Musicology Commons^™

Musical “Covers” And The Culture Industry: From Antiquity To The Age Of Digital Reproducibility, Babette Babich

Articles and Chapters in Academic Book Collections

This essay foregrounds “covers” of popular recorded songs as well as male and female desire, in addition to Nietzsche’s interest in composition, together with his rhythmic analysis of Ancient Greek as the basis of what he called the “spirit of music” with respect to tragedy. The language of “sonic branding” allows a discussion of what Günther Anders described as the self-creation of the mass consumer but also a reflection on the ghostly time-space of music in the broadcast world. A brief allusion to Rilke complements a similarly brief reference to Jankelevitch’s “ineffable.”

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 …

Instrumental Music Learning In An Irish Bimusical Context, Mary Nugent

Doctoral

This study focuses on bimusical instrumental learning, exploring the perceptions, beliefs and musical practices of students who are simultaneously engaged in learning classical and Irish traditional musics. The literature on bimusicality addresses how it has evolved in various social and educational contexts. This research focuses on the bimusical learning processes and practices of students, aged sixteen to twenty years, as they cross between the different learning modes associated with these two musical traditions in an Irish context. This qualitative study adopts a collective case study approach, using a purposive sampling strategy. Data collected include: videotaped lessons, recorded practice/playing sessions, observations …

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 …

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 …

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 …

Fragments D'Un Diari Musical, Antoni Pizà

Publications and Research

Vetllada musical al pis d'Ursula Oppens. A pesar de les connotacions vuitcentistes que pugui tenir qualsevol saló musical, Ursula no és ni una Guermantes ni una Verdurin, sinó una defensora tenaç dels segles XX i XXI. Elliott Carter, John Adams, Lutoslawski, Ligetic, etc., tots els grans compositors des segles XX i XXI li han dedicat obres, i ella, amb els seus enregistraments, alguns amb nominacions als Grammys, ha estat la gran advocada del pianisme contemporani als EUA.

The Horror Queen's English: Elisabeth Lutyens And The Paradoxes Of Twentieth Century British Music, Rebeca Ramos

Music Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this thesis is to illuminate the paradoxical work of British serialist Elisabeth Lutyens. Musical Englishness in the mid-twentieth century was mainly conceived of as tonal, narrative and folk or folk-inspired. Lutyens was an oddity in the English musical scene as a serialist, but she utilized many of the qualities of traditional Englishness while maintaining a modern, idiomatic sound. Although this combination seems paradoxical, Englishness can be understood in far more inclusive terms than simply tonal, narrative, or folk-like. I begin by defining Englishness as it was perceived and promoted through mainstream music festivals or radio broadcasts from …

The Handmaiden Of Gnosis: Music In Esoteric Societies, Justin Andrew Owen

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Western esotericism, or the practice of trying to understand divinity through secret initiatic means, exists in several philosophical strains, which mystics through the ages have formalized into systems of teaching. One aspect that appears in many of the traditions is music. Music is a direct language of the consciousness within esoteric traditions because it does not rely on language to express higher concepts. Just as these societies teach truths mainly through symbolism, they use music, since it lends itself to interpretations beyond the connotation-laden nature of words. This dissertation focuses on three major strains of western esotericism: Rosicrucians, Theosophists, and …

A Story Of Feminine Sacrifice: The Music, Text, And Biographical Connections In Amy Beach's Concert Aria Jephthah's Daughter, Clarissa E. Aaron

Honors Projects

Jephthah’s Daughter (Op. 53), a concert aria for soprano and orchestra written by Amy Beach (1867-1944) in 1903, has long suffered neglect due to the fate of its manuscript and the fate of Beach’s work in general. This investigation seeks to probe how Beach engaged the Biblical subject matter and mid-1800s French text in her setting. I discuss this engagement through stylistic comparison with the musical traits of her other work, translation comparison between the literal meanings of the original poem and Beach’s English rendition, and contextualization of Beach’s setting within the history of how this story has been interpreted. …

Evolving Performance Practice Of Debussy's Piano Preludes, Vivian Buchanan

LSU Master's Theses

Between 1910 and 1912 Claude Debussy recorded twelve of his solo piano works for the player piano company Welte-Mignon. Although Debussy frequently instructed his students to play his music exactly as written, his own recordings are rife with artistic liberties and interpretive freedom. Interestingly, many of the interpretive gestures that Debussy employs in these recordings are consistent with playing techniques utilized by French Baroque keyboardists. This paper will situate Debussy’s own performance in this Baroque playing style. I will first discuss the recording technology used by Welte-Mignon to establish the reliability of these recordings. By studying harpsichord manuals, I will …

Bali’S “Forgotten Stepchild”: The Cultural And Sonic Vitality Of The Balinese Rebab, Mikaela Marget

