Document Actions
Recent Dissertations
(scroll down for alphabetical list)
Songtaik Ahn-Kwon
Gustav Mahler and J. S. Bach: Reinventing Ritornello Form
(under the direction of Severine Neff)
Ph.D. 2002
Despite the complex and highly original aspects of Mahler's musical forms, the majority of scholars still favor sonata-allegro as the primary source for understanding the first movements of his symphonies. This decision can be surprising because in certain movements the repetitions of the introductory material can be more prominently articulated than the transitions or even main thematic groups. These skewings of traditional schema often produce formal plans that are cyclic in nature. I contend that such cyclic forms have roots not only in nineteenth-century works but also in Baroque music, specifically that of Johann Sebastian Bach. In my thesis I will show how Mahler intensively studied Bach's music through analysis and performance. As much as possible I will use manuscript materials to make my points. Next I will discuss Bach's ritornello form, its interpretation in the current scholarly literature, and its relation to late nineteenth-century cyclic forms. Finally I will show how Mahler reinvents Bach's formal and developmental ideas by incorporating them into his own works of the middle and late periods. In analytic commentary I will use the methods and working vocabulary of Mahler's friend and collegue, Arnold Schoenberg. Certain passages of Mahler's later works will particularly illustrate how he reinvents the Bach-influenced forms of his middle period through aspects of motivic development, phrase structure, and even sonata-form principles. This fusion of contrapuntal and homophonic ideas determines most clearly Mahler's complex and original sense of form.
Jane Elise Alden
Makers of a Songbook: The Scribes of the Laborde Chansonnier
Recipient of the Glen Haydon Dissertation Award
(under the direction of John Nádas)
Ph.D. 1999
The Laborde Chansonnier (Washington, Library of Congress, Music Division, MS M2.1.L25 'Case') is one of the central sources for French songs from the second half of the fifteenth century. That there are close relationships between it and other manuscripts (the 'Copenhagen', 'Dijon', 'Nivelle' and 'Wolfenbüttel' chansonniers) has long been known, but previous interpretations have engendered assumptions which are not supported by the evidence of the manuscripts themselves. Of the five, Laborde has the most intriguing history of copying, with implications that the plan for the manuscript changed on more than one occasion. While Laborde is at the centre of this investigation, the discussion frequently addresses its relationship to the other manuscripts in the group.
To understand the cultural conditions that led to the copying of chansonniers, chapter 1 addresses the function of small decorative books within the context of fifteenth-century society. Of particular relevance is the status of manuscripts and the role of the scribe in the early years of printed books. Problems are identified in scholarly approaches which do not adequately consider scribal methods of compilation and organization of repertory. Chapter 2 focuses on the physical aspects of Laborde, identifying and numbering its scribes. The chapter also reconstructs a relative chronology for Laborde's compilation, and outlines the various stages of completion.
Chapter 3 tests the application of ordinary scribal practices to the specialized copying of music manuscripts. Through a close examination of script, an evolution is traced in the work of the scribe responsible for the Dijon and Copenhagen Chansonniers. Since this scribe also worked on Laborde, the identification of an earlier and later style has important chronological implications. Chapter 4 calls into question the chronology which has come to be accepted for the five manuscripts. It argues that the assumptions which led to the Nivelle Chansonnier being considered the earliest of the group were based on a flawed methodology. In the light of a revised chronology, chapter 5 reconsiders the repertories contained in these manuscripts, and their changing patterns of transmission. The popularity of certain pieces is viewed from a local rather than an international perspective.
Matthew Richard
Baumer
Aesthetic Theory and the Representation of the Feminine
in Orchestral Program Music of the Mid-Nineteenth Century
(under the direction of Mark Evan Bonds)
Ph.D. 2002
Recent attempts to show how instrumental music reflects societal attitudes about gender in the nineteenth century have been hampered by difficult questions of what those works portray, according to the aesthetics of the time. To address the problem, this study examines depictions of female characters through the lens of mid-nineteenth century criticism, within the context of a reevaluation of the aesthetic history of orchestral program music. Case studies of representations of the feminine illustrate the changes in aesthetic theory and vice versa.
Eighteenth-century composers and theorists held program music in low esteem, and early Romantics like E. T. A. Hoffmann regarded Beethoven's programs as peripheral to the music's ability to reveal the ideal world beyond appearances. The aesthetic outlook of A. B. Marx was far more hospitable for program music because it took root in Hegelian idealism, which located the ideal in a universal mind. Hegel argued that music lacked an objective content, but Marx described an objective content in Beethoven's music using the language of program music, as in his description of masculine and feminine themes in sonata form. In his essays on Beethoven's overtures he recognized the second theme's potential to represent Klœrchen or Valeria, but identifies Leonore with the first theme, demonstrating a flexible approach.
