Composition Commons^™

Integrating Chinese Tradition And Western Techniques In Jiang Zuxin’S Piano Works: A Study Of Temple Fair And Mountain Flower Collection, Qi Zhang

Dissertations and Doctoral Documents, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2023–

This document focuses on Jiang Zuxin’s two piano suites, Temple Fair and Mountain Flower Collection, examining how traditional Chinese musical materials interact with Western compositional techniques. Through close analytical readings of selected excerpts, combined with considerations of performance practice and modal context, the research demonstrates that Jiang systematically employs pentatonic collections and their modal configurations (gong, shang, jue/zhi/yu), along with certain altered tones (such as biangong and qingjue), as foundational pitch material. He also draws on folk songs, dances, and theatrical elements from traditional Chinese culture. At the same time, he simulates the timbres and idiomatic playing techniques of …

The Integration Of Western Compositional Techniques And Traditional Chinese Folk Music In The Piano Works Of Jianzhong Wang, Yingqi Wang

Dissertations and Doctoral Documents, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2023–

This document explores the method by which Jianzhong Wang (王建中) (1933–2016), a celebrated Chinese composer and pianist, integrates traditional Chinese folk melodies with Western compositional techniques in his solo piano works, including Western harmonic techniques and tonal language, contrapuntal and polyphonic textures, formal structure and thematic development, and the imitation of instruments and sounds. Introduced to Wang’s music during high school through the piece, “Embroidering the Golden Plaque” from Four Northern Shaanxi Folk Songs, the author reflects on the artistic challenges posed by Wang. Over years of study, an appreciation for Wang’s innovative fusion of Chinese folk elements and Western …

Creed And Variations: Tracing The Divergence Of Christian Traditions In Select Piano Works Of Arvo Pärt, Olivier Messiaen, And J. S. Bach, Rebekah E. Stiles

Dissertations and Doctoral Documents, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2023–

Within the classical music universe, the works of J. S. Bach, Olivier Messiaen, and Arvo Pärt stand apart as particularly evocative of the divine. Much has been written on these three men’s integration of faith with musical practice, exploring how their music is not only spiritual in nature but distinctly Christian. But in comparing the three, one encounters deeply rooted distinctions between their religious worldviews, a distinction not only found in their personal testimonies but actually heard in their music. Their compositional languages reflect three traditions: Protestantism (specifically Lutheranism), represented by Bach; Roman Catholicism, represented by Messiaen; and Eastern Orthodoxy, …

A Study Of Rachel Galinne’S Dybbuk For Solo Clarinet: A Classical Work With Klezmer Influences, Rachel S. Levison

Dissertations and Doctoral Documents, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2023–

Composer Rachel Galinne self-identifies first and foremost as an Israeli with Swedish roots. She was born and raised in Sweden to Holocaust survivors and always felt a deep connection to Jewish traditions and culture, leading her to immigrate to Israel. Her compositions are derived from her formal education in musicology and composition in contemporary music, as well as from her Jewish community. Her Jewish heritage is represented in her compositions through text, motivic ideas, and specific topics. Dybbuk for solo clarinet is an excellent example.

This solo follows the perspective of Leah, one of the main characters in Solomon Ansky’s …

Mass Of Perpetual Indulgence, Michael Joseph Willette

Dissertations and Doctoral Documents, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2023–

Mass of Perpetual Indulgence for chamber orchestra, electronics, soprano solo, and drag performer was written to bridge the gap between queerness and spirituality, to sanctify queer people and celebrate queer lives and communities. Amalgamating musical styles ranging from disco to opera, art song to EDM, this appropriation of the traditional Mass blurs the lines between the sacred and the profane. This work features original text by librettist Caroliena Cabada that responds to the narrative of the Mass Ordinary from a distinctly queer perspective. Ultimately, this work celebrates the queer body as a holy body, queer community as a sacred communion, …

Befitting Bach: Prelude And Fugue Transcribed For Horn Quartet, Caitlin Murphy

Honors Program: Senior Projects (Public)

This thesis, titled “Befitting Bach: Prelude and Fugue Transcribed for Horn Quartet,” consists of horn quartet transcriptions of Prelude 1 and Fugue 1 from Johann Sebastian Bach’s The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book I. The prelude and fugue pair were originally written for harpsichord during the Baroque period, and the pieces remain commonly performed on keyboard instruments. The transcription translates the pieces into four-part horn music while preserving the original musical ideas and accounting for the different technical capabilities between the instruments. The accompanying written component provides a brief history of the original compositions. Further, the report delves into the transcription …

The Ballad Of The Wheel, John Kosch

Dissertations and Doctoral Documents, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2023–