Lawrence University Honors Projects

The rebab is one of the only traditional stringed instruments found on the island of Bali, Indonesia. Though it is ever-present in musical ensembles in Bali, the rebab has been consistently overlooked in scholarship of Balinese music by Western ethnomusicologists. Through participant observation, personal interviews, and library research, I explore the idea that the rebab deserves a place in the scholarship of Balinese music. In addition, I argue that the Balinese rebab not only persists in Balinese music culture as a vital object, but that it is also an active participant in shaping Balinese music culture. In this paper, I …

Sounds Of The Singing Revolution: Alo Mattiisen, Popular Music, And The Estonian Independence Movement, 1987-1991, Allison Brooks-Conrad

Lawrence University Honors Projects

Estonian identity, history, and music are deeply intertwined. In the late 20^th century, when faced with Soviet domination, Estonians relied on music to carry their message as part of their independence movement, which was eventually referred to as the Singing Revolution. Composer Alo Mattiisen emerged as one of the most influential members of the Estonian music scene in the 1980s, not only by defining Estonian popular music as political and activist, but also by developing experimental reinterpretations of larger Western popular music traditions. We can view Alo Mattiisen’s contributions to the Estonian music scene of the 1980s as a …

Music Is The "Noise Of Remembering" Tracing The Origins, Influences, And Connectivities Of West African Music, Adam Friedman

Lawrence University Honors Projects

The popularity and universal reach of music genres such as Jazz and Hip Hop attest to the idea that these forms have been long established as a vital part of global musical culture. For people who are familiar with Afrocentric music, it is clear that styles such as Jazz and Hip Hop are rooted in, and inextricably linked with, African culture and history. What is more difficult to make sense of, however, is how and why transplanted African culture came to have such wide reaching impact in the new contexts in which it was taken up – because the stories …

Electronics And The Music Of Miles Davis, Darren E. Shekailo

Theses and Dissertations

Miles Davis produced a wealth of music relying on the use of electronic instruments and new technology. With their adoption, the famous trumpeter began his “electric” period. Examining the electric period of Davis’s career helps us trace the profound impact of electronic instruments and technological advances on his music.

The Composer, The Musicologist, His Wife, And Her Lover: On Lacan’S Relevance To Music, Thomas Reiner

Directions of New Music

This paper asks what it is to write about music. When we ask students or colleagues to write about music are we asking them to describe music structurally, or to cope with music’s ever-shifting signifieds? The paper attempts to answer this question by clarifying the relationship between composition, musicology, and music “itself” by way of a Lacanian reading of Peter Greenaway's film The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover. Lacan’s existential concepts of the Imaginary, the Symbolic, and the Real are first introduced in relation to music with reference to music by Hans Werner Henze, Lady Gaga, …

"Lehadlik": Radical Jewish Music, Gender And Disidentification In Aviva Endean’S Work, Shoshana Rosenberg

Directions of New Music

This paper undertakes a hermeneutic analysis of Aviva Endean’s “Lehadlik”, exploring the complex relationship between the player, a Jewish woman living in Australia, and traditional Jewish culture and rituals. This analysis connects Endean’s work to the larger body of Radical Jewish Music, a movement which seeks to diversify and expand the meaning of contemporary Jewish music beyond the confines of Klezmer and religious hymns. The analysis includes an exploration of the relationship between Endean’s womanhood, Orthodox Jewish traditions, and women’s historical place in Judaism.

Steve Reich's ‘Music For 18 Musicians’ As A Soundscape Composition, Jesse Budel

Directions of New Music

Over the past half century, there has been much research into the acoustic qualities of soundscapes from a variety of perspectives: the humanities and social sciences as per the ‘acoustic ecology’ movement (established by Schafer, Truax, and Westerkamp et al.), and more recently the environmental science and ecology as per ‘soundscape ecology’ (established by Farina, Pijanowski, and Krause, et al.). Collectively, these disciplines provide diverse methods for engagement with analysis of acoustic environments. Simultaneous to the rise of the acoustic ecology movement in the 1970s (marked by the publication of Schafer’s ‘The Tuning of the World (1974)), the composition of …

Program Notes. Spring Concert. Camerata Milwaukee, Shorewood, Wi. May 19, 2018, Marianne Kordas

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Homenajes: Finding Spanish Identity In Falla's Orchestral Suite, Leanny Munoz

LSU Master's Theses

Using biographical criticism, this thesis examines Manuel de Falla’s Homenajes (1939) as a reflection of the composer’s views of Spanish identity on regional, national, and international levels. Falla completed Homenajes—a four-movement orchestral suite dedicated to Enrique Fernández Arbós, Claude Debussy, Paul Dukas, and Felipe Pedrell—in Argentina. He began the work in Spain in 1938, during a period of great personal and political disturbance. In 1939, Manuel de Falla left Spain following the end of the Spanish Civil War, which cemented the regime of Francisco Franco. The Francoist regime notoriously aimed to homogenize Spanishness within the country, in part by …