When Liszt shifted his focus to composition around 1848, his aesthetic lay closer to Hoffmann's than Marx's. After a debate with Wagner in 1851-1853 about what the Tannhœuser overture represents, in which the depiction of Venus figured prominently, Liszt accepted the explicit program and shifted towards a Marxian aesthetic. In 1855 Liszt quoted Hegel and A. B. Marx in a series of essays that established an aesthetic in which the program provided an objective content while the music presented an immediate emotional experience. The portrayal of Gretchen in the "Faust" Symphony exemplifies this aesthetic. As can be seen in two contemporary reviews and a new analysis of the final chorus, Liszt recast Goethe's Gretchen to focus on the ideal that pervades program music of this period: the eternal feminine.
Rachel Carlson
Devotion to the Virgin Mary in Twelfth-Century Aquitanian Versus
(under the direction of John Nádas and James McKinnon)
Ph.D. 2000
Twelfth-century Aquitanian versus, collected at the abbey of Saint Martial in Limoges, have won musicological attention as early representatives of freely-composed, practical polyphony. Recent studies focus on transcription methods, manuscript transmission and musical style, but rarely textual content. I posit that additional insight into the significance and function of the versus can be gained by studying the texts as their compositional inspiration.
The versus deal largely with the Virgin Mary and stand among the first musical repertories of the twelfth-century Marian cult. This fact has been noted occasionally by scholars but has not been explored systematically. I analyze versus portrayals of Mary through poetic imagery and biblical allegory and contextualize the texts in terms of patristic thought.
In chapter 1, I explain my methodology and review previous research. I present three reasons to read versus texts closely: the texts reveal the theological concerns of the monks who wrote them; music and text compellingly interact in the versus; and the tone of the texts suggests the versus' possible function. In particular, I believe that the exploratory, sometimes unconventional, nature of the poems supports James Grier's notion that versus are monastic, paraliturgical inspirations.
Chapter 2 discusses treatments of Mary's virginity, the most popular topic of Marian reverence in the versus. I focus on several common biblical allegories for virginity: Gideon's fleece, Daniel's mountain, the burning bush, and Jesse's rod. In my analyses, I suggest that chronological distinctions in poetic style parallel recognized trends in musical construction. Specifically, I assert that the more intricate musical settings of later versus, as recognized by Leo Treitler, were created to conform to a corresponding poetic artifice. Chapters 3, 4, and 5 consider presentations of Mary as mother, mediatrix, and bride, respectively. Chapter 6 explores ways in which Marian appellations of mother, daughter, and bride merge, in keeping with developing Marian exegesis. The symbol of the lily exemplifies overlapping imagery between Mary and Christ, demonstrating how selected versus elevate Mary's importance to rival that of God himself. Volume 2 of the dissertation contains my transcriptions and translations of the Marian versus.
Seth J.
Coluzzi
Reading Marenzio's
Settimo libro de madrigali a cinque voci (1595)
Recipient of the Glen Haydon Dissertation Award
(under the direction of Tim Carter)
Ph.D. 2006
Using Luca Marenzio's Seventh Book of five-voice madrigals of 1595 as a test case, my dissertation focuses upon the question: how might a book of madrigals have been read in the sixteenth century? To answer this question, several fundamental theories of readership and their applicability to music prints are considered and called into question, while analyses of the music, text, and printed documents suggest how the structure of the book and the information contained therein support certain types of readings. This study will ultimately open a new perspective on issues of readership within the field of research surrounding the history of the book.
Jane Dahlenburg
Italian Motet from c. 1580-1630: Sacred Music Based on The Song of
Solomon
(under the direction of James Haar)
Ph.D. 2001
This dissertation is a textual study of late sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century sacred music based on the Song of Songs. The first chapter of the study explores the Song itself: the changing text in the various sixteenth and seventeenth-century Vulgate editions, and the long history of exegetic interpretation which asserts that the Song describes various types of divine, not human love. The second chapter examines the Song's role in the continually evolving Roman liturgy, which continued to be used as a textual source by composers. Finally, a series of case studies explores individual works from various standpoints. I begin with Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina's 1583/1584 fourth book of motets for five voices, and show that rather than using the Bible as a textual source, which has always been assumed in the secondary literature, Palestrina extracted his text from the Roman lectionary. Antonio Cifra's 1619 Motecta ex sacris cantionibus was clearly based on Palestrina; however, Cifra made significant textual changes to reflect a Mariological, rather than a tropological, interpretation. Adriano Banchieri's 1611 Vezzo di Perle approaches the text from a monastic point of view, while Severo Bonini's 1615 Affetti Spirituali uses musical dialogue to dramatically portray an allegorical reading (i.e., dealing with the love between the Church and Christ) of the Song. Finally, Seraphino Patta's 1609/1611 Sacra Cantica, though musically unsatisfying, is highly innovative in its organization which clearly outlines the stages of the via mystica.
