Dissertations 1980-1989

A Critical Edition of Carlo Pallavicino's Il Vespasiano
(under the direction of Howard E. Smither)

This dissertation provides a modern critical edition of the seventeenth-century Venetian opera, Il Vespasiano, music by Carlo Pallavicino, libretto by Giulio Cesare Corradi. It was the opening opera for the Teatro Grimani di San Giovanni Grisostomo in 1678 and became one of the most widely disseminated operas of the later seventeenth century. The edition is based on the earliest known source, I MOe Mus.F.894, which corresponds closely to the second issue of the 1678 libretto. Two other complete scores of the opera were consulted, I Vnm Ms.It.Cl.IV.Cod.462(=9986) from 1680 and I MOe Mus.F.898 from 1685.

Volume 1 includes a discussion of the 1678 libretto and its relationship to the "reform" libretto; a comparative study of sixteen libretti representing different versions and dissemination of the opera, printed 1678-1695; and an examination of the three complete manuscript scores with observations about the music. It was the practice of late seventeenth-century librettists and composers to write new arias--either additions or substitutions--for each new production of an opera. The recitative of the various libretti of Il Vespasiano remains stable, and the number of substitute and added arias in each libretto is usually small, making a comparative study of aria texts possible. The libretti printed after 1678 fall into three categories: (1) ten libretti that follow the 1678 libretto in many details; (2) two from Ferrara with new arias by Giuseppe Tosi; and (3) four that have additions and revisions by Aurelio Aureli. The Appendices of Volume 1 include all aria texts from the libretti studied and a facsimile of the 1678 libretto to which the score corresponds.

Volume 2 is the edition of the score with a statement of the editorial principles and commentary. An effort has been made to show what a seventeenth-century opera manuscript was like, and yet make the music accessible to a twentieth-century reader. Note values and accidentals are retained from the sources as they appear. Barlines and beaming of flagged notes are sometimes changed to conform to modern practice. Vocal C-clefs are changed to G-clefs. Castrato parts retain their original ranges. The continuo is not realized, and only figures from the sources are included.

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The Songs of Charles Ives and the Cultural Contexts of Death
(under the direction of Thomas Warburton)

Death is only one of a number of topics encountered in the total output of songs by Ives. Yet to Ives death was an important subject, as demonstrated by his many songs in which it finds reference. This dissertation surveys the cultural phenomenon of death in America from the middle decades of the nineteenth century to the early decades of the twentieth, providing a fitting cultural context for the study of Ives's selection and musical treatment of death song texts. For while Ives's music in many cases is quite individual and innovative, his texts are often retrospective, mirroring situations and attitudes prevalent in an earlier era. In addition to nostalgia, Ives shared with Victorian Americans a tendency to idealize concepts such as the afterlife (by viewing it as a place of rest, reunion, and a perfection of the domestic sphere) and beauty (frequently correlating it with melancholy, the redemptive role of women, the innocence of children, or the sustaining power of Nature). Concepts such as these--all of which appear in Ives's songs--facilitated human efforts to deal with the larger and less comprehensible issue of death. Ives's songs involving death and these related subjects exhibit a considerable range of style and points of view, with regard to both their texts and music. Through these various, even conflicting approaches, Ives presents death as a multifaceted subject that reflects his broad, all-encompassing view of life itself.

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The Operas of Alfred Bruneau (1857-1934)
(under the direction of James Haar)

In this dissertation, I present a detailed examination of the operas of Alfred Bruneau (1857-1934). This relatively obscure artist, a pupil of Jules Massenet, was at one time considered a highly original and innovative composer. Contemporary critics, in fact, heralded him as a leader of new French school, a group of young artists who reacted against the gentle sweetness of Massenet's highly successful opéra-lyrique. Although not actually a founder of a school, Bruneau was among the first to attempt a dramatic fusion of a modified Wagnerian motivic system with the more direct and powerful narrative style influenced in part by the Italian verismo composers. The difficulties of this task posed great problems for Debussy, Bruneau and all their contemporaries. An examination of Bruneau's operas and those of many of his contemporaries, has led me to conclude that Bruneau's works are among the best of his generation. The strengths and weaknesses of his operas reveal a great deal about the problem of musical style in this complex period.

The first chapter of this dissertation traces Bruneau's long and distinguished career, discussing the major influences on his musical development, particularly his relationship with the distinguished writer, Emile Zola. The next two chapters consider the literary aspects of French opera libretto in the 1890s and the relationship of Bruneau's operas to contemporary works. The remainder of the dissertation presents a detailed stylistic analysis of the operas with occasional mention of contemporary works. The stylistic elements considered are: motives, melodic types, harmony, tonality, orchestration, a brief discussion of four late operas, and a short conclusion. Hopefully, the ideas presented here will stimulate further research and discussion of this inadequately researched field.

