Musicology Commons^™

Corbetta: La Guitarre Royalle (Elias), Ellwood Colahan

Soundboard Scholar

A review of Corbetta: La Guitarre Royalle, album by Elias, Izhar.

Francesco Corbetta: La Guitarre Royalle (Carter), Ellwood Colahan

Soundboard Scholar

A review of Francesco Corbetta: La Guitarre Royalle, album by Carter, William.

Soundboard Scholar No. 5: Cover

Soundboard Scholar

The scene of angel musicians on our cover is a detail shot of the topmost portion of the famous “Paradiso” fresco in the Cathedral of Orvieto, Italy. It was painted by Luca Signorelli in 1499, at the very time of Columbus’s third voyage, when (as Richard Pinnell explains in this issue) Spanish guitarras and vihuelas were first being introduced to the New World. The Signorelli fresco’s music-historical interest for us lies in the guitar-like instrument depicted in the hands of the highest angel in the heavenly ensemble—a position of no small honor for her or her instrument. It is approximately …

Soundboard Scholar No. 5: Editor's Letter, Thomas Heck

Soundboard Scholar

An introduction to the contents of this issue.

The Early Guitar In The New World: Its Route From Seville To Santo Domingo, Puerto Rico, And Cubagua (1497–1550), Richard T. Pinnell

Soundboard Scholar

Pinnell discusses the history of guitar in the New World. The third voyage of Christopher Columbus was not only the first of the Columbian voyages to reach South America along the Venezuelan coastline; it was also the first that explicitly included musical instruments and trained musicians. "Their Catholic Majesties" (Los Reyes Católicos), so designated by Pope Alexander VI upon their defeat of the Moors, had already been quite disappointed with the lack of stability and growth in the grim encampments established by Columbus, so this time they proposed a unique list of professions and skills among the passengers to ensure …

Mauro Giuliani And Austrian Folk Music, Stefan Hackl

Soundboard Scholar

Mauro Giuliani, one of the most important figures in the growth and development of the guitar in the earlier nineteenth century, spent his most productive years in Vienna from 1806 to 1819. He was well connected with the cultural and social life of the imperial city, at the time a melting pot which welcomed talented artists with diverse backgrounds from throughout the provinces and neighboring states. Here, Hackl discusses Giuliani's folk songs.

Featured Facsimile: Mauro Giuliani’S ZwöLf Neue Wald-LäNdler (Twelve New Forest-LäNdler), Op. 23, Mauro Giuliani

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Giuliani's Zwölf neue Wald-Ländler (Twelve New Forest-Ländler), Op. 23, in score. It was first published by the prestigious firm of Artaria & Co., with plate no. 2710, advertised for sale on 27 January 1810. Characteristic of these waltzes were the chordal (triadic) melodies, inspired stylistically by yodelers and yodeling. The intervallic tuning of the guitar favors the performance of such melodies as these, which evoke a style of folk music that runs deep in Austrian musical consciousness. Usually performed in sets of twelve, all in the same key, a Ländler-reihe (set, or row) usually began slowly, accelerated gradually toward the …

Los Romeros: Royal Family Of The Spanish Guitar By Walter Aaron Clark, Richard Long

Soundboard Scholar

A review of Los Romeros: Royal Family of the Spanish Guitar by Walter Aaron Clark.

Soundboard Scholar No. 5 (Complete)

Soundboard Scholar

No abstract provided.

Nineteenth-Century Guitar Songs: An Idiosyncratic Survey, By Ian Gammie, Richard Long

Soundboard Scholar

A review of Nineteenth-Century Guitar Songs: An Idiosyncratic Survey, by Ian Gammie.

Listening For The Cosmic Other: Postcolonial Approaches To Music In The Space Age, Paige Zalman

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

As government programs such as NASA and SETI seek signs of intelligent life in space and privately-funded programs such as SpaceX finalize plans to colonize Mars in the coming decades, representations of space and extraterrestrial life in American culture have become increasingly relevant. Focusing on Jóhann Jóhannsson’s musical score for Denis Villeneuve’s science-fiction film Arrival (2016), Terry Riley’s Sun Rings (2002) for string quartet, chorus, and recorded space sounds, and former International Space Station Commander Chris Hadfield’s “Songs about Space” Spotify playlist, my research problematizes the ways in which composers, musicians, and even astronauts depict alterity through music and reinforce …

A Compendium Of Opera In Spain And Latin America, Michelle S. Smith

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

Spain and Latin America have a rich operatic tradition, however this opulent body of operatic work is mostly overlooked or ignored in mainstream histories of opera. This document focuses on opera in Spain and the Spanish-speaking countries of Latin America. Opera was both composed and performed in Spain and Latin America, and both regions demonstrate the development of national opera traditions. Spanish drama was closely linked to the beginnings of national opera, and Italian influence is evident in opera compositions from both regions. The output of national operas varies by country, with Spain, Mexico, and Argentina claiming the majority of …

