Theses (Music)
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Item Temps rythmés: Rhythmic and Metrical Design in Debussy’s Songs(2023-05-30) Koerbler, Aleksandra [Sasha]; Krebs, HaraldThe music of Claude Debussy moves in mysterious ways. As we unwind while listening to his compositions, we often find ourselves floating through time, not quite able to tap our feet to the music. Although Debussy specifies meter in his compositions, the synchronization between the notated time signature and the musical content is frequently either modified or altogether abandoned, leaving our feet in the air. Debussy’s mélodies brim with rhythmic, metrical and hypermetrical effects. Although Debussy scholars have noted these effects and have discussed them as isolated occurrences, the specific compositional techniques involved in their making have not yet been fully explored. Moreover, there have been very few attempts to examine the use, impact, and text-expressive role of Debussy’s metrical devices within the context of the overall rhythmic and metrical design of his songs. By investigating the development of Debussy’s metrical devices throughout his song oeuvre, this study not only confirms a trajectory from lyrical to declamatory style (already noted by many scholars), but also establishes that with respect to rhythmic and metrical patterning, the transition is characterized by a progression from periodicity to aperiodicity. Accordingly, the study introduces a theory of aperiodicity in music, investigates the phenomena of periodicity and aperiodicity in Debussy’s songs, while describing and illustrating various metrical devices based on these two basic states. Numerous samples drawn from his 101 songs showcase Debussy’s distinctive declamation, his use of metrical dissonance and irregularity, his sophisticated arrangement of lyrical and declamatory passages, as well as his associations of poetic content with specific metrical choices. These devices infuse his mélodies with an abundance of metrical idiosyncrasies that destabilise the ongoing metrical flow, with profound expressive impact.Item Dave Brubeck and White Middlebrow: A case study of Time Out(2023-01-03) Kashfi Yeganeh, Babak; Salem, JosephMy thesis investigates the tension between popular appeal and critical failure in Brubeck’s most flourishing years – during the ‘50s and early ‘60s – through the notion of “middlebrow” music. Middlebrow is a term originally used by cultural critics in the first half of the twentieth century to describe accessible cultural products that implement elements of high culture to fulfill the consuming aspirations of expanding middle-class audiences. In my thesis, I use Time Out as a case study in the broader discussion of Brubeck’s career and middlebrow culture. Since middlebrow culture is a multifaceted phenomenon, I focus on one agent during each chapter. In order, these are Brubeck himself (as a middlebrow producer), cultural intermediaries (as tastemakers of middlebrow consumers), and Brubeck’s critics (which include both jazz critics and musicians). In the first chapter, I discuss Brubeck’s reliance on “legitimate” culture (European elitism), the accessibility of Time Out in relation to the dispositions of its white middle-class audiences, and Brubeck’s pioneering rhetoric in tandem with his privileges as a white musician. In the second chapter, I explain the mediation of his music and character in mainstream media and the legacy of Time Out in popular music outside the scope of jazz. In the last chapter, I discuss critics’ responses to Brubeck’s claims of innovation and commercial success to reassess his middlebrow locus in the context of mid-century modern jazz. Within the topics mentioned above, I re-evaluate articles, interviews, and reviews concerning Brubeck’s most controversial years using theories by Pierre Bourdieu, Amiri Baraka, and Ingrid Monson. My thesis ends with some broad conclusions. I claim that affiliation with classical music, claims of innovation, and commercial privileges as a white musician were the three fundamentals that engendered the middlebrow conflict in Brubeck’s popular appeal and critical failure. Another conclusion is based on the impact of Brubeck’s middlebrow music beyond the scope of jazz. Concerning Time Out’s legacy in popularizing complex meters in various genres of popular music, I argue that Brubeck’s accessible formula is a significant example of middlebrow music’s power in expanding the boundaries of mainstream music.Item Aspects of cyclical structure in Schubert's "Schwanengesang"(2022-10-26) Reintjes, Mikki; Krebs, HaraldSchubert's Schwanengesang has never been understood as a song cycle in the same way as Die Schone Mullerin and Winterreise. Lacking a cogent narrative structure or unity of musical style, Schwanengesang