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The Songs of Samuel Barber: A Study in Literary Taste and Text-Setting
(under the direction of Thomas Warburton)

Samuel Barber's compositions for accompanied solo voice comprise a dozen opus numbers (more than three dozen songs), spanning almost fifty years of his life. These works have received little critical attention, perhaps because Barber's frequently lyrical, neoromantic style fails to stimulate polemical discourse among analysts and historians. Yet Barber's selection and handling of texts clearly invite close investigation and explication. The texts of Barber's songs range from the anonymous eighth- to thirteenth-century writings set in the Hermit Songs to poetry by such modernists as Joyce and Yeats; from Matthew Arnold's famous "Dover Beach" to obscure surrealistic verse by American, Filipino, and Polish poets; and from the fastidious regularity of A. E. Housman's poetry to the rhapsodic prose of James Agee. Barber's text-setting techniques are as diverse as his texts; depending upon the literary stimulus, the composer used musical structure and style to imitate, elaborate, illuminate, or even contradict the language he set. By means of literary and musical analysis, as well as examination and interpretation of primary materials including sketches, notes, and autograph scores, this study explores the motivations, purposes, and results of Barber's choices of and treatments of song texts. These findings contribute not only to a clearer understanding of Barber's compositional technique and his historical position, but also to an important perspective on the complex relationships between music and language.

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The Villancico Repertory at San Lorenzo el Real del Escorial, c. 1630 - c. 1715
(under the direction of James W. Pruett)

The villancico was Spain's most pervasive vernacular religious genre from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century. This study centers on 201 villancicos by 43 composers written between c. 1630 and c. 1715, performed at the royal monastery of San Lorenzo del Escorial (founded 1563), and held today in its archive. The historical context for the works is provided through the consideration of the genre's earlier history in Chapter I. The villancico often reflected foreign influences, but after 1550 a vernacular musical style emerged, characteristically dominated by triple meter, syllabic declamation, and homorhythmic textures.

There survive no villancicos from the monastery from before c. 1630. A brief history is offered of the genre's use at the Escorial until about 1650. After mid-century, the Escorial villancicos are approached through manuscript study. Although the works were written mostly by non-Escorial composers, manuscripts usually were prepared by scribes at the monastery. Comparison of scribal hands and composers in the collection with works in other Spanish archives sheds light upon the dissemination of villancicos.

Consideration of the works' texts in Chapter III includes study of textual concordances in villancico text booklets at the Biblioteca Nacional in Madrid; concordances provide information on the exchange of texts and help match musical settings with some texts in the booklets. Textually--and musically--villancicos are usually bisectional, with a through-composed estribillo and strophic coplas. Textual content, ranging from religious symbolism to comedy, is summarized.

The music of the collection is considered in terms of principal influences, texture, rhythm, other musical elements, and performance practice. Musical influences include the Spanish vernacular style, Latin polyphonic music, polychoral writing, and Italian opera. Textural contrast in the villancico is of great interest; representative works for polychoral forces, single choirs, and smaller ensembles are examined. Triple meter, frequent syncopation, and hemiola are pervasive. Harmonically and melodically, the collection is homogeneous; musical interest originates in dance-like meter and textural interplay. Performance practice is considered in terms of contemporary treatises and primary sources. Nine representative villancicos are presented in modern edition in Volume II; complete texts with prose translation are included.

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The Gloria in excelsis Deo tropes of the Breme-Novalesa Community and the Repertory in North and Central Italy
(under the direction of Calvin Bower and James Pruett)

Gloria in excelsis deo tropes were numerous and widely distributed during the tenth to the twelfth centuries, and they form an important part of the medieval musical legacy. Yet Gloria tropes in Italy have remained largely unexplored. The present dissertation, then, investigates this nearly unknown repertory, which is seen to include fully one-half the complete European stock of about one hundred and twenty tropes. By identifying the manuscripts, and cataloging and analyzing the tropes, we examine an aspect of the role that musicians in Italy played in the creation, preservation, and transmission of medieval chant.

The study focuses on north and central Italian manuscripts, ca. A.D. 900-1200, and gives particular attention to the large collection of tropes in MS. Oxford, Bodleian Library, Douce 222 (Ox 222), an eleventh-century source from the old and distinguished monastic community of Breme and Novalesa, in northwestern Italy. Based on paleographic, textual, and musical analysis, we also suggest that the Breme-Novalesa community produced yet another manuscript containing Gloria tropes: this is MS. Rome, Biblioteca Casanatense 3830, from the late eleventh or early twelfth century.

