Musicology Commons^™

Here Comes The Sun: A Diachronic Study Of The Role Of Music In The Amarna Period, Waleed Hawatky

Theses and Dissertations

Music has and continues to play a prominent role in the lives of individuals and in society, hardwired into the human experience and integral to our understanding of the world in both its tangible and intangible manifestations. This was no different in dynastic Egypt, where abundant iconographic and physical evidence from the Old Kingdom onward shows music performed in many diverse contexts at every social level.

Music appears not only to gain prominence during the reign of Amenhotep IV/Akhenaten (c. 1353–1335), also known as the Amarna Period, but also to develop innovations, including new kinds of instruments and musical ensembles, …

Review Of Re-Reading The Beethoven Violin Sonatas By Daniel Tong, Katharina Uhde

The Beethoven Journal

No abstract provided.

Review Of The Marriage Letters Of Joseph Deym And Josephine Brunsvik-Deym By Rita Steblin, Jos Van Der Zanden

The Beethoven Journal

No abstract provided.

Review Of The Composer Embalmed By Abigail Fine, Joe Davies

The Beethoven Journal

No abstract provided.

"The Effect Was The Same, But Not For The Eye." From Playability To Augenmusik In Beethoven’S Arrangement Of His Grande Fugue Op. 133/134, Elisa Novara

The Beethoven Journal

Beethoven’s four-hands piano transcription of the Grande Fugue Op. 134 is different from any other arrangement he ever made: firstly, it is given an opus number, which is something that conventional Klavierauszüge usually do not have; secondly, it has a dedication, namely to Beethoven’s patron and pupil the Archduke Rudolf. Third, it is notoriously so difficult to play that it barely fulfils the primary function of four-hands piano transcriptions in the 19th century, i.e. a more easily accessible performance medium, which would have resulted in a better circulation of the work.

A more conventional transcription of Op. 133 might have …

Beethoven’S Piccolo Apprenticeship: Eighteen Years Of Experimentation Before The Fifth Symphony, Rikki A. Wolpowitz

The Beethoven Journal

Beethoven is routinely credited as the "father of the orchestral piccolo," a claim resting primarily on his deployment of the instrument in the Fifth Symphony (1808). Yet this paternity metaphor obscures a crucial fact: Beethoven composed for the piccolo for nearly eighteen years before that symphonic premiere, producing works for court entertainment, public dances, and military bands that systematically explored the instrument’s capabilities. This article examines Beethoven’s complete piccolo output—nineteen works comprising thirty-two individual pieces—through a three-function analytical framework: the piccolo as range-extender, as vehicle for programmatic effect, and as independent voice. Beginning with the Musik zu einem Ritterballett (1790) …

"Wondrous Emanations Of A Transcendently Transfigured Sublimity And Profundity": The Reception Of Beethoven's Last Three Piano Sonatas In The Nineteenth And Early Twentieth Centuries, Nicholas S. Kennedy

The Beethoven Journal

Ludwig van Beethoven’s last three piano sonatas, Opp. 109, 110, and 111, have captured the imaginations of critics from the nineteenth century to the present. As “late” works penned towards the end of the composer’s life, these sonatas have often been read as infused with existential or transcendental meaning, frequently aligned with Beethoven’s own experiences. Reception studies have identified broader tropes of autobiographical explanation and poetic analogy as applied to these works by early critics; however, these studies frequently stop short of identifying more specific patterns in the images employed to describe the sonatas. Focusing on mainly German literature from …

Beethoven, Caspar Peucer’S Commentarius, And Enchanted Nature, Nicholas Chong

The Beethoven Journal

The posthumous inventory of Beethoven’s library includes a late Renaissance treatise by Caspar Peucer (1525–1602) entitled Commentarius de præcipuis generibus divinationum (Commentary on the main types of divination). Peucer’s text is concerned mainly with methods of predicting the future through such practices as magic, astrology, and the reading of oracles. Neither Peucer nor his treatise is mentioned in any other source associated with Beethoven. The composer also had a limited knowledge of Latin and his copy of Peucer’s text was more than two centuries old.