The Ballad of the Wheel is a piece for voice, percussion, and electronics that examines the cyclical nature of humanity. It draws texts from existential literature that spans almost all of recorded history, from antiquity to present day. In this work, a single narrator poses the same concerns about the nature of existence in different texts, revealing that questions about the meaning of life transcend boundaries of time and space. The prevalence of the theme of reincarnation also suggests that each movement of the piece presents a different manifestation of a single being. The Ballad of the Wheel implies a …

A Survey Of And Performance Guide To Representative Flute Music By Two Twentieth-Century Serbian Composers: Ljubica Marić And Enriko Josif, Sanda Mašić

Dissertations and Doctoral Documents, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2023–

Flute pieces by twentieth-century Serbian composers Ljubica Marić and Enriko Josif are little-known gems of modern repertoire that are almost completely unknown outside Serbia. Unique in their styles, these works illustrate the composers’ close relationship to the Serbian culture in which they lived and the religions they practiced. In addition, these works reflect the time they were created in, and are, therefore, modern with a distinctive sound. This document presents a study of seven selected flute works by these two important Serbian composers, places them in historical context, and reveals influences from both Serbian religious music (Orthodox and Jewish) and …

Adorning Harmony: Comparing Three Of Rachmaninoff’S Piano Transcriptions With The Original Works, Micah Robert Leary

Dissertations and Doctoral Documents, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2023–

Sergei Rachmaninoff’s piano transcriptions represent an underperformed genre among his works. They offer a unique perspective on Rachmaninoff’s compositional language because they directly compare to other composer’s original works. Much research is dedicated to understanding Rachmaninoff’s harmonic language through analysis of his own original works. However, very little has been written on Rachmaninoff’s piano transcriptions, and no studies focus on Rachmaninoff’s harmonic language displayed in the transcriptions.

The following analysis aims to reconsider three of these lesser-known works and provide context for their placement alongside Rachmaninoff’s other compositions. Harmonic analysis provides insights relative to the original works within the larger …

Music Of The Divine: Interweaving Threads Connecting Contemporary Chant-Based Piano Repertoire, Jeremy D. Duck

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

The purpose of this document is to prove chant remains an important source of inspiration among living composers, and, despite the number of piano works already incorporating chant, composers today are still finding unique ways to include chant in their music. To achieve this objective, representative works have been selected for research and analysis for four of the major chant traditions. Connor Chee’s The Navajo Piano, Victoria Bond’s Illuminations on Byzantine Chant, and Hayes Biggs’ E.M. am Flügel: Poem-Étude for Piano Solo, though the chants from which they are inspired are diverse in concept and style, they …

Advanced Technologies In Music Production And Collaboration, David Besonen

Honors Program: Senior Projects (Public)

My Honors Senior Creative Project was to compose and produce a short album of original music alongside talented musicians here at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL) as well as around the world.

In Time Gone By: Song Cycle For Baritone And Six Players, Bryan Grosbach

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

In Time Gone By is a song cycle for Baritone vocalist and Pierrot Ensemble + percussion that explores the value of life being a byproduct of its finitude. Only during the most vulnerable and difficult events of that life can self-realization occur. These topics are wrapped into a “love-story” narrative crafted from select poems from Chamber Music by James Joyce and select quotes from the prose Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions by John Donne. Using intervallic focus as a tool for development, the piece transitions from sparse quintal harmony to lush tertian harmony as a musical metaphor for the self-realization of …

Concertante For Sho And Jazz Orchestra, Susumu Watanabe

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

“Concertante for Sho and Jazz Orchestra” is a multi-movement concert piece designed to exhibit both the virtuosity of sho and its orchestral color and dynamism. There are three independent movements, each of which has multiple sections which are subdivided by the alternation of tempo, mood and musical context. The title “Concertante” simply implies a style of composition reflecting a brilliant and virtuosic display of instrumental dexterity and musicality for the solo sho part, and also the various individual instruments and instrumental sections in the 16-piece jazz orchestra.