Included in the study are editions of most Gloria tropes found in north and central Italy. Diversity of textual and musical forms suggests that distribution patterns in Italy were quite diverse, although perhaps two areas of especially active circulation may be perceived, the first among centers east of Bobbio and south of the Po, and the second among those locales from Bobbio west and north of the Po. Musically speaking, Gloria tropes in Italy may be based on variants of two melodic formulae or may be freely composed; some tropes are melodically derived from earlier examples or are found to contain melodic idioms in common with older pieces. A certain number of tropes were intended to interpolate particular Gloria melodies. Volume II reconstructs the non-diastematic melodies of Gloria tropes in Ox 222. These reconstructions supplement the analyses of volume I and reveal aspects of the notation that would be useful in recovering other music from the manuscript.

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The Chapel of St. Mark's at the Time of Adrian Willaert (1527-1562): A Documentary Study (Italy)
(under the direction of James Haar)

The hiring of Adrian Willaert as maestro di cappella at St. Mark's in 1527 and the thirty-five years of his tenure in that position are rightly regarded as milestones in the history of music in Venice. Willaert is credited with improving the quality of the chapel, bringing it from relative obscurity to European renown, while establishing the foundations of a Venetian school that reached its sixteenth-century zenith during the "golden age" of the Gabrieli. In spite of the importance of music at St. Mark's, studies entirely or partially devoted to the development of its singing chapel in the first half of the sixteenth century are rare. Caffi's classic Storia della musica sacra nella gia cappella ducale di San Marco (Venice, 1854) is increasingly showing its age and presents little information on the singers of polyphony. An article by Rene Lenaerts in 1938 offered a larger selection of archival documents concerning the chapel, but the author often relied on easily accessible, and faulty, copies of original documents.

After a thorough discussion of the available archival sources for the period in question (never satisfactorily described in the existing literature), I examine the situation of the singing chapel of St. Mark's prior to Willaert's arrival in Venice, in order to be able to assess accurately the changes brought by the Flemish master. Most of the discussion is devoted to the history of the chapel between 1527 and 1562, tracing its growth, personnel changes, administrative structure, with particular emphasis on the influence of Willaert on new developments.

An extended section focuses on the study of the patronage system at St. Mark's, including matters such as recruiting, provenance of the singers, and benefices. In addition, I examine the outside activities--both musical and non-musical--of the singers of the chapel, trying to arrive at a definition of their socio-economic status through a careful reading of diverse documents, such as wills, tax declarations, and business transactions. The appendixes include virtually all existing archival records--many of them hitherto unpublished--pertaining to the chapel's history up to 1562, and a biographical dictionary of all singers active at St. Mark's during the period in question.

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The Symphonies of Johan Agrell (1701-1765): Sources, Style, Contexts
(under the direction of James Pruett)

This study of the symphonies of the Swedish-born composer Johan Agrell includes the following material: a biography based on archival sources; an examination of the transmission of his symphonies (printed and manuscript sources, including information about the paper, copyists, provenance, and date of the principal sources), their authenticity, and their place in eighteenth-century musical life (collectors, repertories, and the size and composition of ensembles); an analysis of Agrell's musical style; a detailed thematic catalogue; and an extensive bibliography.

Agrell studied and worked in a variety of eighteenth-century cultural environments. He attended schools in Linkoping (1712-21) and university in Uppsala (1721-23), served in the private Kapelle of Prince Maximilian of Hessen-Kassel and occasionally in the ducal ensemble in Kassel (1723-46), and held the position of kapellmeister of the free imperial city of Nürnberg (1746-65). Of the thirty-seven symphonies ascribed to Agrell, twenty-eight are authentic. Five are of doubtful authenticity, and four are spurious; conflicts in attribution involve Brioschi, Hoffmann, Lampugnani, Locatelli, Pokorny, Reluzzi, Schaffrath, Solnitz, and Johann Stamitz. Roughly one-half of Agrell's authentic symphonies date from before 1750, including one conducted by Vivaldi in 1738 and six in the print of Agrell's Op. 1 (Nürnberg: J. U. Haffner, 1746 or 1747). The most important collections of Agrell's music are located in Stockholm, Lund, Uppsala, Darmstadt, and Berlin.

Agrell's symphonies are predominantly Classic in style and structure. His increasingly flexible treatment of register and texture, supple manipulation of phrasing, sophisticated development techniques, expressive harmonic language, and careful planning of cadences all provide movement to counteract the frequent articulations of his characteristic concatenation of short, contrasting melodic and rhythmic ideas. Agrell composed eleven symphonies containing four to six movements, strongly preferred binary designs, based many movements on dance styles, and wrote many passages for two winds plus continuo. His symphonies--as well as those by several composers with whom he was associated (Roman, Chelleri, Graupner, and Endler)--give impressive evidence that the orchestral suite must be reckoned as one of the most important stylistic sources and generic models of the concert symphony.

