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The Life And Selected Piano Works Of David Burge, Mary Chung

Dissertations

Although David Burge is recognized as one of the most important American pianists dedicated to contemporary music in the twentieth century, little is known about his contributions as a pedagogue, lecturer, writer, novelist, and, especially, as a composer. This biographical study focuses on three of his piano compositions: Second Sonata, Eclipse II, and Go-Hyang. Each work represents one of three distinct compositional periods: the first reflects the influence of Prokofiev and features characteristics of the neoclassicism; the second marks a turn to experimentalism, atonality, and serialism; and the final indicates the return to a more traditional style that makes use …

Kevin Volans' She Who Sleeps Witha Small Blanket: An Examination Of The Intentions, Reactions, Musical Influences, And Idiomatic Implications, Peter D. Breithaupt

Masters Theses

Using and expanding upon a theoretical model for examining the meaning of music presented by ethnomusicologist Timothy Taylor, one of the leading scholars on composer Kevin Volans and his music, this research will attempt to properly position Volans' percussion solo, She Who Sleeps witha Small Blanket, composed in 1985, within Volans' African Paraphrase classification. It will also attempt to dissociate She Who Sleeps from the claims of hegemonic cultural appropriation that are attached to Volans' African Paraphrase pieces. In his model, Taylor talks about the "inseparable metatext" that surrounds a piece of music and includes the composer's intentions, the listener's …

Randall Thompson's Requiem: A Text Setting Analysis And Recommendations For Performance, Zachary J. Vreeman

Glenn Korff School of Music: Dissertations, Theses, Student Creative Work, and Performances

Randall Thompson is a well-known composer of some of the most familiar and accessible American choral music of the twentieth century. His conservative harmonic language and idiomatic writing for voices has made many of his works popular with both amateur and academic choirs. They are particularly admired for their sensitive setting of English text.

In 1958, Thompson wrote a large work titled Requiem, inspired by a young terminally-ill choral conductor, and commissioned by the University of California. Though positively reviewed, it received only a handful of performances, and is little known today outside of a few extracted movements. The …

The Tardy Recognition Of J.S. Bach's Sonatas And Partitas For Violin Solo, Di Su

Publications and Research

J. S. Bach’s Sonatas and Partitas for Violin Solo (BWV 1001-1006) are among the most important masterpieces in the literature of violin music. They are included in standard repertoire for serious violin students; they are frequently performed in solo recitals; they are recorded by numerous virtuosi; and they are required in major violin competitions. The vast amount of editions also indicates the importance of the works. In Edlund’s catalogue, one finds as many as seventy-seven editions ranging from Simrock (1802) to Henle (1987)

However, the Solos did not enjoy such a prominent status in Bach’s own time and even in …

Metrical Theory And Verdi's Midcentury Operas, William Rothstein

Publications and Research

Both historical and recent theories of meter have tended to assume that meter is a single phenomenon, definable in a single (though perhaps complex) way. Most U.S. theories of meter have been based on a limited repertoire: instrumental music by German composers. Examination of Verdi's mid-century operas, from Macbeth through La traviata (1846–53), suggests that different theoretical approaches may be appropriate for different repertoires. National traditions of composition, depending often on national poetic traditions, may require different ways of hearing and counting, and thus different ways of modeling meter. The metrical theories of Fred Lerdahl and Ray Jackendoff, David Temperley, …

Gyorgy Kurtag's Kafka Fragments, Op. 24 : Fragment As Form., Kaitlin Doyle

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This paper discusses the Kafka Fragments for Soprano and Violin, a work of forty movements composed by Hungarian composer, Gyorgy Kurtag, in 1985 through 1987. The piece is based Kurtag's own compilation of fragments written by Franz Kafka, which were taken from Kafka's diaries, personal letters, and Blue Octavio Notebooks. They are some of the most personal and intimate examples that exist within Kafka's body of writing. The paper primarily addresses Kurtag's compositional process as illustrated through the Kafka Fragments and attempts to provide insight about his especially unique qualities as a composer. The main topics of the paper include …

Defining Englishness In Ralph Vaughan Williams's On Wenlock Edge, David Rugger

Music Graduate Theses

No abstract provided.

