Producing Incantations: Salvatore Sciarrino's Works for Flute
Year of Dissertation:
2012
Salvatore Sciarrino's works hold a seminal place in the avant-garde repertoire of the late twentieth century. Sciarrino's musical language is not widely understood, nor are his unique techniques for playing many instruments. Of the two instruments he most consistently favors, the piano and the flute, the flute is the instrument with which he repeatedly achieves human intensity and breathable warmth. In this dissertation I show how he creates a new sonic palette, fabricating a new instrument out of the traditional flute, a "superflute" of sorts.
HUMANITY AND MECHANICITY IN THE MUSIC OF NINE INCH NAILS
Year of Dissertation:
2010
The primary purpose of this dissertation is to provide analyses of the first four albums, spanning 1989-1999, by the American band Nine Inch Nails: pretty hate machine, broken, the downward spiral and The Fragile. In each case an album-level general analysis is followed by close readings of a few select tracks. Many analytical approaches, both traditional and new, are used, but a particular emphasis is placed on the sound of the track itself being the primary artistic object. Stereo spatialization and sonic effects are thus treated equally to melodic, formal and harmonic structures. The analyses are held together by a consistent interrogation of "humanity" and "mechanicity" in the compositional choices made and the resulting senses of agency that such choices often create. A resulting secondary purpose of the dissertation is an attempt to begin codifying the nature of human and mechanical agency, as well as to provide some exegesis on the effect of a variety of compositional choices in the recording studio. Finally, a brief effort to categorize the Nine Inch Nails discography up to 2009 reveals a larger narrative throughout the band's career.
AN ANALYSIS OF OLIVIER MESSIAEN'S LAST PIANO SOLO WORK: LES PETITES ESQUISSES D'OISEAUX
Year of Dissertation:
2009
This dissertation undertakes an in-depth study of Olivier Messiaen's last piano solo composition, Les Petites Esquisses d'oiseaux. The work, dedicated to Yvonne Loriod, features the songs of birds common to France: the robin, the blackbird, the song thrush and the skylark.
Music, Sin, and Redemption in Victorian Visual Culture and Literature
Year of Dissertation:
2009
"Music, Sin, and Redemption in Victorian Visual Culture" seeks to identify the ancient theological tropes of the identification of music with sin and of its abandonment with spiritual conversion, and to demonstrate the cultural persistence of these tropes into the modern era. The appearance of music symbolism in the socially-committed, quasi-religious paintings of the Pre-Raphaelites and their circle, especially in works that treat the prominent Victorian theme of the "fallen" woman, provides evidence that music's connection to both sin and redemption survived at least as late as the nineteenth century, and that, even more remarkably, it was translated fairly easily into the cultural lexicon (Protestant, materialist) of Victorian Britain. My study examines this type of music iconography in close readings of the paintings "The Awakening Conscience" (1853) by William Holman Hunt and "Take Your Son, Sir" (1851-1892, unfinished) by Ford Madox Brown.
A History of the Performance Practice of Mozart's Fantasie and Sonata K. 475/457
Year of Dissertation:
2012
The pieces chosen for the discussion, the Fantasie and Sonata in C minor, K. 475/457, are especially well documented in terms of their sources: in addition to the composing autographs and the first edition, there is the so-called dedication copy, a manuscript written by a copyist that was given to Maria von Trattner, to whom the Sonata was dedicated. The discussion will include a close examination of these three primary sources, several editions published during the late eighteenth and the nineteenth centuries (including that edited by Johann Anton André, who owned the autographs at the time), and representative recorded performances from throughout the twentieth century. Thus, the editorial and performance history of the Fantasie and Sonata will be traced from the time of the works' creation to today, revealing interpretive changes through time and providing a solid basis for a modern interpretation of the works based on Mozart's original notation and late-eighteenth-century performance conventions.
TONALITY AND CHROMATICISM IN HANS WERNER HENZE'S EARLY OPERAS
Year of Dissertation:
2009
Abstract
A TRANSFORMATIONAL APPROACH TO INVERSIONAL RELATIONS
Year of Dissertation:
2009
A TRANSFORMATIONAL APPROACH TO INVERSIONAL RELATIONS
Harmony, Form, and Voice Leading in the Mature Works of Antonin Dvorak
Year of Dissertation:
2012
Advisor:
William Rothstein
This dissertation attempts to locate the music of Antonin Dvorak in the broader historical context of the late nineteenth century and to trace the way in which his music participated in the development of a late nineteenth century musical style. The dissertation is in three parts, following the three domains of the title: harmony, form, and voice leading. The first part is divided into two chapters, the first of which examines the evolution of Dvorak's harmonic practice through his early New German experimentation, his later engagement with the music of Smetana, and his sympathy toward harmonic aspects of the music of Schubert and Brahms. The second chapter details the way that Dvorak contributed to later nineteenth-century stylistic practice. This is accomplished through the exploration of three primary models: 1) enriched chromatic function (including juxtaposed third-related harmonies, voice leading between different types of seventh chords, and the concept of Mehrdeutigkeit); 2) enriched diatonic function (modal practices, pentatonicism, and non-standard diatonic sonorities through voice leading), and 3) enriched cadential function (which can be either chromatic or diatonic, with a special emphasis on leading-tone substitutions by the submediant and subtonic scale degrees).
An Analytical Study of Bizet's Carmen: Melody, Text Setting, Harmony, and Form
Year of Dissertation:
2012
Advisor:
William Rothstein
This dissertation examines aspects of the compositional practice of Georges Bizet in his opera Carmen (1875), focusing in particular on the composer's treatment of melody, text setting, harmony, and form. The dissertation situates the music of Carmen in its historical context by examining the extent to which Bizet follows, or departs from, the diverse musical conventions of nineteenth-century French opera. My analyses draw on both historical treatises and current music-theoretical scholarship in the areas of melody, text setting, rhythm, harmony, and form.
The Senator National Cultural Extravaganza of Uganda: A Branded African Traditional Music Competition
Year of Dissertation:
2009
The 2006 Senator National Cultural Extravaganza of Uganda was a traditional music and dance competition sponsored by East Africa Breweries Ltd. (EABL). Participants in the competition were required to praise EABL's Senator Extra Lager brand in songs and dances. Unlike other Ugandan competitions and staid nationalist celebrations of folk culture around the world, the Senator Festival consisted of raucous events designed to draw drinking crowds in rural towns and trading centers. Based on fieldwork conducted at events, rehearsals, and administrative planning sessions, this dissertation explores how rural amateur musicians, women's group leaders, judges, administrators, and beer marketers pursued artistic, educational, and commercial goals in and around the Festival. It focuses particularly on middle-brow producers of culture who tend to be overlooked because they are neither isolated bearers of authentic traditions, nor contributors to an international avant-garde. This study illuminates a large field of "traditional" culture production in a neoliberal Africa that is characterized by the expansion of capitalism to the "bottom of the pyramid," and by development discourses celebrating entrepreneurialism, democracy, women's empowerment, and cultural diversity. Also discussed are extensions and interferences of pre-colonial, colonial, and independence-era modes of spectacle and audience participation into the contemporary period. Finally, this dissertation includes information about evolving Ugandan musical styles and values.