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The Sources for Beethoven's Piano Sonata in E major, Opus 109
(under the direction of James Haar)

The history and genesis of Opus 109 are recorded in four sketchbooks, some loose sketch leaves in a miscellany, twenty-nine letters, numerous entries in conversation books, and the sources surrounding the first edition. The dissertation investigates these sources in three ways. Collating the letters and conversation books, it reconstructs the particular history of the conception and commission of the sonata. Studying the sketches, it examines the genesis of the sonata in strictly musical terms. Using the sources related to the first edition, it attempts to establish a basis for the preparation of a new edition of Opus 109 and, by implication, for other sonatas. Careful collation of the letters and conversation books reveals that Beethoven had conceived the first movement before the letter commissioning the sonata arrived, and that the first movement was probably first intended as a contribution to a pianoforte anthology. The second and third movements were sketched in a later sketchbook, at much greater length than the first. The different formal procedures in these movements are reflected in different methods of sketching. A study of the sources pertaining to the first edition--the autograph, copyist's score, and first edition--raises questions regarding the authority of the primary sources. As many as six hundred variants exist between the autograph and the first edition, and it is questionable whether either source can be adopted as the sole basis for an edition. The dissertation attempts to show how the discrepancies arose and to suggest ways of resolving the differences.

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Modality, Office Antiphons, and Psalmody: The Musical Authority of the Twelfth-Century Antiphonal from St.-Denis
(under the direction of Howard E. Smither)

The fame of the twelfth-century St.-Denis Antiphonal, F-Pn lat. 17296, rests on extra-musical factors: its origin at the Royal Abbey, its early date, the finished and complete nature of the book, and its inclusion as one of twelve manuscripts indexed in Hesbert's Corpus antiphonalium officii. This study evaluates the authority of the musical text of this source. A distinctive feature is the consistent appearance of the ending formulas (differentiae) for the psalm recitations in the outside margins. Consideration of the physical structure, including page layout, proves that the antiphonal was planned as a totality, and that the marginal placement of the differentiae was part of the original design. A compilation of the antiphons assigned each formula shows that the differentiae used at St.-Denis in the twelfth century numbered twenty-six, ranging from a single appearance of the differentia for the Tonus peregrinus to more than 300 examples of one eighth-mode formula. Identification is made of formulas which have been erased or altered, antiphons lacking differentiae, and a small number of errors. With twenty-six formulas the repertory of F-Pn lat. 17296 is small, and possible explanations for the lack of certain differentiae are offered on the basis of comparison with two contemporary tonaries from Nevers and Sarum.

The system of musical notation (neumes placed on staves of four dry-point lines with clef), one of the earliest to communicate exact pitch, is also an important feature. The large quantity of variants among the neumatic forms used in the notation of the differentiae suggests that the neumes were not merely markers of pitch. Four classes of variants are identified, and each is explained on the basis of text setting. A tabulation of the finals of the antiphons compared with the models of the differentiae reveals that multiple finals were associated with eleven of the twenty-six differentiae. Transcriptions of seventy-five antiphons, including many with alternate finals, appear in the course of the discussion. The study concludes that the musical text of F-Pn lat. 17296 was thoughtfully-prepared. The marginal placement of the differentiae, in particular, was an intelligent attempt to grapple with certain problems encountered in the writing-down of the entire office repertory in the "new" pitch-accurate notational system.

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The Origin of “the First Russian Patriotic Oratorio”: Stepan Anikievich Degtiarev's Minin I Pozharskii (1811)
(under the direction of Howard E. Smither)

The work introduces and describes an era during which a Russian serf composer and a member of the Russian petty nobility collaborated to create in 1811 "the first Russian patriotic oratorio": Minin i Pozharskii, ili Osvobozhdeniia Moskvy (Minin and Pozharskii, or the Freeing of Moscow). Although unrecognized in Western musical literature, this oratorio constitutes apparently the earliest secular, patriotic composition cast as a traditional, Western European oratorio--a form unquestionably imported from the West and without direct parallel in native Russian choral music. Neither the talent of the composer, Stepan Anikievich Degtiarev (1766-1813) nor the skill of the librettist, Nikolai Dmitrievich Gorchakov (c. 1780-1847), nor the dramatic merits of the oratorio's subject explains the positive impression which the 1811 premiere of Minin i Pozharskii made upon the Moscow public or the place which the composition holds in the annals of Russian music history. For this reason, the dissertation emphasizes the social atmosphere and artistic precedents which surrounded and motivated the creation of the oratorio.