Andrew Flory
I Hear a Symphony: Making Music at Motown, 1959-1979
Recipient of the Glen Haydon Dissertation Award
(under the direction of John Covach)
Ph.D. 2006
This dissertation explores the intersections between social status
and musical production in the music of Motown between 1959 and 1979,
the period of this record company's most successful and best-known
work. More significantly, this study reveals Motown's strong
relationship with the cultural formation of the American black middle
class, by discussing the ways in which the processes of making music at
Motown and the creative products of the company were inextricably
connected to many of the most pressing issues facing this cultural and
ethnic group.
Chapter 1 provides a theoretical and historical framework for the
formation of Motown in the context of Detroit's black middle class of
the late-1950s. By carefully analyzing the company's output during
these formative years, this chapter shows that Motown founder Berry
Gordy, Jr. created music in a wide range of styles, and marketed these
styles to a localized, mostly black Detroit audience. Chapter 2
provides an analysis of Motown's broad national success between the
years 1963 and 1967 by considering the ways the songwriting and
production team of Holland, Dozier, and Holland used musical and
textual troping techniques to create black middle class identities for
The Four Tops and The Supremes.
Chapter 3 tracks Motown's move into more racialized musical territory in the late 1960s. A lengthy discussion of the emergence and stylistic characteristics of Norman Whitfield's psychedelic soul music, which he produced and wrote mainly for The Temptations, shows how Motown's stance toward racial unity, taken from the company's roots in the black middle class, was still pervasive in the music of this era. Marvin Gaye's compositional technique in the 1970s, which I call vocal composition, is the subject of chapter 4. I show how this technique allowed Gaye to explore and confront his own personal conflict between his popular hyper-sexualized soul music and the more conservative cabaret music he longed to sing throughout his career.
Jason Gersh
Text Setting in William Byrd's Liber primus sacrarum cantionum quinque
vocum (1589): Toward an Analytic Methodology
(under the direction of Tim Carter)
Ph.D. 2006
From Andrews through Kerman, it has become a commonplace that Byrd was acutely sensitive to text and somehow managed to translate that sensitivity into his musical settings. Yet remarkably little has been done in Byrd scholarship to examine just how his text setting might operate. However, within Byrd's 1589 Cantiones lies an array of evidence of how Byrd prioritized various musical and extramusical factors in his setting of the texts. In my dissertation I shall begin to uncover this evidence through an examination of various compositional tools available to Byrd: rhetorical commonplaces, musical and spiritual; mode; texture; and sonority. While some compositional tools appear to lie almost entirely in the musical realm and bear little impact upon text setting, others play a powerful role in determining text-music relationships. In my conclusion, I shall compare and contrast these tools and the evidence they have brought forth in order to propose a methodology for analyzing text setting in Byrd's sacred works.
Letitia
Glozer
The Madrigal in Rome, 1534-1555
(under the direction of John Nadas)
Ph.D. 2006
This dissertation focuses on the Roman madrigal during the reigns of Paul III (Alessandro Farnese, r. 1534-49) and Julius III (Gian Maria del Monte, r. 1550-55). No study to date has detailed the gradual musical separation of Florence and Rome and the development of musical culture in the latter city during an era in which Arcadelt, Costanzo Festa, and Palestrina served in the papal chapels. Other musicians in Rome at the time include Giovanni Animuccia, Bernardo Lupacchino, Jacques du Pont, Nicol-Vicentino, and Orlando di Lasso. This is only a partial list of composers in and around Rome, but suggests the rich vein of material available.
The dissertation will shed light on the gradual development of a Roman civic music culture, with its interlocking strands of papal and cardinalate patronage, the note nere and arioso madrigals, music printing, and academic music, all in the same city at the same time. Many of the seeds were in place before the 1550s, and by tracing their growth this study will better our understanding of Roman musical culture throughout this period as well as the preceding decades.
Return to Top
Jennifer Hambrick
Genre and Meaning in Hector Berlioz's Roméo et Juliette, Op. 17
(under the direction of Evan Bonds)
Ph.D. 2003
"The genre of this work will surely not be misunderstood. Although voices are frequently used, it is neither a concert opera, nor a cantata, but a symphony with choruses." Despite the ironic opening gambit of Hector Berlioz's preface to the 1858 vocal score of his Roméo et Juliette symphony, it is precisely the genre of the work that music critics and scholars have so consistently misunderstood since its première in November 1839. The mixture of genres within the context of Berlioz's "dramatic symphony" posed seemingly insurmountable problems for contemporary critics. Even today no one has attempted to explain Berlioz's aesthetic rationale for including choral recitative, instrumental and choral fugues, an air, a funeral march, a programmatic scherzo, an instrumental adagio, and an operatic finale in one symphony. Instead of attempting to make sense of the evident problems the work's generic mixture poses for a symphony, scholars have tended to read Roméo et Juliette almost exclusively in the context of French opera, with the effect that both Berlioz's symphonic masterpiece and his skill as a composer have been misunderstood and, consequently, undervalued.