Sho is a wind instrument which is almost exclusively used for Gagaku, Japanese …

We Met At The Edge, Eric M. Howell

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

‘We Met at the Edge’ is a collaboration between composer Eric Howell and visual artist Marcela Rodriguez based on a reimagining of the Major Arcana of the Tarot cards. Each card is presented with all new modern interpretations of the original art as well as approximately one minute of music that reflects its unique meanings. Additionally, each card is capable of being looped on itself to create the illusion of being a seamless moment in time, while simultaneously being able to elide into the next card in the sequence. ‘We Met at the Edge’ is meant to be listened to …

String Quartet No.1 In G Major, Wataru Niimori

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

String Quartet No.1 in G Major is an original composition comprised of four movements: 1^st (Allegro Con Brio: a fast tempo with spirit), 2^nd (Adagio: a slow tempo), 3^rd (Minuet and Trio: a moderate tempo with triple meter) and 4^th (Presto: very fast). This four-movement form, in other words, the sonata cycle, was developed during 17^th and 18^th centuries in Western Europe for instrumental music. It reached its heyday in the middle of the 18^th century through the next whole century. Composers in the Classical …

Anecdoche, Joshua Ryan Spaulding

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

Utilizing various visual and aural mediums, Anecdoche tells a story that allows the audience to examine modern American/global culture from a third person perspective. Each artistic medium adds their own voice or opinion to the story and thus further colors and clutters the stage. This represents the extremes of communication that humans have risen to in the 21st Century. The term Anecdoche means a conversation in which everyone is talking, but nobody is listening. In the same way, for much of the work, the different elements of the production aim to make their voice heard, while simultaneously cluttering the visual …

Original Music For Bass Trombone And Piano From 1985 To 2018: An Annotated Bibliography, Brian Lew

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

The purpose of this document was to compile and annotate original music for the bass trombone and piano from 1985 to 2018. Original works is defined as compositions whose original intentions were for the idiom of solo bass trombone and piano. Works included are exclusive of transcriptions and arrangements

This document annotates more than 100 compositions. Each annotation includes information about the composer (birth year and death year, if applicable), length of the piece, publisher, level of difficulty, a preview of the music, and the written annotation. Observations from the examined compositions are found in the closing chapter. Observations range …

From Improvisation To Artistry: A Study Of The Piano’S 12 Sides By Carter Pann, Louis Claussen

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

Intended as a resource for pianists who may analyze or perform Carter Pann’s The Piano’s 12 Sides, this study provides biographical information on the composer and explores his professional relationship with the pianist for whom it was composed, Joel Hastings. Each piece from The Piano’s 12 Sides is discussed in terms of form, melody, harmony, texture and Pann’s approach to the pianistic compositional idiom. The composition is also examined with regard to extra-musical details and programmatic elements as well as inspiration and dedications that influenced Pann’s compositional process.

Correspondence and interviews with the composer reveal the motivation and inspiration behind …

Transcribing Astor Piazzolla's Works To Maximize Stylistic Fidelity: An Examination Of Three Saxophone Quartets With A New Transcription, Sarah L. Cosano

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

Astor Piazzolla is recognized as a pivotal figure who drew tango music onto an international stage. His output of written compositions and recordings provide a reference for studying tango. Though Piazzolla adapted a collection of flute etudes in 1988, he did not write specifically for saxophone during his lifetime. Saxophonists must instead rely on transcriptions of his music. Today, tango is a widely performed idiom for saxophone quartet.

Because of its tessitura, timbral variety, and flexibility, the saxophone is uniquely suited to perform tango music. This instrument has an expansive range when altissimo is included. Its written range spans from …

Midwestern Portrait For Chamber Jazz Ensemble And Solo Tenor Saxophone, Andrew Janak

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

“Midwestern Portrait” for Chamber Jazz Ensemble and Solo Tenor Saxophone is an original composition consisting of three main movements, an introduction, and two interludes. The piece is written for a full ensemble of 17 musicians – one solo tenor saxophone, four woodwinds, four brass, four strings, and four rhythm section players. The “Introduction,” “Interlude 1,” and “Interlude 2” feature smaller performing forces while the three main movements (“For GK,” “The Tradition,” “The Search) are written for the full ensemble.

“Movement 1: For GK (Lincoln)” is a tribute to my time at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and showcases the solo tenor …

8scenes, Spencer G. Perkins

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

This work explores the juxtaposition of a live ensemble, and pre-collected field recordings. The material for the ensemble is divided into eight sections, or “scenes,” which unfold one after the other without pause, at times blending musical material to where it is unclear when the music has transitioned to the next section. The field recordings are divided into three main sections, which are defined by the underlying loop as follows: “sunny day recording”; “people talking recording”; and “rainy day recording.” Atop these structural loops, it is the responsibility of the “electronics player” to que other recordings in a manner that …

String Quintet No. 2, Johnny Smith-Wilson

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

This work is a four movement String Quintet constructed in cyclical form.