Enduring Music: Migrant Appalachian Communities And The Shenandoah National Park, Madeline Marsh

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

This paper is an archival study of the displaced children of families formerly living in the Shenandoah National Park which spans from Strasburg to Waynesboro, Virginia. The study looks at interviews, from the JMU Special Collections archives, of these children in the 1970-80s, nearly fifty years after their forced migration from the 197,438 acres that comprised the park. Change and pressure during the 1930s-40s combined with national policy began the nostalgic preservation and veneration of the culture of these people of the Blue Ridge Mountains; through the archives, a clear and diverse picture of the perspectives and lifestyles of people …

Selected Folksong Arrangements Of Zoltán Kodály: An Analysis And Performer’S Guide, Sebastian A. Haboczki

Dissertations, 2014-2019

The history of Hungarian music and the Hungarian nation is a long and complicated one. Conquered by many different empires throughout history, Hungary faced challenges in maintaining its unique music and cultural heritage. Despite Hungary’s tumultuous changes of governance, its folksongs have evolved and flourished. Through the efforts of people such as Zoltán Kodály, Béla Bartók, and Lászlo Dobszay, these folksongs have been collected, studied, and categorized. Kodály, an accomplished musician whose research and music education philosophy can sometimes overshadow his compositional prowess, also composed folksong arrangements which embody the true nature of Hungarian music. These arrangements can be used …

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 …

The Flutists Of The John Philip Sousa’S Band: A Study Of The Flute Section And Soloists, Ramon Da Silva Moraes

Dissertations

The Sousa Band is widely known because of its leader and his compositions. Although it was one of the most successful ensembles in history, most of the instrumentalists and individuals who contributed to its success have had their legacies forgotten. The flute section of the Sousa Band is an example of a group of musicians who were recognized as some of the best in the United States during their time, but are neglected by the present flute community.

My research focused on gathering data about the flute section and the individuals who were instrumental for the creation and development of …

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 …

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, …

Cowboy Art Song: A Contextual And Musical Analysis Of Libby Larsen's "Cowboy Songs", Ann Gabrielle Richardson

Dissertations

This dissertation sprang from a combination of two personal interests: cowboy culture and classical art song. The union of my cowgirl heritage with my career as a classical vocalist has long fueled an interest in a particular niche of repertoire: soprano art song with thematic connections to the North American cowboy. A conducted state of research reveals no scholarly literature exploring this specific topic. Libby Larsen’s collection, Cowboy Songs, fulfills the aforementioned niche, successfully capturing the spirit, musical idioms, and cultural themes of the North American cowboy.

Chapter I lays a contextual foundation for cowboy song, providing a catalogue …

Sacred Sounds: A Compassionate Listening Guide To Musical Worship, Madison Blonquist

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Sacred Sounds was a collaborative, multimedia exhibition that showed in the Brigham Young University Harold B. Lee Library Level 1 Gallery from November 10, 2017-February 2, 2018. Its primary objective was to cultivate empathy among the three Abrahamic religions through the lens of music. While this project may communicate the overall vision of the curator, it was deeply collaborative and involved the creative contributions from several campus departments and drew upon the insights of leaders from local congregations. The following documentation is a portfolio of the exhibition space and its public reception. This project was made possible with generous funding …

The Compositional Influence Of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart On Ludwig Van Beethoven’S Early Period Works, Mary L. Krebs

Young Historians Conference

In the early period of Ludwig van Beethoven's life (1775-1802), his compositions exhibited the Classical style and showed hints of the expressivity to come in the Romantic Era. His music was no doubt influenced by many musical figures around him at the time, including Joseph Haydn, Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, and Beethoven's own father, Johann van Beethoven. But who exerted the strongest influence on Beethoven's early period works? An analysis of Beethoven's studies and his Sonata No. 5 in C minor offers compelling evidence pointing towards Beethoven's role model, a fellow Classical composer: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

From Rain’S A-Gonna Fall To Bricks In The Wall: A Comparative Analysis Of Humanity’S Core Themes In The Music Of Bob Dylan And Pink Floyd, Alec Williams

Honors Program: Senior Projects (Public)

The 1960s were turbulent times of musical creation and revolution. From Motown to Dinkytown, the world suddenly became filled with blooms of creativity that stemmed from the freshly planted roots rock ‘n’ roll. Artists that garnered infamy in this flourishing era, including household names like Jimi Hendrix, The Beatles, and Janis Joplin, would become immortalized in music and pop culture. However, few stand out as pinnacle lyrical and musical influences, devout to the art of perpetual creation and development of the global music scene. Of those artists, Bob Dylan and Pink Floyd have contributed immensely to the synthesis of genres …