Re-Composing Feminism: Australian Women Composers In The New Millennium, Talisha Goh

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

In the age of postfeminism and fourth-wave feminism online, Australian women composers are theoretically able to “have it all,” however, the proportion of women in the occupation appears to have plateaued in recent years. In this thesis, I explore the multiple ways in which gender and feminism interact with practising Australian women composers. Feminist musicology has had a large impact on the Australian musicological scene, with theorists such as McClary and Macarthur bringing the subject of women in music to the fore in the 1990s, aiding efforts to advocate for reform on behalf of women composers. Additionally, third-wave feminist scholars …

A Musical-Historical Study Of Italian Influences In Three Regina Caeli Of The French Baroque Period, Marie-France Duclos

Theses and Dissertations--Music

The French baroque petit motet was the most prolific genre of seventeenth-century France. In this study, three petits motets, specifically Regina caeli settings of French composers Marc-Antoine Charpentier, Nicolas Bernier and François Couperin are examined with an emphasis on the motets’ historical context in relation to the French monarchy and the Italian concepts that the composers incorporated into each work. All three Regina caeli settings display some Italian compositional techniques of the stile moderno in various degrees and were written in different contextual ecclesiastic milieux.

The intersections of, as well as distinctions between, musical ideas of traditional French style …

Prizes, Winning, And Identity: Narrative Vocal Music Of The Pulitzer Prize, 2008–2018, Julia K. Kuhlman

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

This thesis considers the ways in which the Pulitzer Prize for Music shapes and is shaped by music of the moment. Since 1943, the Pulitzer Prize has marked 83 pieces as “distinguished” examples of American music. The financial rewarding of winning composers and the initiation of a reciprocal transfer of prestige and political capital, the Pulitzer’s expert juries and governing body has contributed to the preservation of a perpetually-shifting status quo. By chronicling the year-to-year shifts of administrative power dynamics in prize selections, the Pulitzer Prize has mirrored the changing American musical landscape.

Drawing on methods of reception history, archival …

Gender, Politics, Market Segmentation, And Taste: Adult Contemporary Radio At The End Of The Twentieth Century, Saesha Senger

Theses and Dissertations--Music

This dissertation explores issues of gender politics, market segmentation, and taste through an examination of the contributions of several artists who have achieved Adult Contemporary (AC) chart success. The scope of the project is limited to a period when many artists who figured prominently in both the broader mainstream of American popular music and the more specific Adult Contemporary category were most commercially viable: from the mid-1980s through the 1990s. My contention is that, as gender politics and gendered social norms continued to change in the United States at this time, Adult Contemporary – the chart, the format, and the …

When The Inhuman Becomes Human: An Examination Of The Musical Portrayal Of The Robot In Twenty-First Century Science-Fiction Cinema Through An Analysis Of The Film Scores Of Automata, Ex Machina, And The Machine, Rebecca Ann O'Brien

Theses and Dissertations--Music

Science fiction film has been telling stories about artificial anthropomorphic robots and androids for almost a hundred years, spawning films, such as Metropolis (1927), Ghost in the Shell (1951), and Blade Runner (1982). Each of these science-fiction films was complemented by a musical score that helped to create an onscreen world dominated by a dystopian view of the future. Influenced by the generations of prior science-fiction films, Automata (2014), The Machine (2013), and Ex Machina (2015) are all concerned with the same narrative in which humanity is in decline while artificial robots are rising up and experiencing life in a …

Remaking The Iconic Lulu: Transformations Of Character, Context, And Music, Jennifer Tullmann

Theses and Dissertations--Music

Using Alban Berg’s opera Lulu as a case study, this dissertation explores the fluid nature of cultural artifacts as they are reborn within new socio-cultural contexts. By examining several Lulu productions, this inquiry seeks to understand the changes of meaning that have occurred through the transformation of canonic works in the twentieth- and twenty-first centuries. Central to this project is the shifting nature of the character of Lulu, not only in Berg’s opera, but also in various artistic genres that preceded and affected his own conceptions, as well as her appearances in selected productions.

This study contrasts modern Lulu productions …

Teresa Carreño’S Early Years In Caracas: Cultural Intersections Of Piano Virtuosity, Gender, And Nation-Building In The Nineteenth Century, Laura Pita

Theses and Dissertations--Music

This dissertation studies the musical activities of the Venezuelan pianist and composer Teresa Carreño (1853-1917) during her formative years in Caracas. It examines the sources that pertain to her musical environment, early piano training, and first compositions in the context of the growth in Caracas of the practices of recreational sociability, the increasing influence of virtuosic music, and the tradition of private concert-making sponsored by devoted music amateurs. This study argues that Teresa Carreño’s musical upbringing occurred in a social and cultural context in which Enlightenment-framed ideologies of civilization and social progress, shaped in fundamental ways the perceptions of the …

Catalog Of Current Compositions, Dan Rager

Dan Rager