Images of Chopin in the New World: Performances of Chopin's Music in New York City, 1839-1876
Year of Dissertation:
2012
This dissertation examines the reception history of the music of Fryderyk Chopin (1810-1849) in the city of New York from the first documented performance of his works, in 1839, until 1876, the year of the historic American tour of Hans von Bülow (1830-1894). The dynamics of those responses correspond with the growth of New York, which, during that time, experienced a dramatic transformation from a provincial city into a vibrant cultural metropolis. In addition, I aim to explore the evolution of musical aesthetics and taste within a larger scope that includes social, political, and cultural issues. That evolution is illustrated by the ways the music of Chopin was performed, disseminated, and criticized demonstrating the presence of points of intersection with other important artistic centers in Europe. My broader goal is to contribute to a better understanding of the dynamics of the musical life of the city in the thirty-seven years covered in this study. A meticulous work of documentation of hundreds of performances provides a valuable tool for scholars who wish to keep exploring that fascinating period in New York history, and the circumstances that paved the way for the future conditions of the musical life in the city and in the nation.
Composing with circles, spirals, and lines of fifths: Harmony and voice leading in the music of Nicolai Roslavets
Year of Dissertation:
2009
This dissertation proposes a new theoretical framework for the analysis of works of an important early twentieth-century Soviet composer Nicolai Roslavets. Roslavets was one of the few composers from his generation to develop his own unique compositional style. Although he welcomed the Russian revolution of 1917 and later held important political, professional, and social positions in Soviet society, in the 1930s he fell a victim to Stalinist cultural campaigns to eliminate all radical activity from Soviet art. Consequently, Roslavets lost his high positions in Soviet society and his name was erased from history books. It was not until the early 1980s that efforts were made both in Russia and the West to revive his name and analyze his music.
Cyclic Pitch Organization in the Twelve-Tone Works of Aaron Copland
Year of Dissertation:
2013
Abstract
Performed Identities: Theorizing in New York's Improvised Music Scene
Year of Dissertation:
2013
This research looks at the diverse approaches to musical practice in New York City's improvised music scene. Using the ideas of improvisers living and working in New York, a central aim of this study is to explore the development of a musician's music theory as personal and implicit. Theory is defined here as a subjective and internalized body of knowledge informing the particular choices an individual improviser makes in real time, given an aesthetic landscape consisting of many other theories. The eighteen interviewees were each asked a series of questions pertaining to their experience as contemporary improvisers. From analysis of these interviews, three central topics emerged, which form the basis for the chapters of the dissertation. First, theory is an expression of an individual's identity, and that identity is performed in the act of improvisation. Second, there is a causal link between one's theory and one's musical practice, and this link is often expressed through "extra-musical" metaphors pertaining to the body. Third, the project holds that improvisation is an ethical act, the working out of musical and structural processes in real time, requiring a negotiation between the implicit theories of individual players whose aesthetic beliefs may be quite different from one another.
Worthy of the Light: Feminine Heroism in Die Zauberflöte
Year of Dissertation:
2009
Advisor:
Barbara Russano Hanning
"Worthy of the Light: Feminine Heroism in Die Zauberflöte" posits that the opera represents the apotheosis of a heroism depicted by Mozart in the female protagonists of his mature works (Konstanze and Blondchen in Die Entführung, the Countess and Susanna in Figaro, Donna Anna in Don Giovanni), with the possible exception of Così fan tutte (and arguably, in Fiordiligi, even there). This heroism encompasses moral and physical courage within the context of Christian theology, Masonic ideals, and Enlightenment philosophy (exemplified by the English philosophers and the American Revolution, rather than the French enlightenment of Voltaire and Rousseau). My premise challenges the prevailing view that Zauberflöte is misogynistic in its depiction of women.
The Seventeenth-Century Singer's Body: An Instrument of Action
Year of Dissertation:
2009
In the seventeenth century, singers relied both on their voices and movements of their bodies for affective expression. This study investigates the close relationship between the body and voice in the seventeenth century from a variety of viewpoints, both theoretical and practical, offering an interdisciplinary approach to this connection. The work of natural philosophers such as Galileo, Kepler, Descartes, Hooke, Huygens and Newton demonstrates sight's role as the fundamental sense through which the world was processed and understood during the seventeenth century. In this context, it is imperative to elevate the role of sight in sung performances to a position comparable to that of sound, an idea corroborated by contemporary descriptions of singing by Marino, Monteverdi and Tillet. I reexamine singing manuals and oratory, acting and iconography treatises published during this time--such as Mersenne's Harmonie Universelle, Butler's Principles of Musik in Singing and Setting, Tosi's Opinioni de' cantori antichi e moderni, Le Faucheur's Traitté de l'action de l'orateur, Hobbes's Briefe of the Art of Rhetoricke, Bulwer's Chirologia and Ripa's Iconologia--uncovering a wealth of information on how gestures of the face and hands and postures of the body may be used in song. Medical studies completed in the present and in the seventeenth century, such as Bartholin's Anatomy and Browne's Compleat Treatise of the Muscles, reveal that there are both physiological and psychological connections between the body and voice. The body plays an integral role in vocalization, which suggests that posture, movement and gesture may assist the singer in creating vocal sounds appropriate to the texts and music at hand. This research is applied to three pieces of music written for performance in different contexts: Strozzi's cantata Moralità amorosa (1654), the famous Act II recitative from Lully's Armide (1686) and "Morpheus, Thou Gentle God," a mad song by Daniel Purcell. (1699). A close reading of both music and text suggests that the composers wrote physical movement into these works, providing musical clues regarding the way that singers could manipulate their bodies in sung performances. These readings offer a new methodology for performers and historians seeking to investigate seventeenth-century performance circumstances.
