For more than three centuries, violin pedagogical practices have been extensively developed towards music covering the common practice period. However, a problem arises when a violin student performing avant-garde music needs to find realistic solutions to problems that are not addressed in the standard repertoire. This critical essay offers a pedagogical approach to a work that fits well within this paradigm: Four Nocturnes (Night Music II), George Crumb’s only published work for violin and piano duo. The multi-dimensional aspect of this avant-garde work requires an equally multi-faceted approach to overcoming the inherent technical hurdles. Through practical illustrations and concise explanations, musical examples indicate how the score may be re-notated and simplified to create a preliminary step towards advancing to the original notation. Borrowing from the methodology of Otakar Ševčík and other leading twentieth-century violin pedagogues, the author shows how students can modify their approach to fit contextually in the realm of avant-garde music. Students who approach the work with this methodology will find it helpful in eliminating many of the potential pitfalls that they are likely to encounter.

The choral music of Abbie Betinis is being widely performed and commissioned by prominent high school, university, and civic choruses. This study examines From Behind the Caravan: Songs of Hâfez, a five-movement work by Betinis for women’s chorus, vielle, oud, and Persian percussion. Four ghazals by Hâfez of Shiraz, a fourteenth century Sufi poet, are used as the text for Betinis’s Caravan. When considering a performance of this work, a conductor must understand proper treatment of the text, available translation options, Hâfez’s vast world of imagery, vocal demands inherent to the work, alternate instrumentations available and the benefits of each, how to approach improvisatory passages, how to engage heterophonic elements, and how to prepare a Western choir and audience with very little to no understanding of the philosophies of Sufism that heavily influence the work. This study addresses the body of practical knowledge gained after a year of examining, researching, teaching, and performing this work.

This dissertation and accompanying lecture recital explores the musical elements present in Áskell Másson’s three solos for snare drum, PRÍM (1984), KÍM (2001) and B2B: Back to Basics (2010). Two of the primary challenges for the performer when playing solo literature on a non-pitch oriented instrument are identifying thematic structures and understanding how to interpret all innovative sound production techniques employed within the music. A thematic and compositional analysis, as well as an investigation into the experimentation of timbre found in Másson’s three pieces for solo snare drum will help to clarify the musical complexities that are present throughout.

The wind octet was a popular ensemble of the classical period. In 1782, the Viennese Emperor formed a wind octet which specialized in playing opera arrangements. This music was used primarily as a form of background entertainment for dinners. This guide analyzes and compares the works of several well-known arrangers from the classical period in order to demonstrate arranging styles of the time. The arrangers of the period were often the performers of these various wind octets who were writing specifically for the players in their own ensembles. The style of Mozart’s original wind music is also discussed, in contrast to the arrangements of his works made by others. This guide is intended for serve performers of today as a tool to learn the art of arranging in an historical style. Idiosyncrasies of the classical-period wind instruments are discussed, as they relate to the style of wind arranging. The role of the contemporary arranger is compared with that of the classical period, and the case is made for the need for more contemporary arrangements of classical works using period arrangers as models.

American composer Andrew Rindfleisch (b. 1963) has contributed twenty-one pieces to the repertoire of contemporary choral literature to date. His works have been commissioned, premiered, and recorded by notable choral ensembles and performed in significant venues around the country. Influenced by his own early choral singing experience in his native Wisconsin, much of Rindfleisch’s choral music is infused with influences of the music of earlier composers and choral idioms. With these works, Rindfleisch participates in a long-standing trend in choral composition of looking to the musical past for inspiration and procedure while writing in a contemporary harmonic vocabulary, and his efforts can be evaluated through the lens of a study of musical borrowing. Through a case study of five of Rindfleisch’s choral works – “In manus tuas,” “Mille regretz,” “Psalm,” “Anthem,” and “Graue Liebesschlangen” – this document identifies common characteristics of Rindfleisch’s choral music and demonstrates his uses of musical borrowing and allusion. The influence of Renaissance polyphony, Debussy, Brahms, and German expressionism is revealed.