has traditionally been considered a collected miscellany of Schubert's last compositions in the Lieder genre. Yet an examination of both the musical and poetic structures for the Rellstab and Heine halves of the manuscript reveals that the case is not quite so simple. There is considerable evidence to lend support to the thesis that the manuscript represents two musically and poetically integrated song groups. This thesis analyzes the musical and poetic structures of the two halves of Schubert's manuscript. The first half provides an examination of the Rellstab group in light of a recent and important study of the compositional practices in early 19th century song cycles, a subject which has traditionally received little scholarly attention. The second half of this thesis concentrates on the more complex and fascinating issue of Schubert's selection and treatment of poems from Heine's Buch der Lieder. Such an analysis reveals that Schubert's treatment of Heine's poetry is not only thoroughly characteristic of the Romantic world view, but furthermore, that the Heine Lieder should be rightly regarded as a musically and poetically integrated cycle of songs.Item Dreaming up a Main Character: Persona and Vocal Agency in Debussy’s “De rêve”(2022-09-01) Hayes, Alana Ruth; Acuña, Maria VirginiaThis thesis stems from a performance I gave of Claude Debussy’s song cycle Proses lyriques in March 2020, and from the particular difficulties I encountered during the preparation process. In most art song, it is not problematic to assume that the text drives the musical narrative. However, “De rêve,” the first song of the cycle, challenges this assumption. The musical setting undercuts the agency of the vocal part and creates a situation in which the narrative of the song is driven by the thematic development of the piano part, rather than by the text. This thesis suggests that Debussy deliberately plays with multiple “voices” within the music to heighten the ambiguity prized within the Symbolist movement to which he was attached at the time of composition. I begin by introducing the piece and its context. In the second chapter, I build upon the work on voice and musical narrativity of Edward T. Cone and Matt BaileyShea to formulate definitions of the voices present within “De rêve” over which the singer has direct agency. I then discuss the appeal the Symbolist aesthetic held for Debussy at the time of composition. In chapter three, I develop a reading of the text that will assist singers preparing the entire cycle for performance to establish the figure of the narrator-protagonist. In the fourth chapter, I analyse in the way in which the musical setting resists the accession of the narrator, and therefore the singer, to the role of protagonist. Through my analysis, I offer the close study of the voices and personae within a work as particularly useful tools to help singer-scholars who tackle Proses lyriques or other ambiguous repertoire tease out hidden voices within the music.Item Jazz music: the technological mediation of an aural tradition(2021-09-28) Jarvis, Brent; Salem, JosephJazz music is transmitted by aural and oral means. As recording and broadcast mediums became increasingly ubiquitous, starting in the mid twentieth-century, an ever greater proportion of jazz’s aural transmission would be mediated by these developing technologies. Many commentators address sound’s mediation from one state to another by identifying the resulting recording as an object. This object transcends temporal and spacial proximity, possessing inherent authority with implications for authorship, related work-concepts, and even issues of cultural assimilation. From a perspective informed by writings in musicology, philosophy, and sound studies, I examine recorded jazz music from the twentieth-century. I begin by positioning the history of jazz music in relation to the emergence of recording technologies to establish recordings as authoritative texts. I then translate (by transcription) primarily non-literate jazz recordings into the primarily literate discourse of musicology. In the course of examining music by James Moody, Eddie Jefferson, Bud Powell, Chick Corea, and others, I conclude that they all exemplify musical intertextuality. In some cases, technological mediation connects the texts. I then turn to an examination of recordings specifically. I begin by questioning musical notation as an adequate description of sound and move to developing a broader analytical framework. This thesis culminates with a comparison of Bud Powell’s 1949 recording of Bouncin’ With Bud and Chick Corea’s 1997 recording. Using the framework mentioned, disparate potentialities afforded by each recording’s mediation are connected to musical characteristics.Item Wycliffite music: theological and