The Wdr Big Band: A Brief History, Gabriela A. Richmond

Glenn Korff School of Music: Dissertations, Theses, Student Creative Work, and Performances

The years following World War II brought new broadcasting stations to a divided Germany, government regulated radio stations in the East and state regulated stations in the West. Radio broadcasts were a significant cultural source for the Germans in times of reconstruction. Broadcasting stations played much of the familiar Tanz- und Unterhaltungsmusik, reminiscent of earlier times of happiness and prosperity. However, with changes in a new generation’s musical tastes the demand for swing bands declined. Radio stations began to rework their in-house “dance bands” into “jazz bands.” The West Deutscher Rundfunk (WDR), and other broadcast stations, employed jazz musicians …

David Maslanka's Desert Roads, Four Songs For Clarinet And Wind Ensemble: An Analysis And Performer's Guide, Joshua R. Mietz

Glenn Korff School of Music: Dissertations, Theses, Student Creative Work, and Performances

Known primarily as a composer for the wind band, few American composers have received the notoriety and widespread acclaim that David Maslanka has since 1970. His works for wind ensemble are now considered standard repertoire and are played frequently by high school, college-level, and professional ensembles alike. Additionally, his works for chamber groups and soloists have continued to gain in popularity.  As of the writing of this document, Maslanka has composed concertos for saxophone, euphonium, flute, marimba, trombone, and piano.  Early in 2005, he completed his first large-scale work for solo clarinet with wind ensemble accompaniment:  Desert Roads.  Desert …

Socialist Realism And Soviet Music: The Case Of Dmitri Shostakovich, Michael Robert Tirman

Undergraduate Honors Thesis Collection

Dmitri Shostakovich was one of the few Soviet musicians able to balance his creative perceptions while adhering to the party‟s needs. Through socio-musical trial and error, Shostakovich was able to become an honest, modernist composer in one of the most difficult environments to be a progressive artist. Each of Shostakovich‟s works contain a piece of his emotional and compositional struggle during his life. He was an honest musician because he valued a variety of different opinions and beliefs that circulated throughout the Soviet Era, and his music vividly reflects this wide array of inspirational material. Although it would be short-sighted …

Encyclopedia Of Music In Ireland: Siobhán Cleary, Adrian Smith

Articles

Encyclopedia of Music in Ireland entry on the Irish composer Siobhán Cleary

Encyclopedia Of Music In Ireland: Crash Ensemble, Adrian Smith

Articles

Encyclopedia of Music in Ireland entry on the Crash Ensemble

Encyclopedia Of Music In Ireland: Gráinne Mulvey, Adrian Smith

Articles

Encyclopedia of Music in Ireland entry on the Irish composer Gráinne Mulvey

The Structure And Genesis Of Copland's Quiet City, Stanley V. Kleppinger

Glenn Korff School of Music: Faculty Publications

Aaron Copland’s Quiet City (1940), a one-movement work for trumpet, cor anglais, and strings, derives from incidental music the composer wrote for an unsuccessful and now forgotten Irwin Shaw play. This essay explores in detail the pitch structure of the concert work, suggesting dramatic parallels between the music and Shaw’s play.

The opening of the piece hinges on an anhemitonic pentatonic collection, which becomes the source of significant pitch centres for the whole composition, in that the most prominent pitch classes of each section, when taken together, replicate the collection governing the music’s first and last bars. Both this principle …

Encyclopedia Of Music In Ireland: Rob Canning, Adrian Smith

Articles

Encyclopedia of Music in Ireland entry on the Irish composer Rob Canning

Encyclopedia Of Music In Ireland: Kevin Volans, Adrian Smith

Articles

Encyclopedia of Music in Ireland entry on Kevin Volans

Encyclopedia Of Music In Ireland: Point Theatre, Adrian Smith

Articles

Encyclopedia of Music in Ireland entry on the Point Theatre

Encyclopedia Of Music In Ireland: Royal Hospital Kilmainham, Adrian Smith

Articles

Encyclopedia of Music in Ireland entry on the Royal Hospital Kilmainham

The Development Of English Choral Style In Two Early Works Of Ralph Vaughan Williams, Currie Huntington

Music Department Honors Papers

The late 19th century was a time when England was seen from the outside as musically unoriginal. The music community was active, certainly, but no English composer since Handel had reached the level of esteem granted the leading continental composers. Leading up to the turn of the 20th century, though, the early stages of a musical renaissance could be seen, with the rise to prominence of Charles Stanford and Hubert Parry, followed by Elgar and Delius. By 1910, the work of Ralph Vaughan Williams—particularly, the large choral works Toward the Unknown Region and A Sea Symphony—was beginning to be performed …

Encyclopedia Of Music In Ireland: John Mclachlan, Adrian Smith

Articles

Encyclopedia of Music in Ireland entry on the Irish composer John McLachlan

Encyclopedia Of Music In Ireland: Deirdre Gribbin, Adrian Smith

Articles

Encyclopedia of Music in Ireland entry on the Irish composer Deirdre Gribbin

Encyclopedia Of Music In Ireland: Michael Holohan, Adrian Smith

Articles

Encyclopedia of Music in Ireland entry on the Irish composer Michael Holohan

Tunepal: Searching A Digital Library Of Traditional Music Scores, Bryan Duggan, Brendan O'Shea