I propose that there is greater meaning to the mixture of genres in Roméo et Juliette and that each of the genres represented in this symphony has a meaning in the context of the contemporary debate on musical expression. A systematic investigation of the interactions of forms and performing forces in this mixture of genres will shed light on an array of aesthetic, philosophical, and orchestrational issues at work in Berlioz's music. When read as a response to Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, whose generic mixture and formal arrangement puzzled contemporary critics and continues to puzzle music scholars, the generic mixture in Roméo et Juliette assumes renewed importance in musical culture. By taking into consideration the broader context of contemporary music criticism and writings on musical expression (including Berlioz's own), my investigation of the aesthetic and cultural implications of the different genres at work in Roméo et Juliette will contribute to the emerging picture of early nineteenth-century Parisian musical culture. The questions of musical form that this symphony raises also have implications that extend well beyond Berlioz's sphere in France to his German contemporaries. In comparing the music and writings of Berlioz, Liszt, and Wagner that come in the wake of Roméo et Juliette, I aim to illuminate paths of influence not yet fully explored, thus filling out the picture of Berlioz's influence on the New German School and contributing to the fascinating web of interactions between nineteenth-century French and German musical spheres.
Paul Harris
U2's Creative Process: Sketching in Sound
(under the direction of John Covach)
Ph.D. 2006
This dissertation examines compositional process in contemporary popular music, and the central role of recording technology in this process. I focus on the Irish rock band U2, one of the most technology-intensive popular music groups of the last two decades of the twentieth century. U2 is an ideal case-study in that they compose many of their songs almost entirely in the recording studio, in close collaboration with their producers. One of the most interesting partnerships of this kind has been the team of Canadian Daniel Lanois and Briton Brian Eno, co-producers of U2's most critically acclaimed albums. The U2-Lanois/Eno collaborations thus serve as a rich source for exploring the relationship between recording and the process of musical composition.
I examine how artists use technology to construct songs that convey their meaning largely through the carefully-crafted sounds that comprise the work, rather than primarily through lyrics, standard song forms, genre-specific arrangement, or other culturally-coded conventions of song. A secondary goal is to examine how the aesthetic priority of seeking unusual, affective sounds operating primarily at the musical surface influences U2's style at other levels, such as song form, harmonic language, melody, and text writing and setting.
Jonathan Hiam
Structuralism, Democracy, and Audience:
Musical Performance at Black Mountain College
(under the direction of Severine Neff)
Ph.D. 2005
Black Mountain College was founded in western North Carolina in 1933 as an experiment in progressive education and community. Before it closed its doors in 1957 the college educated a number of important artists, musicians, and writers, and attracted a faculty of paramount influence in their respective fields. This dissertation will focus on the presence of European emigre's and the American avant-garde who defined the unique musical environment of the College. Some of the important musical figures that taught at Black Mountain include Heinrich Jalowetz, Stefan Wolpe, John Cage, Lou Harrison, and Edward Lowinsky. Of particular interest will be the pedagogical and aesthetic philosophies of these musicians as they manifest themselves in musical performances at the College.
Akitsugu Kawamoto
Forms of Intertextuality: Keith Emerson's Development as a "Crossover"
Musician
(under the direction of John Covach)
Ph.D. 2006
Despite the broad range of attempts to mix 'rock' and
'classical' music by 'progressive (prog) rock' musicians from the late
1960s, many writers on prog rock have interpreted the music in a
relatively monolithic manner; they often have interpreted the resulting
intertextuality simplistically as an elitist experiment that opposes
rock's populist origin. This could certainly be one interpretation of
prog, but it is only one of many; there are many additional kinds of
possible narratives, according to the specific ways in which the
materials are combined and fused. Yet the variety of intertextual
approaches has rarely been recognized explicitly, and little analytical
or musicological attention has been paid to the influential relations
between distinctly different intertextual styles. Generalized
approaches to intertextuality have been common not only within popular
music studies, however, but also within many humanistic fields. Since
Julia Kristeva's coinage of the term intertextuality in 1969, theorists
of the arts (literature, music, painting, architecture, etc.),
sociology, politics, economics, and many others, have almost always
treated intertextuality in a singular manner, presuming that all
intertextual practices are more or less of the same kind and that there
is no influence of one intertextual practice upon another.
