Duo Chopinesque by Michael Hennagin and Chameleon Music by Dan Welcher represent two of the most significant percussion ensemble compositions written in the last twenty years. Both works are written for the mostly mallet type of percussion ensemble wherein the keyboard instruments predominate. However, the most unique aspect of these two pieces is their use of musical quotation. Duo Chopinesque borrows Chopin's Prelude in E minor in its entirety, while Chameleon Music borrows portions from four Mozart Sonatas. This paper places each work within the history of the percussion ensemble, and in the larger history of musical quotation in the twentieth century. In addition, the compositional characteristics of both works are examined with particular emphasis on each composer's use of borrowed material from the music of Mozart and Chopin. Particular attention is paid to the relationship between quoted material and newly composed rhythmic motives.

Three original software programs utilizing improvisation and live sampling are presented here, along with a discussion of aesthetic issues raised by each. They are entitled Zur Elektrodynamik bewegter Musiker, Motet, and Gamepad Sampler. These programs vary in the degree of required interaction and in the kind of user control. They are each studies in imitative counterpoint through live sampling, with an approach seeking elegance before solutions. Because of the improvisational nature of these works, there is no standard musical score. Instead the complete Max/MSP source code and a sound recording of performances making use of these programs in varied situations are included. A discussion of issues raised by these works includes aesthetics, ontology, performance, and the role of the composer. Non-interactive indeterminate compositions are ontologically thin, because some composerly agency is required of the performer. An interactive work can be ontologically substantial if it makes distinct and significant contributions to performance, even though it may not make sound on its own. Although reproducibility reduces ontology and eliminates aura, live sampling within a performance can deepen the ontology of the performance by recontextualizing previous events, reframing the original event as the first reference to an abstract musical idea that lies outside …

Marianna Martines (1744-1812) was a highly celebrated composer, singer, and keyboardist during her lifetime in Vienna, praised by such dignitaries as Dr. Charles Burney, and achieving the honor of being the first woman composer to be admitted to the Accademia Filarmonica di Bologna in 1773. She composed both large-scale and smaller works, including masses, oratorios, keyboard sonatas and concerti, cantatas, and arias. Yet today, despite a revival of interest in this important composer, she remains largely unknown and her nearly 70 surviving works remain all too underperformed. The purpose of this dissertation is to add to the existing scholarship by exploring the first movement of her Harpsichord Sonata in G Major, the last of her three extant sonatas, which is marked Allegro brillante, and is indeed a work of technical brilliance and difficulty, through various theoretical frameworks. This study demonstrates the extraordinary nature of this work by invoking classical formal theory, topic theory, with particular emphasis on the "brilliant" and "singing" styles, and the more recent feminist studies illuminating gender-coding in music. This theoretical analysis is considered against the backdrop of sociological studies examining the gender politics of Vienna and other parts of Europe during this time period. This study …

This dissertation presents an analysis of Akrodha (1998), a multiple percussion solo in two movements, composed by Kevin Volans. The analysis is focused on the motivic content and subsequent iterations written within the tempos that provide the structural form of the piece. The structural tempos are supported by the presence of various motifs that serve as the tempos' characteristic traits, thereby giving the tempos more tangibility. As the work develops, these motifs reappear either as note-for-note reiterations or as variations that still maintain the unique qualities of the motifs. For comparison, similar analyses of Mr. Volans' other multiple percussion solos, She Who Sleeps with a Small Blanket (1985) and Asanga (1997), are also presented to further explore Mr. Volans' use of motifs as they relate to structural tempos. In addition, a comprehensive performance practice of Akrodha is presented based on a synthesis of considerations and methods from individuals involved in the piece's development and early performances. These include Dr. Volans himself, Jonny Axelsson (for whom Akrodha was written), and Robyn Schulkowsky (for whom She Who Sleeps with a Small Blanket and Asanga were written), as well as the author's personal experiences. This dissertation provides a deeper understanding of Akrodha for …