aesthetical critiques of compositional practices within the Wycliffite movement(2021-05-04) Foss, Kieran Alexander; Salem, Joseph A.In his article “The vision of music in a Lollard florilegium: Cantus in the Middle English Rosarium theologie,” Bruce W. Holsinger acknowledges the need for musicological attention to be given to the fourteenth- century English Christian heresy known as Wycliffism. The Wycliffites embraced the theological criticisms of John Wyclif (c. 1328-1384), who promoted biblical text as the true source of Christian faith and rejected performative practices such as saint worship, idolatry, imagery, and ornamentation. A chronological survey and literary analysis of Wycliffite commentaries on music demonstrate a rhetorical arc that transitions from a reformist to a revolutionary to a compromising position. Wycliffite tracts like Of Feigned Contemplative Life and The Lanterne of Lizt denote categories of musical criticism that enable a comparative analysis between these writings and contemporaneous musical compositions. The categories of intelligibility, distraction and sensuality relate to musical concerns while the category of cost functions as an extramusical critique. Roger Bowers’ doctoral dissertation addresses the effects of Wycliffism on synchronous musical practices, concluding that it motivated an orthodox counterreaction, but this dissertation is hampered by a limited delineation of musical and extramusical concerns. Intelligibility, distraction, and sensuality offer a possible inflection point between Wycliffite musical theology and the changes occurring in late-medieval English musical aesthetics. ‘La contenance angloise,’ the predominant style recognized in scholarship on early-fifteenth-century English music, exhibits compositional changes that reflect concerns akin to those expressed in Wycliffite tracts. This hypothetical link could potentially alter current perceptions on English music’s evolution during the transition from the medieval era to the Renaissance.Item Phonetic journey: sound in singable translations(2020-08-31) Basu, Kyron; Salem, JosephSingable translations have a long history as a tool to broaden the reach of foreign language music to new audiences. Current translation theory prioritizes the transfer of poetic meaning and structure. I argue that the phonetic sounds of a poem serve a musical function which is, in many cases, intimately bound to a composer’s setting of that poem. I propose that the phonetic properties of a poem are important expressive devices that should be given equal consideration to semantic content. I develop a theory called Expressive Phonetic Mapping to effectively describe and translate phonetic features of musical significance. I apply this theory to selections from Franz Schubert’s Winterreise, analyzing existing translations by Harold Heiberg and Jeremy Sams. Supplementing my arguments with formal analysis, I show how modifications to the type and placement of speech sounds at critical moments can enhance the expressiveness and coherence of these translations, often with minimal change to or loss of semantic information. My thesis culminates in an original singable translation of Hugo Wolf’s “Fussreise,” where I combine Expressive Phonetic Mapping with another method of translation: Peter Low’s “Pentathlon Principle.” I aim to extend existing theories by integrating phonetics into their approaches. That is, considering how the quality of translations can be improved by giving attention to the vocal sounds used, and how those sounds relate to the composer’s underlying music.Item Elusive quartet, Imaginary Songs: understanding and experiencing the music of Morton Feldman and Helge Sten(2020-08-27) Miskey, Nicholas W.; Salem, JosephMany commentators experience difficulties describing and analyzing Morton Feldman's String Quartet no. 2 (1983), implying that the quartet eludes stable ascriptions of meaning. Feldman's own philosophy frames these difficulties as symptoms of an antagonism between direct experience and post-hoc understanding of music, a dichotomy tacitly supported in much related discourse. I critique this proposed rift between understanding and experience by analyzing how String Quartet no. 2 prompts listeners to repeatedly reconsider their own experiences. Obfuscated instrumentation, transformations of repeated phrases, and disorienting formal returns challenge one's perception, pattern recognition, and musical memory, leading audiences to return to linguistic interpretation in an effort to comprehend what they hear. Drawing on writing by Lawrence Kramer, I show that the compulsion to voice these uncertainties is not a result of a separation of understanding and experience, but of the blurring of these categories. Vacillation between close listening and interpretation