Part One introduces the Russian social milieu from 1760 to 1820 and the musical genres important during that period. Particular emphasis is given to the powerful Sheremetev family which owned Stepan Degtiarev, to the institution of the krepostnoi teatr (serf theatre) and to two native Russian a cappella choral genres--the kant and the khorovoi kontsert. Part Two considers the composer Degtiarev and the librettist Gorchakov as representatives of their era. Part Three narrows the discussion to the specific subject depicted in the oratorio Minin i Pozharskii--a battle waged in 1612 by military heroes Kuz'ma Minin (d. 1616) and Prince Dmitrii Pozharskii (1578-1642)--and presents various manifestations of that theme in Russian art and literature. Part Four concentrates on the oratorio itself: the primary sources, the libretto, the instrumentation, the musical setting of the text, the response of society mirrored in contemporary reviews, and the subsequent critical writing which the oratorio inspired. The dissertation is based largely on research conducted in the Soviet Union during the academic year 1981-82.

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The English Musical Journal in the Early Nineteenth Century
(under the direction of James Haar)

Based on a thorough examination of over sixty music and nonmusic periodicals published in England or Scotland between 1665 and 1845, this study discusses the English musical journal as a distinctive genre of specialized literature in the early nineteenth century. Part 1 treats the origins, development, function, reception, and impact of English musical journals; Part 2 examines in greater depth the two most outstanding and influential journals of the period, the Quarterly Musical Magazine and Review (1818-1830) and the Harmonicon (1823-1833). Bibliographic details as well as a summary of the content and outlook of each of the sixty-four periodicals examined appear at the end of the dissertation in the form of a descriptive catalogue.

Briefly stated, my conclusions are historical, literary, and, to some extent, sociological. A view of musical style and English taste clearly emerges, but neither music nor aesthetics has been a primary focus of the study. I have shown that the nineteenth-century English music periodical was part of a journalizing tradition much wider than simply the serial publication of music. By addressing the commercial issues of production and readership, I have also been able to gauge the influence of single publishers, editors, and contributors with more accuracy than has heretofore, been possible. Much anonymous musical criticism is identified, and the careers of several eminent periodical writers of the early nineteenth century are considered in depth.

The richness of English periodical writing on music in this period is nowhere more striking than in Richard Mackenzie Bacon's Quarterly Musical Magazine and Review and William Ayrton's Harmonicon. Largely produced by single writers in the same decade, these two journals present an ideal comparison between provincial and London musical life, amateur and professional interests, Handelian and Mozartian tastes, essay and encyclopedic format, philosophical and technical language. Both were highly successful publications, recognized in England and abroad, before they collapsed around 1830. For the images and insights they offer to modern scholars of nineteenth-century music, the Quarterly Musical Magazine and Review and the Harmonicon deserve fresh attention.

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Minuet, Scherzando, and Scherzo: The Dance Movement in Transition, 1781-1825
(under the direction of James Haar)

The dance movement in instrumental music changed radically around the turn of the nineteenth century. The period of greatest change may reasonably be demarcated by the completion in 1781 of Haydn's quartets, Op.33 (the dance movements of which are named either scherzo or scherzando) and the composition in 1825 of Mendelssohn's Octet, Op.20 (the scherzo of which is completely independent of minuet conventions). During this period, the dance movement was treated in a variety of traditional and innovative manners in the chamber and symphonic works of minor and major European composers.

Study of the dance movement in the broadest possible context disproves two commonly-held notions. First, the scherzo had a long history before 1781 and did not in fact metamorphose from the fast minuet. Second, the minuet was not a stable paragon of convention in the eighteenth century; rather there were fundamental differences between the dance and the art minuets, and the art minuet itself was responsive to many external stylistic and formal influences. After 1781, movements designated minuet, scherzando, and scherzo--plus unnamed movements--partake in common from a pool of richly diverse style traits. As a result, it is impossible to establish firm definitions for the three terms.

German musical aesthetics during this transitional period most strongly reflect eighteenth-century English influence. With regard to the dance movement, the comic in music is the most important German concept to emerge from English aesthetics. Developments in the dance movement parallel attitudes on the comic as traced in journal articles and reviews. This body of contemporary opinion suggests that the dance movement in transition is a paradigm of the displacement of Classical values by Romantic ones. In a larger sense, the dance movement is a key to the sources of musical Romanticism.