Paul Schoenfield’s Slovakian Children’s Songs for flute and piano is a unique work in the flute repertoire, incorporating Slovakian folk quotes from Béla Bartók’s For Children (Volume II, Based on Slovakian Folk Tunes) with layers of Slovakian folk elements used in the overall texture. The primary objective of this dissertation is to expand the limited resources available to flutists regarding Slovakian Children’s Songs. Detailed comparative analysis will demonstrate both Paul Schoenfield’s use of Slovakian folk tunes in the piece and his compositional style. In addition, this dissertation will develop the performer’s understanding of the work through background information, comparative analysis, and interviews to encourage insightful and informed performance. The dissertation’s purpose will be achieved through examining 1) the life, historical, and musical background of Paul Schoenfield and Slovakian Children’s Songs, as well that of Béla Bartók and For Children, and 2) how Schoenfield quotes and arranges Bartók’s For Children by providing a comparative analysis. Interviews with both the composer and Carol Wincenc will be included in the dissertation along with performance suggestions received directly from Carol Wincenc in the appendix.

Sir William Herschel (1738–1822) was a prominent musician and composer in the 18th century England. He worked as a concert director in several cities. In addition, he was a master of various instruments, and an active solo performer. Herschel composed numerous orchestral and solo works. His music, however, is hardly known today. Many of his compositions remained unpublished, among them the Twenty-Four Caprices for Solo Violin. These caprices are one of the earliest technical studies for the instrument, which must be brought to the intermediate violin students’ and violin teachers’ attentions. The purpose of this study is to create a practical edition of the Twenty-Four Caprices for Solo Violin, and to make it available for violinists by publishing them. The dissertation will look into the performance practice of Hershel’s caprices. Based on a thorough research of the violin methods, the edition will provide fingerings, bowings, and practicing suggestions which are useful for students who wish to improve violin technique. The author of this study strongly believes that these neglected technical studies are extremely beneficial works for violinists, and they deserve to be made public.

This study examines the compositional devices Eckhard Kopetzki used to create consonance and dissonance throughout his two works for solo percussion, Topf-Tanz and Canned Heat. By manipulating meter, ostinato, syncopation, polyrhythm, note values and overlapping figures, Kopetzki creates high levels of musical tension and release that shape phrase structure and large-scale form. After a discussion of rhythmic consonance and dissonance, and specific rhythmic devices, both works are considered in detail, illuminating the composer’s compositional language. Topf-Tanz is an exploration of contrasting ideas: the rhythmic and the lyrical, the call and the response, the loud and the soft. It is manifested first in the opposition of antecedent and consequent phrases and second in the overlapping of contrasting metric ideas, which creates prolonged rhythmic dissonance. Canned Heat, on the other hand, is composed through a process of continuing melodic variation. Throughout the piece, melodic motives are prolonged and abridged, creating both delay and acceleration to cadential figures. In contrast to these melodic ideas, each phrase is concluded with stark and syncopated rhythmic punctuations. Topf-Tanz and Canned Heat share Kopetzki’s creation of rhythmic consonance and dissonance. Most notably is the overlapping of contrasting metric ideas between the two hands, and highlighting this contrast …

Most Korean students study very little French music during their pre-college years. A survey of ten Korean piano professors as well as an investigation into the annual set repertoire from universities, music high schools, middle schools and national competitions in Korea show that French repertoire appears very seldom on the list of required repertoire. Therefore, it is easy for Korean students to neglect French piano music. By the time students reach undergraduate or graduate school and are required to play the music of Debussy and Ravel for the first time, they find themselves at a serious disadvantage. The purpose of this paper is to provide a pedagogical guide for Korean teachers who wish to offer their beginning, middle school and high school students a good foundation in the style of French piano music. This syllabus will introduce a series of French piano pieces, from Couperin and Rameau as well as Chaminade and Fauré to the easier pieces of Debussy and Ravel, which will lead to the ultimate goal of interpreting aspects of French tone, style, technique, and cultural context involved in the eventual successful performance of the more advanced pieces of Debussy and Ravel, which are the bedrock of French …