attempt to elucidate some aspects of one of the central issues in the history of lyric poetry, which is the complicated interlace of connections between poetry and music. It focusses on the case of early modern Spain, and it studies a large corpus of poetry in Spanish from 1500 to 1700. The corpus includes Renaissance and Baroque poems of many genres and from many sources, both printed and manuscript, by canonical and by lesser known poets, all of which engage with music and musical practice.

I address the questions of how music is involved in poetry’s …