also typifies experiences of the music of Helge Sten, produced under the pseudonym Deathprod. For the album Imaginary Songs from Tristan da Cunha (1996), Sten transfers recorded violin improvisations to wax phonograph cylinders, clouding attributions of the music's manner of production. Incorporating Brian Kane's theory of acousmatic sound, I demonstrate that the resultant spacing of sound and source provokes listeners to oscillate between attending to the music's material properties and struggling to identify its meaning and cause. Work by Jonathan Sterne indicates that historical techniques of hearing associated with the antiquated medium of the phonograph cylinder prolong and complicate this mode of listening. As with Feldman's quartet, auditors of Imaginary Songs endlessly fluctuate between attempting to understand and striving to listen closely to the music.Item The perfect storm of seduction: Investigating tactical femininity in Bizet's Carmen(2020-02-03) Kazdan, Alanna; Salem, JosephPremiered in France in 1875, Georges Bizet’s opera Carmen (with libretto by Henri Meilhax and Ludovic Halévy, based on a novella by Prosper Mérimée) provided audiences with a main character who is not only aware of her sexuality, but who knows how to use it as a source of power and self-satisfaction. Carmen, often viewed as an ambiguous protagonist of questionable morals, embodies a triple threat toward male characters in the opera: this paper explores the tactical implementation of her words, her music, and her body as sexual weapons against men. First, the uniquely self-centered dialogue Bizet chose to give Carmen created a distinct sense of unease in early audiences. Her text is pointed and specific about her personal intentions rather than abstractly romantic. Secondly, closely tied to her libretto, the sultry and seductive moments in the music backing Carmen’s dialogue are also manipulative tools she uses to tease and taunt. Thirdly, the way that she uses her body to seduce men in the opera is developed as its own weapon. Though Carmen dies at the hands of the man she spends the entire opera emotionally tormenting, her character has resonated with countless audiences over the years. Carmen’s unapologetic awareness of her own sexual prowess was instrumental in uprooting societal expectations for a woman on the stage. This paper examines how the concurrence of Carmen’s three key personality traits ultimately set up a perfect storm of seduction, as well as the creation of an indelible female character.Item Music expert-novice differences in speech perception(2019-08-22) Vassallo, Juan Sebastian; Tanaka, James William; Schloss, W. AndrewIt has been demonstrated that early, formal and extensive musical training induces changes both at the structural and functional levels in the brain. Previous evidence suggests that musicians are particularly skilled in auditory analysis tasks. In this study, I aimed to find evidence that musical training affects the perception of acoustic cues in audiovisual speech processing for Native-English speakers. Using the McGurk paradigm –an experimental procedure based on the perceptual illusion that occurs when an auditory speech message is paired to incongruent visual facial gestures, participants were required to identify the auditory component from an audiovisual speech presentation in four conditions: (1) Congruent auditory and visual modalities, (2) incongruent, (3) auditory only, and (4) visual only. Our data showed no significant differences in accuracy between groups differentiated by musical training. These findings have significant theoretical implications suggesting that auditory cues for speech and music are processed by separable cognitive domains and that musical training might not have a positive effect in speech perception.Item "Style is national": defining Englishness in the music of the second generation of the English Musical Renaissance(2019-05-24) Kempenaar, Christina; Salem, JosephMembers of the second generation of the English Musical Renaissance have long been associated with a break from the Teutonic influence of their predecessors to create a musical idiom that is quintessentially English. Scholarship has long looked at these composers, who include those born between Vaughan Williams and Moeran, in isolation from the artistic movements and political and social issues of Europe, when in fact they were part of them. This thesis places these composers within these currents by discussing them as part of England’s Lost Generation and within the historical contexts of Europe in the early twentieth century. Though the Lost Generation is often associated with the post-war period, I propose that the phenomenon existed prior to World War I by focussing on England’s aesthetic lostness in the late Victorian and Edwardian