Consequently, dynamic aspects of intertextuality that result from
correlation between diverse forms of intertextuality have rarely been
fully considered, though they play crucial roles in the history of
twentieth-century arts.
This dissertation suggests the need to view intertextuality in its
multiplicity and dynamism, by disclosing and interpreting a variety of
intertextual practices and their important historical developments in
the case of prog-rock keyboardist Keith Emerson's 'crossover' music.
Following an introduction on theories and practices of musical
intertextuality, Emerson's general style of blending 'rock' and
'classical' music is elucidated in comparison with that of other prog
rock musicians. The development of his crossover styles is then
considered, from The Nice period through ELP (Emerson, Lake and Palmer)
era to the solo period of the 1980s, 1990s and beyond. The analysis
focuses on various methods of combining 'rock' and 'classical' music,
and on the historical development of those different methods.
Analytical results are interpreted from the viewpoints of narrativity
in music, and a multitude of possible narrative interpretations are
shown. This study thus proposes and models a range of pragmatic ways to
expand the scope of intertextual analysis, and transcend the limits of
certain intertextuality theories in music, as well as in the arts in
general.
Return to Top
Elizabeth Kramer
The Idea of Art Religion in German Musical Aesthetics
of the Early Nineteenth Century
Recipient of the Glen Haydon Dissertation Award
(under the direction of Evan Bonds)
Ph.D. 2005
Religious imagery and ideas permeate late eighteenth-century and early nineteenth-century German writings about music. Although the connection of music to human and divine matters itself was not new, the frequent and forceful invocation of terms such as "religion", "spiritual", "divine", "heavenly","purity", and "infinity" is striking and parallels other musical developments. At this time audiences began listening to music in a fundamentally new way, which they often described as Andacht or devotional contemplation. Composers were increasingly characterized as divinely-creative artists, rather than indentured craftsmen, and their music was given an important role in new accounts of the Modern, Christian, Romantic Era. And in the wake of the Enlightenment, there was renewed debate on the nature of true church music.
These late eighteenth-century and early nineteenth-century trajectories can be seen as part of the diverse constellation of ideas within the contemporary concept of Kunstreligion (art religion). Three broad perspectives on the relationship between art and religion can be discerned in the literature of this time: art seen as the expression of religion, art and religion seen in symbiosis, and art supplanting or becoming a religion. The controversies surrounding particular applications of Kunstreligion to music and the other arts offer a unique window onto various and sometime conflicting beliefs about art and religion.
In my dissertation I hope to provide a history of the idea of Kunstreligion as it interacts with German musical aesthetics in the period roughly between 1790 and 1830. Through reference to texts by writers such as J.G. Herder, Friedrich Schleiermacher, A.W. and Friedrich Schlegel, F.W.J. von Schelling, G.W.F. Hegel, E.T.A. Hoffmann and others I will show that the use of the concept to describe music emerged from an intellectual atmosphere which included the revival of Platonic Idealism, the continued influence of Pietism and revival of Roman Catholicism, new knowledge of eastern religions and mystery cults, and the advent of new philosophies of history.
As an idea of musical aesthetics circa 1800 Kunstreligion accounts for the phenomenon of religious imagery in a way that other formulations have not. At the same time, it interacts with ideas of philosophy and literature that other scholars have evoked in writing about musical aesthetics of this time. Others, for example, have noted the importance of aesthetic contemplation, but what was the influence of contemplation on modes of listening, performing, and composing? And how is the religious idea of Andacht related to other types of contemplation and perceptive intuition? Mythic accounts of Beethoven are well documented, but how did the religious and philosophical commitments of critics and historians affect their various characterizations of musicians as demigods, divine creators, priests, and prophets? How might religious ideas of immanence and transcendence shape the way contemporary writers understand the musical tone and aspects of the musical work such as tone painting, form and content? Finally, how might the concept of Kunstreligion lead to a better understanding of theories of how music is historically and hierarchically related to other arts?
Emily Laurance
Varieties of Operatic Realism in Nineteenth-Century France:
The Case of Gustave Charpentier's Louise (1900)
Recipient of the Glen Haydon Dissertation Award
(under the direction of James Haar)
Ph.D. 2003
When Gustave Charpentier's Louise first premiered at the Opéra-comique in 1900, it was a critical commonplace to refer to it as a realist work. Even its generic subtitle—"roman musical"—seemed to speak of its connection to a movement that was largely literary. In terms of opera, there was no established genre of the kind, nor did a "realist opera" describe any fixed stylistic categories. What then, was behind this reaction? In terms of genre, Louise is a hybrid, showing borrowings from many different traditions. Major sections of it show influences from French popular boulevard theater. Its plot shows affinities with mid-century melodrama and bourgeois theater traditions. Charpentier himself often cited Zola as an influence, and Louise's working-class plot and its quasi-symbolic treatment of Paris bear this out. Musically, the work shows obvious debts to Wagner, both because of its avoidance of clear number division and its leitmotivic organization. The melodic contours, harmonic language and masterful orchestration, however, are clearly in line with the grand French tradition as Charpentier learned it from Jules Massenet. All of these influences contribute to the perception of Louise as a realist work, but each represents a different version of realism.