Previous scholarship has not explored Beethoven’s ownership of this book in any detail, except to …

The Performer As Stylistic Free Agent: A Historically Inspired Approach To Interpreting Manuel De Falla’S Homenaje, Yiannis Efstathopoulos, Maarten Stragier, Kristin Van Den Buys

Soundboard Scholar

Manuel de Falla’s Homenaje pour “Le Tombeau de Claude Debussy” presents a complex identity knot that reflects Debussyan Alhambrism back onto its inspiration, drawing from both classical and folk traditions. This is the first research project to approach that knot from the perspective of historically inspired performance. It identifies a fascinating counterpart to its complexity in the stylistically hybrid guitar practices that were common at the time Falla composed his miniature masterpiece. The authors therefore propose that a historically inspired performer of Homenaje can act as a stylistic free agent, traversing the continuum of styles that gave birth to Falla’s …

The Verney Family And Their Guitars In France And England, 1643–53, Christopher Page

Soundboard Scholar

The five-course guitar was a fundamental resource for the Verney family from 1643 to 1653 as they sheltered in France, avoiding their creditors and escaping the state of civil war at home in England. Their papers from that period, comprising many thousands of letters and financial accounts, show them hiring a guitar-master, ordering new guitars in Paris and debating the relative benefits of lessons for their eldest son on the guitar as opposed to the lute. This article reproduces the key documents and considers the music that the Verneys may have played. The papers particularly show how an instrument often …

Recovering Hidden Histories: Christopher Page On The Guitar In Victorian England, Jenny Nex

Soundboard Scholar

A review of The Guitar in Victorian England: A Social and Musical History, by Christopher Page (Cambridge University Press, 2025)

"Heil, O Sonne, Heil!": Schemata And Semiotics In Haydn's Oratorio Sunrises, Michael D. Slattery

HAYDN: Online Journal of the Haydn Society of North America

Both of Haydn’s late oratorios, The Creation and The Seasons, contain depictions of sunrises, a subject matter that Sisman (2013) has characterized as “Emergent Light,” in contrast with the famous “absolute” creation of light at the opening of The Creation. In addition to their shared object of representation, the four sunrise passages I identify in these two works all use a phrase-level schema Gjerdingen (2007) has christened the Do-Re-Mi. In this paper, I enrich our cultural understanding of Haydn’s sunrises by attending to nuanced semantic implications of the Do-Re-Mi, illustrating how phrase-level schemata can construct extramusical meaning.

Work on phrase-level …

Rossetter Gleason Cole: His Life And Work, Noah J. Seim

Student Summer Scholars Manuscripts

Rossetter Gleason Cole (1866-1952) was born near Clyde, Michigan, to a relatively musical family. Two years after graduating from the University of Michigan in 1888, where he had studied music and philosophy, he left for Berlin, studying composition with Heinrich van Eycken and gaining entrance to the Königlich Meisterschule für Komposition, where he studied with Max Bruch before returning to the United States. After a decade of teaching in the Midwest, he settled in Chicago in 1902, where he gained national fame as a composer and educator. Cole was a member of the Peterborough MacDowell Colony, nearly all of his …

Lesson Plan: What Is Mei?, Jennifer Jolley

Open Educational Resources

This lesson plan provides background on the Music Encoding Initiative (MEI) and the process for converting digital .wav files from the Deborah Pacini Hernandez Bachata Music Collection housed at the CUNY Dominican Studies Institute to .mei using the application Sonic Visualizer.

Dowland Is For Everyone! The Making Of A New Biography, K. Dawn Grapes, Katharyn R. Benessa

Soundboard Scholar

Following the publication of her new biography of the Elizabethan lutenist John Dowland, K. Dawn Grapes details her research journey in conversation with Katharyn Benessa. They discuss both the history of Dowland research, including the legacy of Diana Poulton, and the gaps that still remain. Grapes offers new context for understanding Dowland’s music and considers how his travels and experiences may have shaped his life and work.

A Two-Winged Murcia: Spanish Dance, Italian Corelli, One Guitar, Ellwood P. Colahan

Soundboard Scholar

Review of Santiago de Murcia (1673–1739): Entre dos almas, by Stefano Maiorana (Baroque guitar).