eras. The Lost Generation of composers inherited a musical culture that had been aesthetically lost for two hundred years and rebelled against it to define a musical idiom that was quintessentially English. After placing the second generation of the English Musical Renaissance within its historical contexts, I call into question previous discussions on English music that define it according to single definitions largely associated with the Pastoral School or the Folk School. Instead, I propose that the music of this generation was stylistically diverse while simultaneously a manifestation of common cultural influences, ultimately rooted in the goal of creating a sense of community. To support this claim, I discuss the various stylistic techniques of individual composers within their collective cultural influences, including the music of England’s past, the landscape, and English literature. Furthermore, I explore the role of musical community, both as a central goal in the creation of a national idiom and as a source of compositional inspiration. By examining the influences and compositional styles of these composers, I conclude that the music of this generation broke from Continental influences by developing a national idiom that was both stylistically unique to the individual composer and tied to common cultural influences that were rooted in the goal of creating a musical community within England. .Item The use of logic and rhetoric in Handel’s selection and adaptation of source material(2018-11-05) Szeker-Madden, Maria Anne Lisa; Schwandt, ErichThe issues surrounding Handel's borrowing practices have been the subject of much debate over the last three centuries. Unfortunately, the field is rife with contradictions, speculation, and theories that have only a limited applicability. This dissertation provides a new approach to the study of Handel's borrowing practices by applying a methodology that would have been familiar to Handel and the elite members of his audiences—one that employs the principles of Aristotelian logic, textual rhetoric and musical rhetoric. This type of methodology can be applied successfully to miscellaneous vocal to vocal borrowings that span the composer's entire career. The first part of the dissertation provides the background for the ensuing study by examining the educations of Handel and his audience members. Chapter 1 outlines the various curricula available during Handel's lifetime and confirms that Handel and his more privileged contemporaries followed one which featured instruction in Aristotelian logic, textual rhetoric and musical rhetoric. Chapter 2 verifies that students at various European centres studied these principles during their adolescent years. The final chapter of this part discusses each of these principles in detail and provides the raw methodological material for this study. The second part of the dissertation takes the principles gleaned from Part 1 and employs contemporary commentary to mould them into a viable methodology for the study of Handel's borrowing practices. The analyses included in this part not only provide comprehensive musical-rhetorical and musico-dramatic discussions, but also provide rigorous examinations of source and new poetic texts. Analysis of the poetic texts represents a vital first step in this study. It reveals the poetic themes of a source and its new version and establishes that it is the location (topos) of these themes within the categories of Aristotelian logic that determines the appropriateness of a source as well as the degree to which it is altered in a new work. Appendix 1 provides tables that summarise the analyses of Handel's borrowings from each chapter of Part 2. For the benefit of those unfamiliar with the vocabulary of Aristotelian logic, textual rhetoric and musical rhetoric, a glossary of all terminology as it is employed in this dissertation has been included.Item Haydn's last heroine: Hanne, The Seasons, and Sentimental Opera(2018-08-31) Roussin, Rena Marie; Salem, JosephJoseph Haydn’s final oratorio, The Seasons (1801), has consistently been neglected in performance and scholarship, particularly when compared to its earlier, more successful counterpart, The Creation (1798). A number of factors contribute to this neglect, central among them the belief that The Seasons lacked the musical innovation of Haydn’s setting of the Judeo-Christian creation story, a thought that would gain further momentum as aesthetic and musical tastes changed throughout the nineteenth century. Yet Haydn’s final oratorio is a work of remarkable musical artistry and insight, especially when considered in the context of the eighteenth-century culture of sensibility and the rise of sentimental opera, conventions with which Haydn’s would have been intimately aware given his