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Styles of Composition and Performance in Leclair's Concertos
(under the direction of James Haar)

Leclair's twelve concertos for solo violin, ripieno strings, and basso continuo--first published in Paris in 1737 and 1745--mark a rare use of the Vivaldian concerto idiom by a French composer. The concertos have been cited therefore as manifesting a union of French and Italian tastes. Previous writers have pointed to such obvious factors in this union as Leclair's occasional use within a Vivaldian framework of movements deriving from French theater genres.

The first part of the study focuses on manifestations in Leclair's compositional style of a subtler but much more fundamental union of national styles, one that has not been explored previously. Leclair's treatment of musical materials and of each of the three movements in the concerto cycle reveals an underlying hierarchy of symmetries that, in quintessentially French fashion, imposes order at all levels of the musical process from the smallest thematic idea to the concerto cycle as a whole. Thus even the most Italianate of materials and structures are subjected to a French aesthetic of imposed order. The union of a French compartmentalization with the Vivaldian idiom draws attention to individual, often brief musical moments rather than generating an Italianate thrust of energy. The compositional style gives only a partial impression of the concertos; the performance style completes the impression. The second part of the study therefore explores clues to Leclair's performance style revealed by contemporary accounts, Leclair's own instructions, 18th-century instruments, treatises on performance, and special performance conventions. These clues reveal that although Leclair's style of performance shares more in common with that of his Italian contemporaries than with that of the earlier French orchestral style of violin playing, a strong French influence persists. This influence persists not only in such specific practices as notes inégales and ornamentation but also in the general attention to expressive shaping at the small scale. Such shaping complements and indeed gives meaning to the musical details that are so vital to Leclair's compositional style.

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An Anonymous Seventeenth-Century German Oratorio in the Düben collection (Uppsala University Library vok. mus. i hskr. 71)
(under the direction of James Haar)

The Düben collection of the Uppsala University Library contains an anonymous and untitled set of manuscript parts for a late seventeenth-century North German oratorio, the sole extant representative of the early German oratorio. In 1928 the manuscript was attributed to Dietrich Buxtehude and was later published in abridged form under the misleading title Das Jüngste Gericht. Heated debate over the question of Buxtehude's authenticity as the composer has resulted in a misunderstanding of the work and of Buxtehude's relationship to it. A detailed examination of the manuscript presents a complete view of the oratorio and discounts Buxtehude, but not one of his emulators, as composer on stylistic grounds.

Wacht euch zum Streit (working title, the textual incipit of Act I) is presented against its historical background and also in the context of its manuscript collection. A detailed description of the manuscript source and its date precedes a short history of the Düben collection and an account of the scholarly controversy that has surrounded this manuscript. The historical context of Wacht euch zum Streit is established with emphasis on the various sacred dramatic forms of the period. Treatment of the libretto as a literary form complements the musical background. After an overview of the tonal plan and structure of Wacht euch zum Streit, the music is discussed according to the three textual types that comprise the libretto. Although the music is conventional for North Germany in this period, the structure is on an unusually grand scale.

The extended length of this oratorio places it outside the Lutheran liturgy and confirms its intention as a concert work; as such it represents the North German tradition of sacred concerts. The nonliturgical function suggests a popular orientation that is borne out by the colorful allegorical libretto and the simple but attractive music.

Wacht euch zum Streit is of primary importance for the history of German sacred music and for the history of an era. Its music, grand scope, and text reveal much about North German culture after the Thirty Years War.

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Der zeugende Samen: Wagner's Concept of the Poetic Intent
(under the direction of James Pruett)

This study deals with Richard Wagner's concept of the dichterische Absicht, or the poetic intent, acting in opera as the seed that generates the musical response and brings forth in combination with that response what Wagner considered to be the perfect dramatic artwork. The concept is traced from its first statement in Oper und Drama through Wagner's subsequent theoretical writings, and the relation of the concept to Wagner's ideas on how words and music combine to produce drama is shown. The theoretical statement of the concept is then compared with musical examples from three of Wagner's operas--Tristan und Isolde, Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, and Parsifal--to suggest ways in which the concept can be seen to work in practical terms. The concept is found to be a consistently valid aspect of Wagner's theory and practice from Oper und Drama on, in spite of the seeming contradictions in the later essays and in spite of the different ways in which words music combine to produce drama in the later operas.

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From Voix de ville to Air de cour: The Strophic Chanson, c.1545-1575
(under the direction of James W. Pruett)

From its first appearance in the sixteenth century, the strophic chanson is stylistically distinguishable from the chanson proper. Although usually published in the guise of a part-song, the strophic chanson is by nature a monodic genre. It relies for its substance upon simple, syllabic melodies associated with courtly lyrics. Such melodies are known at mid-century as voix de ville; that term is supplanted after about 1570 by the name of air--after the Italian aria--or air de cour.