Nineteenth-century realism typically embraced two competing versions of the real—the realism of particulars, and a determinist realism emphasizing natural forces and physical laws. These were set against each other, making the sharpness of the former stand out against the backdrop of the latter, the descriptive particulars infusing realist works with a strong sense of materiality. For music to fit into this scheme, it too must be used in a similar contrasting manner. On the one hand it must become almost a physical object. It has to be cordoned off into individual units, differentiated from each other in time and through the use of highly contrasting musical attributes so that they acquire some kind of identity. On the other, music can aid in the suggestion of causal realities—often through the use of open forms, as it does in Louise. The deftness with which Charpentier accomplished the musical suggestion of competing realisms was undoubtedly one of the main reasons for its striking success.
Christopher E.
Mehrens
From Wonderland to Poictesme: The Antimondernism of Deems Taylor
(under the direction of Thomas Warburton)
Ph.D. 1998
Deems Taylor (1885-1966) was one of the most visible figures in American art music during the 1920s. Known for his activities, in New York City, as an intellectual, critic and composer, Taylor has been described as a conservative or post-Romantic. Taylor, however, was neither a conservative nor a post-Romantic (although his music and criticism superficially evince these traits) but rather an antimodernist. Recent scholarship in the field of cultural and intellectual history has demonstrated that the "antimodern impulse" was pervasive in American culture during the period which marked the emergence of modernism. Defined as a "retreat to oriental or medieval aesthetics, the pursuit of intense physical or spiritual experiences, and the search for a sense of self sufficiency," antimodernism was a guiding force in Taylor's life and work during the 1920s.
This dissertation traces the antimodernist impulse in Taylor's life and work, beginning in the late 1880s and ending in 1925 (the year that he received the Metropolitan Opera commission for his "first" opera, The King's Henchman). Particular emphasis is placed on his education at New York's Ethical Culture School, his critical writings for the New York World, his significant article on music for Harold Edmund Steams's Civilization in the United States: An Inquiry by Thirty Americans, and his correspondence with James Branch Cabell, leader of the "Exquisite" literary movement.
Mark David Porcaro
The Secularization of the Repertoire of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir,
1949-1992
(under the direction of Thomas Warburton)
Ph.D. 2006
In 1997 in the New Yorker, Sidney Harris published a cartoon
depicting the "Ethel Mormon Tabernacle Choir" singing "There’s NO
business like SHOW business..." Besides the obvious play on the names
of Ethel Merman and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, the cartoon, in an odd
way, is a true-to-life commentary on the image of the Salt Lake Mormon
Tabernacle Choir (MTC) in the mid-1990s; at this time the Choir was
seen as an entertainment ensemble, not just a church choir. This leads
us to the central question of this dissertation, what changes took
place in the latter part of the twentieth century to secularize the
repertoire of the primary choir for the Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-day Saints (LDS)?
In the 1860s, when the MTC began, its sole purpose was to perform for various church meetings, in particular for General Conference of the LDS church which was held in the Tabernacle at Temple Square in Salt Lake City. From the beginning of the twentieth century and escalating during the late 1950s to the early 1960s, the Choir’s role changed from an in-house choir for the LDS church to a choir that also fulfilled a cultural and entertainment function, not only for the LDS church but also for the American public at large. The primary demarcation for this change is seen through the Choir’s repertoire. Several major periods represent the change: (1) J. Spencer Cornwall’s tenure (1935-1957) in which there was a creation of a core repertoire of mostly sacred works, (2) The increasing secularization of the Choir’s repertoire during Columbia Records’ recording contract with Richard P. Condie (1957-1974), and (3) The period under Jerold Ottley’s direction (1974-1999) in which there was a struggle to control the recording repertoire—which eventually led to the separation of the repertoire by Jerold Ottley into secular albums dictated by Columbia and sacred albums of Ottley’s choice—which lasted until the end of the relationship between Columbia and the MTC.