Reports

Purpose – This paper aims to describe the Tunepal project as an example of a music information retrieval (MIR) system that is having an impact on how musicians access, learn and play traditional Irish music around the world. Design/methodology/approach – This paper describes the functionality of the Tunepal system: consisting of the tune corpus, the web site tunepal.org and mobile apps supporting iOS and Android OS. Tunepal facilitates query-by-title and query-by-playing music (QBP) searches and allows a musician to retrieve and playback scores amongst other supported functions. Findings – Tunepal has been favorably received and musicians report that the system …

Encyclopedia Of Music In Ireland: Jonathan Nangle, Adrian Smith

Articles

Encyclopedia of Music in Ireland entry on the Irish composer Jonathan Nangle

Chord Conundrum: Examining The Performance Practice Of Polyphonic Figures In J.S. Bach's Solo Violin Works, Emily Vold

Theses and Dissertations

Interpreting and expressing the musical intentions of a composer in an informed manner requires great dedication and study on the part of a performer. This holds particularly true in the case of music written well before the present age, where direct connections to the thoughts of the composer and even the styles of the era have faded with the passing of time. Violinists today consistently struggle with studying and performing a set of works from the musical period referred to by scholars as the Baroque era (1600-1750), the Sonatas and Partitas for Violin without Bass accompaniment, composed by Johann Sebastian …

Influence Of Rap And Hip-Hop Lyrics On Male Body Image And Attitudes Toward Wwomen, Lorena Munoz

McNair Poster Presentations

Rap and hip-hop music are a widely popular and accessible genre of media. Its popularity and controversial lyrics raise questions as to the effects it may have on its audience. This study proposes to investigate the influence of rap and hip-hop music will be correlated with higher mean levels of thin-ideal appearance internalization (INT-GEN), negative attitudes towards women, and cultural expectations of masculinity compared to published normative data. Participants will complete online measures addressing questions about their body image (e.g. drive for muscularity) and attitudes toward women (e.g. objectification and misogyny). Future research should compare the influence of rap and …

A Metrical Analysis And Rebarring Of Paul Creston's Sonata For Alto Saxophone And Piano, Op. 19, Christopher Kyle Sweitzer

Glenn Korff School of Music: Dissertations, Theses, Student Creative Work, and Performances

The Sonata For Alto Saxophone and Piano Op. 19 is one of the most popular pieces in the saxophone literature, commonly played by professional saxophonists during their training. It features exciting rhythmic devices like irregular and mixed meter, the notation of which is the main focus of this paper. Although Creston often used irregular and mixed meter in his compositions, he rarely specifically notated them, choosing instead to use accents, beams, slurs, and other phenomenal cues at the musical surface to create the effect of these metric plans. Time signatures often remained constant throughout entire movements. Creston believed this would …

Innovation And Tradition In Lisan Wang’S Piano Suite Other Hill, Rongjie Xu

Glenn Korff School of Music: Dissertations, Theses, Student Creative Work, and Performances

Lisan Wang is one of the most celebrated musical figures in China. His five-movement piano suite Other Hill (1980) is the composer’s response to the “New Wave”, a compositional trend generated in China after the 1977 Cultural Revolution. Gaining fame as a piano composition for showing the application of multiculturalism and syncretism to music, Other Hill is regarded as a prime example of cross-cultural piano composition in China. Wang challenges Chinese traditional piano composition with different artistic media—philosophy, calligraphy, poems, and various folk elements in Other Hill. This document proposes an interdisciplinary study of Lisan Wang’s musical fusion of …

An Analysis Of The Career And Solo Style Of Jazz Trombonist Carl Fontana, John Wesley Parker

Dissertations

Carl Fontana’s ability and creativity as a jazz trombonist is held in high regard by his contemporaries, as well as by those who followed him. The significant aspects of his career were highlighted in a brief biography with historical and anecdotal information provided by jazz trombonists who new him and were influenced by him. Fontana’s solo style was analyzed and compared through transcriptions of three improvisations performed during contrasting points in his career: “Intermission Riff” from 1956, “Just Friends” from 1978, and “It Might As Well Be Spring” from 1985. His influence on the jazz trombone community was discussed through …

Beloved, Thou Hast Brought Me Many Flowers And Sifting Through The Ruins: An Analysis Of Two Chamber Song Cycles By Libby Larsen, Juline Erika Barol-Gilmore

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

American composer Libby Larsen is one of the most active, prolific composers living today. Although she is known for composing in many musical genres, her vocal works are among her most recognized compositions. When selecting song texts, Libby Larsen carefully chooses poems that speak to her personally, both in the rhythm of the language and in the text’s depth of meaning and spirit. In addition, a large number of her vocal works are based on texts by or about women.

In sum, authors and poets have profoundly influenced Larsen, specifically in her chamber song cycles Beloved, Thou Hast Brought Me …