Eastern and Western Concepts in Two Taiwanese Contemporary Works for Clarinet
Year of Dissertation:
2011
In this dissertation, I examine in detail two contemporary clarinet works, Three Fantasias for solo clarinet (2006) by Yu-Hui Chang and All But Not At All for solo clarinet (2001) by Wei-Chieh Jay Lin, through the lens of performance practice. Each work reflects the composers' culture and training, and each combines Western and Eastern musical concepts. Through the use of Western compositional techniques, Chang and Lin exhibit various Chinese musical idioms, including pentatonicism, folk song quotation, traditional Chinese instrumental ornamentations and styles, and even Chinese philosophical ideas. In Three Fantasias, Chang vividly conveys her stories through a fusion of Taiwanese pentatonic folk song elements and the Western whole-tone and major scales. And in All But Not At All, Lin employs a trichordal set in various musical and conceptual dimensions through modeling the "trichordal array" techniques of his teacher Milton Babbitt. Besides theoretical and musical analyses, I include commentary from my interviews with the composers, interpretive suggestions from my own performing experience, and a CD of live performance recordings of these pieces.
Johann Nepomuk Hummel's Piano Etudes, Op. 125: A Pedagogical Analysis
Year of Dissertation:
2012
This study focuses on Hummel's Piano Etudes, Op. 125 (1833), his final works for piano solo. Hummel's etudes and his piano treatise Ausführliche theoretisch-practische Anweisung zum Piano-Forte Spiel (A Complete Theoretical and Practical Course on the Art of Pianoforte Playing) are his two monumental pedagogical works on the art of playing the piano, and together represent the sum total of his considerable expertise. The treatise, published in 1828 and copiously illustrated with examples and exercises, is primarily theoretical: its purpose is to explain the entire technique of piano playing. The etudes, which draw upon the essence of the ideas set forth in the treatise and which represent musical renderings of a variety of musical and technical problems, are entirely practical. In this study I analyze all twenty-four etudes and assess their importance in the context of the repertoire of piano pedagogy in general. Each etude is examined for its technical objectives, fingering, articulation, touch, dynamics, pedaling, and tempo. Whenever possible, the technical problems presented by an etude are directly correlated with Hummel's piano treatise. In passages where Hummel's instructions cannot produce the desired effect on the modern piano, an informed, alternative approach is suggested. These analyses will help the modern performer to develop a deeper understanding of Hummel's technique and a greater interpretative insight into his piano etudes.
Sevcik's Analytics of Works By Mendelssohn and Bazzini: A Pedagogical Analysis
Year of Dissertation:
2013
Otakar Sevcik (1852-1934) is one of the preeminent pedagogues of violin technique of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. His well-known technical works are still in print and widely used. Sevcik's lesser-known Analytics apply his pedagogical methods to works in the standard violin repertoire. The primary focus of this dissertation is an examination and analysis of the pedagogical approach contained in two Analytics by Otakar Sevcik: Mendelssohn's (1809-1847) Violin Concerto in D (first movement), and Bazzini's (1818-1897) The Round of the Goblins. The analyses in this paper examine Sevcik's pedagogical and analytical techniques in order to more fully understand and describe his methodology. The secondary goal of this dissertation is to promulgate the Analytics and make them more widely available as resources for teachers and students. There also appears a brief survey of Sevcik's life, students, and purely technical works; his work is also placed within its historical context. Sevcik-style exercises are included for passages from Samuel Barber's Violin Concerto to demonstrate the application of his pedagogical and analytical ideas to other works. The appendices provide newly typeset publications of Sevcik's Bazzini Analytic as well as a performance score, edited with fingerings and bowings based on Sevcik's Analytic.
Originality and Complexity: An Analysis of Robert Schumann's Gesänge der Frühe, Op. 133
Year of Dissertation:
2013
Advisor:
L. Poundie Burstein
In October 1853, Schumann wrote a set of five character pieces for piano entitled Gesänge der Frühe. During mid-1853, when Schumann composed this cycle, his creative energy was at its peak, as he exhibited remarkable pace and productivity. Schumann's unswerving enthusiasm for the Gesänge and its publication, which occurred in November 1855 as his Opus 133, is attested by many letters to his confidants during his final years. Perhaps due to the noticeably distinct compositional style of the Gesänge, as well as Schumann's mental illness during his late years that has been a source of much prejudice regarding his late compositions, relatively scant attention in both pedagogical and performing venues has been paid to this last piano cycle of Schumann. A comprehensive analytical study of the five Gesänge helps reveal much of this work's distinct compositional style, which represents both influences from the past and Schumann's personal originality.