Stephen Press
Prokofiev's Ballets for Diaghilev
Recipient of the Glen Haydon Dissertation Award
(under the direction of Jon Finson)
Ph.D. 1998
A study of the ballets Prokofiev composed for Diaghilev's Ballets Russes from the false starts (Ala i Lolli and the 1915 version of Chout) to mastery of the genre with the revised Chout (1921), Le pas d'acier (1927) and L'enfant prodigue (1929). Main issues include Prokofiev's relationships with Diaghilev and Stravinsky, possible influences on his balletic style, the peculiar context surrounding each commission, and the links with the subsequent ballets.
Bryan Proksch
Cyclic Coherence in the Instrumental Music of Haydn and Mozart
(under the direction of Evan Bonds)
Ph.D. 2006
Cyclic coherence, the manner in which movements of a work relate to one another, is a compositional device generally associated with the music of the nineteenth century, beginning with the works of Beethoven. Because thematic resemblance, a fundamental aspect of nineteenth-century cyclic coherence, appears with much less frequency in late eighteenth-century music, Haydn and Mozart's interest in this device has been questioned. Our attitude towards cyclic coherence in Haydn and Mozart has been skewed by this nineteenth-century focus on thematic connections as well as an "all or nothing" approach towards proposed relationships among movements.
I will argue for a broader conception of cyclic coherence in the music of Haydn and Mozart by viewing it as a compositional approach that incorporates a variety of compositional techniques and musical elements with varying degrees of strength. Thematic resemblance will not play a central role in this conception of cyclic coherence. Instead, compositional elements, such as counterpoint, phrase structure, tessitura, articulation, and harmonic motion, will be examined to evaluate cyclic connections on a work-by-work basis. I will begin by outlining a methodology for the examination of eighteenth-century cyclic coherence using Mozart's String Quartet in A Major (K. 464) as a case study. Next, I will examine the various guises of cyclic coherence in the period with reference to a variety of works by the two composers. Finally, I will examine the role of genre as an influential factor in cyclic coherence through a broad study of a large number of instrumental works written by Haydn and Mozart from 1780 onward.
Richard Rischar
One Sweet Day:
Vocal Style in African-American Popular Ballads, 1991-1996
(under the direction of John Covach)
Ph.D. 2000
This dissertation is devoted to the study of vocal style in African-American popular ballads released between 1991 and 1996. There is intensive musical analysis of selected songs, with "One Sweet Day" by Mariah Carey and Boyz II Men as a centerpiece. The analysis serves as a springboard for considering larger questions of identity in modern society. Chief among these is the notion of "musical blackness" as it has developed in recent years. I claim that musical stylistic features of contemporary ballads represent multiple cultural systems and traditions, including but not limited to race.
Travis
Stimeling
Space, Place, and Protest:
Austin Music and the Negotiation of Texan Identities, 1968-1978
Recipient of the Glen Haydon Dissertation Award
(under the direction of Jocelyn Neal)
Ph.D. 2006
The Austin, Texas, progressive country scene of the 1970s, with its extensive network of clubs that regularly featured a community of local rock and roll bands, singer-songwriters, and folk singers, has been characterized by music critic Rick Koster as "mellow to the third power." In the wake of the turmoil of the late 1960s, such a low-pressure cooperative environment was seen by many Austin musicians as an opportunity for them to break free from what they perceived to be the oppressive music industry regimes of Nashville, Los Angeles, and New York. Austin's maverick rhetoric failed, however, to fully represent the relevance of Texas' cultural history, the existence of a struggling music industry in Austin, and the complex relationships musicians held with Nashville and the other major musical centers they publicly disavowed.
This dissertation seeks to characterize Austin as both a site of tensions between mainstream and quasi-independent country artists and as a place where Texans - both native and adopted - used country music to articulate their anxieties and affirm or redefine their cultural identities. It is the central assumption of this work that perceptions and projections of Austin as a unique countercultural place had a direct impact upon both the composition and reception of Austin's progressive country music. The reality of Austin music in the 1970s was, therefore, much more heterogeneous than the rhetoric of the Austin scene might indicate. The physical space of Austin provided the infrastructure within which the work of singer-songwriters, rock and roll bands, and Nashville recording artists could exist, while romantic visions of Austin's cosmic cowboys' provided metaphoric space within which important cultural and social issues could be addressed.
This study will combine the music made during this time, the business practices of the venues where these artists performed, and the social histories as recounted through interviews and historical documents to offer a more representative understanding of the scene and its role in popular culture. Through an exploration of Austin's physical, musical, and social spaces, this research will demonstrate that Austin was much more than a site for inveterate rebel cowboys to perpetuate derogatory Texan stereotypes in anti-commercial music. Instead, these stereotypes were employed as tools to construct Texan-ness and to broadcast it to a national audience.
Return to TopTimothy A.