work in opera composition and production from 1762 to 1790. By examining the ways in which Hanne, one of the three central characters in The Seasons, is constructed as sentimental in van Swieten’s libretto and Haydn’s score, I demonstrate how the librettist and composer engage the trope of the sentimental heroine. Hanne features many of the expected qualities: she is chaste, virtuous, and possesses refined sensibility and sensitivity. Furthermore, her singing style is firmly rooted in sentimental traditions. Yet her music is also imbued with coloratura and musical markers of nobility. Through these musical choices and by textually defining Hanne through joy rather than suffering and pathos, Haydn and van Swieten depart from typical constructions to rethink the sentimental heroine. Therefore, in his final major musico-dramatic work, Haydn experiments with one of the central operatic tropes of the eighteenth century. In being aware of this feature, we might simultaneously arrive at a renewed appreciation for The Seasons and of Haydn’s abilities as a musical dramatist.Item Beethoven’s Op. 28 piano sonata: the pastoral and the enlightenment(2018-08-29) Anderson, Dustin; Krebs, Harald; Kinderman, EvaThis thesis examines Beethoven’s Op. 28 Pastoral Sonata as a musical work that is dominated by the pastoral topic, and, through its use of this topic, refers to certain ideals of the Enlightenment. The first chapter presents an overview of the sonata and its relative neglect by modern musicologists, followed by a brief history of the pastoral topic in music and literature. The second chapter examines, and provides examples of, the pastoral signifiers that occur in the Op. 28 sonata: drone bass, compound meter, subdominant emphasis, simple harmonies, lyrical melodies and the weathered storm. The third chapter summarizes aspects of the Enlightenment that influenced Beethoven, and his use of the pastoral topic to communicate these ideals. The primary arguments put forward are: the Op. 28 Sonata demonstrates aspects of reconciliation between the urban and the rural as a metaphor for the reconciliation between man and God; Beethoven uses dance as symbol of both pastoral and of fraternity in the sonata; and the Enlightenment concept of interconnectedness between all things is reflected in the musical motives and structure of the composition. The thesis concludes by suggesting that the sonata’s message may have been obscured over time because of changes in Beethoven reception history, the gendering of his repertoire, and the shifting perception of what nature signifies as the Romantic Era developed.Item The piano music of Jean Coulthard(2018-08-01) Colton, Glenn David; Lazarevich, Gordana“The Piano Music of Jean Coultthard” provides a musicological assessment of keyboard literature by one of the leading composers in the history of Canadian music. Coulthard's piano works are discussed from aesthetic, historical, and analytical perspectives. Discussion of specific piano works is prefaced by a more general overview of aesthetic principles pertaining to Coulthard's compositional style (including a comparative study between Coulthard's music and the art of Emily Carr) and the question of a Canadian musical identity. The historical focus of the study relates to three main fields of inquiry: the development of Coulthard's distinctive style of piano writing from the early mature works of the 1940s to the more recent compositions of the 1980s and 1990s; the composer's historical position in twentieth-century music; and her lasting influence upon Canadian culture. Analytical issues addressed include Coulthard's innovative reworking of traditional musical forms and the characteristic features of her musical vocabulary and pianistic style. This study will demonstrate Coulthard's vital role in the development of piano music in Canada as well as her overall significance in twentieth-century music.Item An investigation of periodicity in music, with reference to three twentieth-century compositions: Bartok's Music for trings, percussion & celesta, Lutoslawski's Concerto for orchestra, Ligeti's Chamber concerto(2018-07-10) Mountain, Rosemary; Longton, MichaelAn investigation into the nature and functions of periodicity is presented through analysis and discussion. Periodicity is established by the repetition of any musical event at regular intervals in time. The three works analyzed exhibit periodic elements in a variety of contexts and on different structural levels, thereby illustrating typical functions of periodicities in complex twentieth-century music. These functions include stratum delineation, textural definition, and metric-style organization. In some cases, the regularity of the periodicities is crucial to their function, while in others the periodicity of the elements