Attaingnant first publishes chansons with multiple strophes in his anthologies of the mid-1540s; after 1550, Le Roy & Ballard issue whole volumes devoted to the strophic genre, which is identified as the chanson en forme de voix de ville. These concise, chordal chansons, published under the names of Certon, Arcadelt, and other prominent composers, are typically arrangements of preexistent melodies, many of them dance tunes, wedded to polished, amorous verses. The outdated works of the court poet Saint-Gelais form the nucleus of the strophic text repertory. Both verse and music mark the genre as an unpretentious form of entertainment, which enjoyed enduring popularity: the mid-century voix de ville are still being reprinted for a wide public as late as 1588.

Pierre Cléreau is the first composer to invest the strophic chanson with higher artistic intent, in his settings of Ronsard and other humanist poets. His three-voice chansons adopt the chordal, monodic style of the chanson en forme de voix de ville, but his original melodies eschew the dance meters characteristic of that genre, in favor of a closer approximation of textual rhythms.

The strophic chansons published by "Nicolas" and Nicolas de La Grotte in the 1560s reflect a change of style that marks the transition from voix de ville to air de cour. The typical, dancelike voix de ville harmonized by "Nicolas" stand in contrast to the elegant, text-dominated airs set by La Grotte. These airs de cour, with their declamatory, formulaic rhythms, seem to embody the humanist aspiration for a closer union of text and music.

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Santiago de Murcia: Spanish Theorist and Guitarist of the Early Eighteenth Century
(under the direction of James W. Pruett)

The Resumen de acompañar la parte con la guitarra (Antwerp, 1714) and the "Passacalles y obras (1732)" by Santiago de Murcia mark the apogee of the baroque guitar in Spain. The basso continuo treatise in the Resumen is one of the most important theoretical works for the baroque guitar; it provides insights, as well, into the status of music theory in early eighteenth-century Spain. Murcia's pasacalles, diferencia pieces, and preludes show him to be an excellent composer capable of controlling large formal structures. The bulk of the compositions in Murcia's books are not his own, however, but compositions borrowed from his French contemporaries. Until now, little has been known of Murcia's life except that he was the Guitar Master to Maria Luisa Gabriela of Savoy, the Queen of Spain. In this work, a plausible biography is formulated, drawing upon primary source material in Spanish archives. It is probable that Murcia was a student of Francisco Gueráu as a choirboy in the Royal Chapel and Royal College. Evidence is presented suggesting that Santiago de Murcia was the son of Gabriel de Murcia and Juana de León, both of whom were vihuelists and employed in the Royal Chapel. His patrons are identified with respect to biographical dates, diplomatic duties, and military honors.

Murcia's views on theoretical matters are compared with other theoretical writings of the time. In addition to continuo realizations, suspensions, and cadences, Murcia devotes considerable time to several curiosities: the different clefs and the transpositions they imply; mensuration symbols of the "modern foreign style" and the "old Spanish style"; the use of coloration and white mensural notation; and the active use of the eight modes and their cadential formulas. Due to Murcia's importance in the history of the baroque guitar and Spanish music, a critical edition of his complete works is found in volume 2 of this dissertation. Included are the original Spanish with an English translation of Murcia's continuo treatise and a modern transcription of the musical works. The original tablature notation, replete with Murcia's left-hand fingerings and ornamentation, is placed above all musical transcriptions. Corrections and editorial suggestions are found in the critical notes at the end.

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The Persistence of Pythagorean Mathematics in Ancient Musical Thought
(under the direction of Calvin M. Bower)

Several ways of knowing music exist in Western civilization, two of which predominate: grammatical (linguistic) and mathematical. As early as the sixth and fifth centuries B.C., Pythagoras and Pythagoreans initiated and developed a mathematical way of knowing about the world in general, and in particular about music. Historians of mathematics have long recognized that the Euclidean generalization of mathematics during the fourth century B.C. rendered obsolete the qualitative, substantive mathematics of the Pythagoreans, which previously had played a participatory role in the development of Greek mathematics. This generalization, culminating in Euclid's compilation of the Elements of Geometry (c. 300 B.C.), transformed mathematics into an abstract theory, capable of accommodating incommensurable magnitudes and generally applicable to all physical sciences.

Historians of music have long recognized that several ancient musical treatises, most of which date from well after the fourth century B.C., contain and rely upon Pythagorean mathematics. My study investigates why a mathematical way of knowing that was rendered obsolete during the fourth century B.C. by the Euclidean generalization lived on in the musical treatises, persevering for over a millennium after having been superseded. I conclude that the link and strength between Pythagorean mathematics and ancient musical theory was substantive number. Pythagorean number is as corporeal as sound, and in this way Pythagorean harmonics (musical theory) distinguishes itself from the incorporeal harmonics of Plato. In addition to mathematical changes and developments, during the fourth century B.C. Pythagorean musical theory was threatened by the geometrically conceived musical theory of Aristoxenus, but withstood this threat on its own merits. Pythagorean mathematics survived because Aristoxenus's Elements of Harmony did not eradicate Pythagorean musical theory. The link between the Pythagorean mathematical and musical theories was of sufficient philosophical strength to withstand the turn of events during the fourth century B.C.