Striplin
The Eighth- and Ninth-Century Frankish Alleluia
(under the direction of John Nádas)
Ph.D. 2005
This dissertation is a study of the Alleluia of the Mass as it developed in the eighth and ninth centuries. It presents a reassessment of the earliest evidence for the growth, development, and transmission of the Mass Alleluia repertory within the Carolingian world. It is argued here that the Frankish program of "Romanization" involved not only the adoption of the cantus romanus but also the transformation and adaptation of that chant by the Franks. In the process of hybridization, the northern ecclesiastical reformers added a number of newly-composed Alleluias to the relatively small fund provided them by the Romans. This study explores these eighth- and ninth-century "Frankish Alleluias." An examination of their melodies, texts, liturgical assignments, and patterns of transmission offers evidence with chronological significance.
Comparative analysis of the Alleluias appearing in the three Old Roman gradualia and the six manuscripts edited in Hesbert's Antiphonale Missarum Sextuplex results in the identification of fifty-seven early Frankish additions to the Alleluia repertory. Tracing the evidence of these Alleluias preserved in twenty-seven Frankish manuscripts of the eighth through the early twelfth centuries allows for the division of the sample into three distinct groups.
Among the first group are Frankish Alleluias of local import that appear in isolated pockets of the Empire, or those chants presenting scant, scattered, or severely limited evidence of their existence (Alleluias of Limited Distribution). The second group comprises Frankish Alleluias with universally-known verses, but with widely divergent regional melodic traditions (Regional Alleluias). Only chants of the third group are stable textually and melodically (the Carolingian Core Alleluias).
A study of melodic characteristics and liturgical assignments reveals two layers within the Core: one early layer, in place by the 790s, and a later group that entered the repertory over the course of the first half of the ninth century. The Compiègne Antiphoner, F-Pn lat. 17436, is the earliest surviving manuscript to include the Core in toto. I conclude that, rather than resulting from a single, unified reform effort, the Frankish Alleluias entered the repertory within the context of the ongoing reforms of Charlemagne, Louis the Pious, and Charles the Bald.
Elizabeth Randell
Upton
The Chantilly Codex (F-CH 564):
The Manuscript, Its Music, Its Scholarly Reception
(under the direction of John Nádas)
Ph.D. 2001
This study explores the creation and subsequent history of the manuscript Chantilly, Musée Condé 564 (the "Chantilly codex," hereinafter Ch), the central source for modern musicological understanding of late fourteenth-century music. Armed with new codicological information and informed by a thorough re-examination of scholarship on this source, I then discuss the musical style and cultural significance of a group of ballades transmitted by this source.
Chapter One narrates the discovery of this manuscript in the nineteenth century, and, based on archival documents from the Musée Condé, demonstrates how the historical and personal interests of its last private owner shaped and colored all later perception of its music.
Chapter Two investigates Ch as a physical object, providing a full codicological description and, in particular, distinguishing between temporal layers of activity. My reconstruction of the original copying sequence as well as that of later additions to the manuscript allows for greater accuracy in determining the significance of codicological evidence.
Chapter Three discusses musicological scholarship on this source in the twentieth century, focusing particularly on scholarly attempts to determine the origin of the manuscript and its music, to understand the nature of its musical style, and to place that style in the larger story of medieval music. Scholarship on this manuscript has been marred by misinformation and colored by a set of preconceptions dating back to the nineteenth century; I attempt to sort out what is useful from what is not.
Chapter Four discusses a group of eighteen ballades, most of which were written to honor identifiable historical figures from the fourteenth century. Long valued for the historical information they provide, these ballades are shown to provide insight into the aesthetics and cultural uses of music in later fourteenth-century courtly circles. Reinterpretation of the editing of these songs provides a radically new picture of musical style in this period, allowing for new understanding of the relationship between words and music in the later fourteenth century.
There are two appendices: the first provides transcriptions of the archival documents discussed in Chapter One; the second presents an updated inventory of the contents of Ch.
Laurel E. Zeiss
Accompanied Recitative in Mozart's Operas
(under the direction of Evan Bonds)
Ph.D. 1999
Accompanied Recitative has been neglected in the vast literature on Mozart's operas. While modern critics consider it uninteresting "half music," 18th-century theorists regard it as a highly expressive medium, the one that most clearly demonstrates the composer's skill. Drawing on 18th-century theory, I am examining the musical and textual parameters of Mozart's accompagnati. The role the orchestra plays in creating expression is a central concern. Rousseau, for example, writes that in obbligato recitative "the orchestra speaks for" the characters; Koch claims that the instruments "portray the actual feeling." Another important aspect of this study is the relationship of accompagnati and set piece. The boundaries between recitative and measured music are more permeable than current opinion holds. Dove-tailing, interpolations, thematic and motivic connections, and the working out of tonal problems are all methods of linking recitatives with the set pieces that follow them.