So Much For Musicology: William Carter Plays Santiago De Murcia, Ellwood P. Colahan

Soundboard Scholar

Review of La Guitarra Española: Santiago de Murcia (1682–1732), by William Carter (Baroque guitar).

Creolized Baroque: Early Music In A Brazilian Key, Ellwood P. Colahan

Soundboard Scholar

Review of Iberian and Afro-Brazilian Music of the 17th Century, by Ensemble Banza, Rogério Budasz, (Baroque guitar).

A Living Source Report: Cristian Gutiérrez Plays Cifras Selectas, Ellwood P. Colahan

Soundboard Scholar

Review of Cifras selectas de guitarra, by Cristiano Gutiérrez (Baroque guitar).

Urban Counterpoint (1992–2003): The Piano Music Of Ed Bland, Joseph Vaz

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation analyzes the piano music of Ed Bland, a politically and philosophically vocal composer active in the second half of the twentieth century, whose music draws on both the European and American twentieth-century avant-garde, and on African American vernacular music genres from ragtime to hip-hop. A review of the historical and personal context for these pieces, and a detailed examination of the compositional processes used in this music, work together to demonstrate how Bland thought about the relationship between different musical genres and languages.

Through this combination of theory of musical genre, historical and biographical study, and detailed analysis …

Remixing Dialogue: A Case Study On Perceptions Of Hip Hop Pedagogy In A Professional Learning Course, Kelly J. Thelen

Dissertations, Theses, and Projects

This qualitative case study examines how teachers’ decision-making and professional autonomy shift while participating in a Hip Hop Pedagogy Professional Learning course supported by structured FIXIT (Lo & Wachter, 2023a, 2023b, 2023c, 2023d; Wachter & Lo, 2024) game-facilitated dialogue in a rural, culturally and linguistically diverse Midwest community. Grounded in Freire’s (1970) Critical Pedagogy, Ladson-Billings’ (1995) Culturally Relevant Pedagogy, Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy (Paris and Alim, 2017), and Adult Learning Theory (Knowles et al., 2005), the study explores the reclamation of agency by teachers in a time of constrained creativity and educator autonomy shaped by strict policy environments, an emphasis on …

From Osbcurity To The Stage: A Stylistic And Pedagogical Exploration Of The Four Concert Etudes By Mikhail Bukinik, Luis Bernardo Castro

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This research examines Mikhail Bukinik’s 4 Konzertetüden (concert etudes) for solo cello through both a stylistic performance and pedagogical approach. Despite Bukinik’s historical presence as a cellist and composer, these specific works have fallen into obscurity and remain largely absent from the standard pedagogical and performance canon. The research has two primary objectives. The first is to reintroduce these works to the modern repertoire, focusing on dissemination and performance practice. This involves a stylistic analysis of the four etudes, culminating in a recorded live performance during the lecture recital and the creation of a professional studio recording to serve as …

Music History 10100: A Thousand Years Of Listening, Sophia Stoyanovich

Open Educational Resources

A Thousand Years of Listening is an undergraduate music history course elective at Hunter College that introduces students to the history of Western art music from the medieval era to the present through focused listening and musical analysis. Designed for students with no prior musical training, the course develops critical listening skills while exploring major composers, genres, styles, and historical contexts. Through listening, discussion, writing, and a live concert experience, students learn to engage with music as informed and thoughtful listeners.

Using Handwriting Text Recognition (Htr) Technology To Create A Language Learning Model (Llm) For Blythe Owen’S Handwriting, Aiko J. Ayala Rios, Marianne Y. Kordas

Journal of Adventist Libraries and Archives

Handwriting Recognition Technology (HTR) has proven to be a valuable support for the fields of digital humanities and archival resources, as more scholars strive to make documents machine-readable and accessible. With this in mind, the newest phase of the Blythe Owen letter transcription project commenced in the summer of 2025, utilizing Transkribus, a software that aids in transcription and the creation of Language Learning Models (LLMs) tailored to specific writing styles. This report outlines the progress made in learning to use the program, the various issues that arose, and provides suggestions for the project's future as well as for similar …