In this study I present a brief history of Pythagorean mathematics in order to discuss its connection to sound and to music on the bases of: classification, proportional theory, and transfer of terms. In so doing I define a central tradition for the transmission of Pythagorean mathematics in ancient musical treatises as the corpus of treatises that, in devoting themselves exclusively or largely to musical matters, exhibit Pythagorean mathematical reasoning. The major mathematical traits and issues occurring in this tradition include: the relation of reason to sensory perception; the myth of the Pythagorean hammers; the treatment of the semitone; the division of the tetrachord; the arithmetic, geometric, and harmonic means; and the assignment of numbers to notes and ratios to intervals. This tradition includes the following treatises: Sectio canonis, Nicomachus's Manual of Harmony, Theon of Smyrna's Expositio rerum mathematicarum ad legendum Platonem utilium, Gaudentius's Introduction to Harmony, and Boethius's De institutione musica. In addition to these treatises, I discuss works by the following authors: Aristides Quintilianus, Cassiodorus, Censorinus, Chalcidius, Iamblichus, Macrobius, Martianus Capella, Porphyry, and Proclus. Finally, I use Ptolemy's Harmonica to evaluate the major mathematical traits and issues found in the musical treatises under consideration.

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Keyboard Dances and Variations in Turin, Biblioteca Nazionale, MS. Foà 8
(under the direction of James W. Pruett)

MS. Foà 8, the sixteenth volume of the Turin keyboard tablature, contains seventy-three compositions: dances (single-section and multi-sectional), variation sets, and imitative works. Over two-thirds of the pieces are anonymous; works by known composers include Frescobaldi partitas, Sweelinck variation sets, and unica ascribed to Samuel Scheidt, Hans Leo Hassler, Johann Staden, Valentin Dretzel, and Francesco Turini. The musical style and structure of these pieces are the central issues of the dissertation, which consists of two volumes: the first examines the repertory of Foà 8, and the second (Supplement) presents transcriptions of all unpublished pieces along with a complete thematic catalog. Although questions of provenance and concordances are dealt with to some extent, full answers to such questions are reserved for future research. In particular, the postulation of the manuscript's having been compiled by a German in Venice remains to be confirmed.

The repertorial study of Foà 8 focuses on the unpublished dances and variations in the context of all seventy-three compositions. In addition to traditional analysis of musical elements, special attention is paid to factors that define individual pieces. In the majority of dances and variations, a musical style of textural variety and harmonically conceived figuration coexists with modal flux and tonal/modal ambiguity. Despite tonal/modal ambiguity, cadential harmony often assumes tonal focus. Furthermore, variation technique is the principal means of achieving structural length--the longest dances contain strain variations, and lengthy structures are all multisectional dances or sets of variations. The dances in Foà 8 (single-section and multi-sectional) demonstrate three styles in the history of the keyboard dance: (1) the oldest display predominantly chordal, strict textures that reveal sixteenth-century consort influences; (2) the majority show uses of idiomatic keyboard texture such as harmonically conceived figuration, repeated-note passages, wide leaps, and sequentially repeated scales; and (3) a few short dances in the middle of the manuscript not only incorporate idiomatic keyboard texture, but also show a considerable degree of stylization in the use of the lute-inspired stile brisé.

Comparisons of multisectional dances (dances with variation sections) with variation sets (designated collections of variations on special subjects) reveal that (1) multisectional dances retain a melodic/harmonic subject--with a defining strain and cadential structure, melodic contour, and harmonic outline--whereas variation sets rarely treat the subject as a complete melodic/harmonic statement within itself; (2) melodic/harmonic procedures characterize multisectional dances, whereas structural procedures for variation sets include cantus-firmus, continuous bass/harmonic, sectional bass/harmonic, as well as melodic/harmonic plans; (3) the subjects of variation sets are generally less distinguished by internal pauses; (4) the breadth of variation treatment contributes to both the greater length of variation sets and the greater distance from the original subject; and (5) multisectional dances and variation sets share a common vocabulary of variation techniques: melodic embellishment, harmonic variation, retention of melody with changes in other voices, elaboration of cadential connections and upbeats, and interaction of patterns, repetitions, or melodic/rhythmic figures.

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