simply provides a convenient model for study. Reference is made to perceptual tendencies and thresholds including Gestalt principles of grouping, the phenomena of auditory streaming and fusion, and the temporal limits of the perceptual present. As our response to periodicities is affected by the specific rate of recurrence, a classification is made according to the rate of recurrence. The links between rate and function are discussed. Boundaries are suggested for three main divisions: very fast rates (less than 0.10"), medium (between 0.10" and 10"), and long (greater than 10"). An additional tripartite division of the medium range is proposed, incorporating the levels of pulse, sub-pulse, and super-pulse. The term "super-pulse" is introduced to emphasize the potency of the pulse-grouping level. Relationships between levels of periodic events are described in terms of rhythmic consonance and dissonance. The analyses show that a contrast in the degree of rhythmic consonance is a typical means of indicating structural boundaries. They also suggest a link between the levels which produce a dissonance and the degree of harshness felt. Consonance on several levels adds significant coherence to a stratum, enhancing its recognition in complex textures or on later appearances.Item "The time gives it proofe": paradox in the late music of Beethoven(2018-07-06) Imeson, Sylvia Maureen; Kinderman, WilliamIt is a given that the late works of Beethoven occupy a special place in our musical life; that they continue to speak so directly to audiences more than a century and a half after they were written says much for the universality of their appeal. Although the music of Beethoven's final decade is much appreciated today, some early listeners found the coexistence of apparently contradictory aspects in these works to be very difficult to understand. Analysis that would attempt to do justice to such complex music must take into account the interplay of both form and content, thus broaching the question of how music can communicate that content. Since music has no lexical capacity, it is helpful to consider analogies from other fields in an investigation of the problem. Myth, alchemy, Jungian psychology, and seventeenth-century religious poetry are, like Beethoven's music, engaged with the exploration and communication of meaningful human experience; to deal with such issues requires a means of expressing the inexpressible, and so at the core of ideas in each of these fields is the paradox. Paradox, an apparent self-contradiction that carries with it the implicit possibility of its resolution, is a self-referential phenomenon. That paradox is present in Beethoven's music has been recognized in a general way by a number of scholars, but a more detailed examination of this aspect of his compositions offers new insight into their construction and content. A precedent for Beethoven's use of musical paradox is found in the reflexive works of Haydn, although Beethoven's use of the technique developed into a tool capable of being applied to many more types of compositional situations, and with a much greater expressive range. An adaptation of William Empson's Seven Types of Ambiguity offers an introduction to the use of paradox in Beethoven's works, while two extended critical essays, on the string quartets opp. 132 and 130, develop a multidisciplinary critical framework in order to provide a more detailed examination of the utility of paradox in shaping the overall narrative design and expressive structure in these two compositions, and by implication, in many others of Beethoven's late works as well.Item The orchestral music of Jean Coulthard: a critical assessment(2018-07-05) Duke, David; Lazarevich, GordanaDuring a long and distinguished career, the Canadian composer Jean Coulthard (b. 1908) has become widely recognized for her many works for voice, keyboard, choir and chamber ensembles. Until recently, however, her large and diverse catalogue of works for orchestra has been overshadowed. The present study presents a critical assessment of her orchestral catalogue of music composed from the late 1930s until the present. In a biographical introduction, Coulthard's initial training with Vaughan Williams in London is discussed, as is her life-long identification with the early French modern figures Debussy and Ravel. As her career progressed, her earliest orchestral scores were championed by the Australian-born composer/conductor Arthur Benjamin (who resided in Coulthard's native Vancouver, Canada, during the formative years of her development as an orchestral composer). Further training brought her into contact with figures such as Copland, Milhaud, Bartok, and Schoenberg, as well as studies with Bernard Wagenaar in New York. Following her protracted apprenticeship, Coulthard