Advisor: Thomas E. Larson

Mucp 183-983: Applied Music Composition--A Course Benchmark Portfolio, Gregory Simon

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

MUCP 183-983, Applied Music Composition, is the core of the music composition course curriculum for students at all levels, from freshman to doctoral candidate. Like all applied lesson environments, it is a one-on-one, individualized study that principally involves the instructor giving students feedback on their musical works-in-progress. This time-honored paradigm for teaching composition has produced brilliant artists, but is rife with pitfalls and traps that can tarnish a student’s growth: composition pedagogues can coerce students into writing music like their teachers, or can prescribe a curriculum that makes composition accessible only to students who have already played classical music for …

The Transmutation Of The Immutable Abyss, Amanda Mccullough

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

The Transmutation of the Immutable Abyss is a song cycle for a female voice and chamber orchestra, originally inspired by the instrumentation of a community theater pit orchestra. This piece sets eight poems by A. R. Ammons over eight movements. One primary goal of this piece was to combine elements of jazz and contemporary classical music.

The Transmutation of the Immutable Abyss also explores duality along with the combination of disparate elements to create a more complete whole. In a literal sense, jazz and classical elements coexist in varying amounts of prominence. Also in a literal sense, elements of tonality …

Requiem, Jacob K. Lee

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

Traditionally, the requiem form began as a Catholic mass to honor the dead. Today, the requiem is generally composed conveying messages of solace to troubled hearts. Many composers, such as Britten and Rutter, choose to abandon some of the orthodox text of the mass to provide an added measure of connection for the audience. The result of these later requiems is often a baring of the composer’s soul – something profoundly personal shared in the hope of inspiring others. This latter process is my aim in creating my Requiem. I approach this end in several ways, compositionally: There is a …

The Influence Of Jazz Elements In Don Freund's Sky Scrapings For Alto Saxophone And Piano, Wade Howles

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

Jazz influence surfaces within traditional repertoire for the saxophone more often than other instruments. This is due to the saxophone’s close association with the jazz idiom. Of particular interest is the use of jazz elements in Don Freund’s Sky Scrapings for alto saxophone and piano. Often, while studying a jazz-influenced work, students and professors alike may not recognize the importance of these elements appropriately. Because of this, their performance loses a portion of the stylistic nuance the composer intended while writing the work. This lack of recognition and loss of stylistic nuance is commonly due to a lack of …

An Introduction To Serbian Piano Music: Musical And Cultural Influences On Three Selected Composers, Jelena Djukic

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

Serbia is a country that has survived many political and religious conflicts. Perhaps the best way to describe Serbian culture and tradition would be a country whose inhabitants struggled for many years, yet managed to incorporate the best elements of its conquerors’ cultures. Serbian musical identity is an amalgam of local and international influences and styles.

Different foreign authorities occupied this country for centuries. The Danube River was the main border of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, located in the north, and the Turkish Ottoman Empire, situated south of the Danube. The Austro-Hungarian influences on Serbian music are most evident in piano …

Symphony No. 2: Sights In Sound, Robert J. Luebbert

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

Symphony No. 2: Sights in Sound is an original composition for full chorus, string orchestra, woodwind quintet, eight-part percussion ensemble, and piano. Each of the work’s twelve movements utilizes a different combination of instruments, provides a distinct programmatic or cultural setting, and can be easily performed individually, outside of the full symphonic context. Despite this, the symphony as a whole is well bonded through various traditional elements and unifying themes. The titles of the movements are as follows: I. Phenomena of the Sky, II. Arirang, III. Colors of the Sea, IV. Amongst the Trees, V. Crossroads, VI. Dancing Leaves, VII. …

Guy Woolfenden: A Composer's Musical Dna, James A. Dreiling

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

Guy Woolfenden is a British composer who has made a name for himself in England as the composer of over 150 scores for the Royal Shakespeare Company as well as music for numerous ballet and opera companies. In addition, he has composed fifteen pieces for wind band and eleven pieces for various wind chamber ensembles. While his wind music is well known throughout England, his name and his music are not as well known throughout the rest of the world. Those few conductors outside of England who are aware of his work tend to know only one or two of …

Werner Jaegerhuber’S Messe Sur Les Airs Vodouesques Or Messe Folklorique Haïtienne: A Performance Edition, Canes Nicolas

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

Originally written for solo soprano with choir and organ, Werner Jaegerhuber completed this work in 1953, and his close friend and artistic collaborator, Louis Maximilien, commissioned it for the sesquicentennial of Haiti’s independence on January 1, 1954. However, since there are no published scores or even a reliable manuscript of this piece, what has been kept in the archives of the Société de recherche et de diffusion de la musique Haïtienne in Montreal, Canada are two dissimilar scores by unknown sources. One is the choral and organ version, which was made by a professional copyist in the 1950’s (judging by …