Perpetual Purgatory: Lamennais's Religious Influence On The Persona And Music Of Franz Liszt, Matthew Peter Wood

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

For generations, musicological consensus has treated Liszt’s signature technique of “thematic transformation” as musical form born out of structural and sonic experimentation. This study argues that the impetus for Liszt to create his signature compositional device of thematic transformation proceeds from the influence of the post-Revolutionary liberal Catholicism of the French Abbé Félicité de Lamennais. By exploring the historical, cultural, and artistic intersections between Lamennais’s texts and Liszt’s manuscripts, this dissertation builds on existing scholarship to replace a conventional analysis of thematic transformation with new religio-philosophical analytical lens through which to view Liszt’s most significant contribution to the historical trajectory …

Pedro Ximénez Abrill Y Tirado: Another And Deeper Look, Richard Savino

Soundboard Scholar

Born in Arequipa, Peru, Pedro Ximénez Abrill y Tirado was a virtuoso cellist and guitarist who composed over forty symphonies, forty masses, dozens of chamber pieces with interesting instrumentations, and over three hundred solo pieces for the guitar. He moved to Lima for a period and later became Maestro di Capilla at the Sucre Cathedral in Bolivia. At the time Sucre was one of the wealthiest cities in South America, if not the wealthiest.

Abrill's renown was such that he was published in Paris by Richault and was written about in Hugh Bonelli's published travel diary (London, 1854). His music …

A Survey Of Open Educational Resources Appropriate For Constructing And Teaching An Upper-Level, Undergraduate Course In The History Of Music Prior To 1800 For Music Majors, Jamie Weaver

Faculty Publications

Many open education resources are available for the study of music history. Yet, the majority ofsources I discovered are intended for students who are not music majors or who are at thebeginning of their historical study. The purpose of my study of open educational resources is tolocate and evaluate resources that would facilitate the creation and instruction of the first-semester survey course of an undergraduate survey in music history for music majors, the focusof which is the study of music before 1800. What follows is a broad, preliminary survey ofsources that could be used, mixed, reworked, or adapted to fulfill …

Humor In Eighteenth-Century Dress: The Comic Form Of Beethoven’S Grosse Fuge, Op. 133., Stephen Husarik

HAYDN: Online Journal of the Haydn Society of North America

Beethoven’s Grosse Fuge (Op. 133), previously interpreted as a work shaped by comedic design, can also be understood as an “algorithmic fugue” in which the subject undergoes a systematic process from deformation to restoration. Rather than relying mainly on traditional contrapuntal devices such as inversion and augmentation, Beethoven reshapes the theme through syncopation and paired slurred pulses, then expands these alterations into increasingly exaggerated fugal textures. Drawing on sketches and manuscript sources, this paper argues that the process resembles the moves of a Rubik’s Cube, with each transformation contributing to an eventual solution. In the closing measures, Beethoven reverses the …

The Case For The Exclusion Of Exclusion: Intellectual Property, Masculine Legal Reason, And The Ethics Of Care, Ragya Shoukry

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis argues that current legal ideals of objectivity and neutrality are historically gendered and inseparable from the development of capitalist property relations and imperial expansion. It traces origins that begin with early modern witch hunts and Francis Bacon’s empiricism, where a new “scientific rationality” emerges alongside intensified patriarchal violence. The thesis then examines John Locke’s labour-based justification of property and the figure of the rational individual, showing how this framework legitimizes enclosure, dispossession and colonial appropriation under the guise of improvement and development. Building on this foundation, the analysis turns to moral psychology and how its allegedly universal stage …

The Influence Of Gustav Holst's The Planets On The Music Of John Williams, Kara Lewis

Senior Honors Theses

Throughout his six-decade career in film music, John Williams has achieved incredible success. Yet, one of the most prominent criticisms of Williams’ work is that it borrows heavily from classical repertoire. It is common to read that Williams stole from composers such as Gustav Holst. This paper examines in what aspects and to what extent the music of Williams takes inspiration specifically from Holst’s The Planets. Overall style and specific excerpts will be compared to demonstrate that, while the two share some characteristics, there is not an overall sameness of style. It shall also be demonstrated that certain excerpts …