began to teach at the University of British Columbia and to commit to the major genres of orchestral writing. In this later respect she was somewhat atypical of Canadian composers of her generation, and has been viewed by earlier scholars as an exponent of the "conservative tradition" in Canadian music of the 20th century. More recent perspectives stress the quality of her work, her regional significance, and the uniqueness of her achievement in a field of music not traditionally associated with women. Paralleling Coulthard's personal and artistic development, a consideration of Canadian orchestras and the emergence of a Canadian orchestral repertoire is presented. Coulthard's orchestral repertoire includes orchestral suites, small scale orchestra compositions, works for strings, works for soloist(s) and orchestra, concerti, and symphonies. A comprehensive overview of Coulthard's extant orchestral works is presented, with a number of particularly important compositions singled out for detailed analysis. As well major style elements, aspects of Coulthard's role in Canadian music and a brief assessment of her creative personality are included.Item Tooters and tutors: flute performance practice derived from pedagogical treatises of the Paris Conservatoire, 1838-1927(2018-07-05) Byrne, Mary Catherine Jett; Schwandt, ErichThroughout the two hundred years of the Paris Conservatoire, the Professors of Flute have carefully documented their philosophies in numerous large-scale, comprehensive treatises. Building on the biographical and historical studies by earlier scholars, this dissertation will study three major treatises by Professors of Flute at the Paris Conservatoire to shed light on the performance practice of the flutists performing or trained in Paris: the Méthode pour servir a l'enseignement de la nouvelle flûte (1838) by Victor Coche, the Méthode pour flûte système Boehm (c. 1880) by Joseph Henri Altès, and L'Art de la flûte collected by Claude Paul Taffanel, completed in two parts by Philippe Gaubert (Méthode complète, 1923) and Louis Fleury ("La Flûte," 1927). Chapters 1 through 4 provide an historical context for the dissertation, including: a history of the Paris Conservatoire with particular emphasis on prevailing pedagogical trends at that institution, the evolution of the flute culminating in the innovations of Theobald Boehm, factors bearing on the professional flutist in Paris, and historical information on the flute treatises examined. In chapters 5 through 7, each of the three method treatises by Coche, Altès, and Taffanel with Gaubert and Fleury are evaluated for implications of performance practice based on the type of instruction and exercises devoted to the various component parts of each of six proposed elements of music--pitch, rhythm, timbre, dynamic, form and musical style--as well as areas of interest receiving special emphasis by each treatise composer. The concluding chapter collates the data of the earlier chapters and offers illumination on flute performance practice in France during the period 1838 to 1927.Item Explicatio Textus or Dramma per Musica?: the function of the church cantatas by Georg Friedrich Kauffmann(2018-06-28) Janson, Peter; Schwandt, ErichGeorg Friedrich Kauffmann (1679-1735), a contemporary of J. S. Bach, was a prolific composer who wrote about 150 organ chorales, a theoretical treatise, an Ascension Oratorio, and a great number of church cantatas. Most of his choral works, however, are lost, and only the Ascension Oratorio and four cantatas are extant. That J. S. Bach is thought to have performed three of Kauffmann's church cantatas is testimony to the high quality of these works. The dissertation provides a modern edition of Kauffmann's cantatas, two of which are written for Whitsuntide, one for the feast of the Visitation, and one, a solo cantata, for the 11th Sunday after Trinity. Biographical information on the composer is meagre indeed, but drawing on information about his teachers, his music positions, and his publications, the musical perspective of Kauffmann is reconstructed in Chapter II. The church cantata is placed in historical perspective in Chapter III and in the following chapters the question as to whether Kauffmann's church cantatas should be considered as explicatio textus or dramma per musica is explored. Since Kauffmann's church music has not yet been published, the modern edition itself enriches the current cantata repertoire of the German Baroque, thus providing a broader understanding of the history of the Lutheran church cantata. The study of what function these cantatas served in the Lutheran liturgy allows for a greater appreciation of Georg Friedrich Kauffmann who for centuries has stood in Bach's shadow, but whose compositions nevertheless deserve wider dissemination.