Charlotte Moorman (1933–1991) was a Juilliard-trained cellist whose life and work made an indelible mark on the development of the American avant-garde. In her career, Moorman acted as a performer, collaborator, composer, administrator and muse. She solely founded the inaugural New York Avant Garde Festival, and subsequently directed fifteen of these festivals between 1963 and 1980, the feat for which she is most widely acknowledged today. Yet, her revolutionary performance practice, which blurred the lines between her life, her body, and her work, and brought into focus the dynamics of corporeality, the feminine body, female nudity and sexuality, and gendered politics within the contexts of musical performance, has so far escaped serious consideration in the written histories of the American avant-garde. This dissertation describes the nature of Moorman's practice as one that evolved to become inherently and irrevocably embodied, explores how this approach fell at odds with the pervasive avant-garde philosophies of music, and illustrates how her work troubles even a feminist musicological analysis. Further, through a contemporary critique of Moorman's oeuvre which centralizes the social, cultural, and political implications of her body in performance as integral to the work, this project offers a retrospective visibility to the artist which …

For over one hundred years, the music-going public has reflected on the life and influence of America's “March King,” John Philip Sousa. His popularity as a bandleader was unprecedented, and his reputation as an entertainer captivated the imagination and intrigue of a nation. Sousa's fame was attained through the high standards showcased by his unparalleled concert organization, the Sousa Band. He is interminably linked to the march, and for his seventy-seven years he proved to be its prolific and outspoken champion. Sousa's songs, however, were among his favorite works, and their presence on concert programs reinforced a variety of programming that was the hallmark of his success. The Sousa Band served as a cultural and musical ambassador, and annual transcontinental tours brought music to people where they lived. Sousa's songs were highly anticipated concert features, and were presented by soprano soloists known as the “Ladies in White.” A chamber winds instrumentation, rather than employment of the full-forces of the Sousa Band, allowed for an appropriate musical balance between instruments and voice. The “Forgotten Songs of John Philip Sousa Project” involved the research, editing, and performance of songs housed in the Sousa Archives for Band Research at the University of Illinois. …

For most of the twentieth century, opera singers were not beholden to the ideal physical standard of women dictated by popular culture, but rather focused on serving the music and perfecting their artistry. Unprecedented sociocultural changes throughout the twentieth century exposed the shifting ideals of each generation and how they were promoted through mass media and advertising. This thesis surveys the time period of the 1890s to the present day for the purpose of analyzing cultural trends, philosophies and technologies that shaped the century. Societal pressure to make the body a project and the focus of one's own intense attention now reflects back onto the opera stage where audience members expect to see what society has dictated to be an acceptable female form. Artistic and stage directors are influenced by society's decree that only thin is beautiful, imbedding into the mindset of the art form notions that now affect how female professional opera singers are depicted and even employed.

This dissertation investigates how W. A. Mozart applies the concept of key characteristics—the affective properties of each tonality—as discussed by three of his contemporaries, Johann Mattheson, C.F.D. Schubart and G.J. Vogler, to four soubrette and four prima donna characters from four of his late Italian operas: La Contessa and Susanna in Le nozze di Figaro; Donna Anna and Zerlina in Don Giovanni; Fiordiligi and Despina in Così fan tutte; Vitellia and Servilia in La clemenza di Tito. The analytical method of this dissertation provides a hermeneutical tool to search for meanings in Mozart's music. The application compares the libretto text and its corresponding tonal center with the description of key characteristics on a micro level, to reveal significant dramatic and practical implications from Mozart's key usage in his operas.

In 2003, Jan Bach completed his monumental Concerto for Tuba and Chamber Orchestra. This concerto requires unique performance techniques and technical skills unlike the majority of available tuba repertoire. In addition to these techniques, the guide explores the influence of popular songs, jazz/rock/funk styles, implied humor, and personal experience through an interview with the composer.

The Concerto for Trumpet and Orchestra and the Sonata for Trumpet and Piano by Karl Pilss were written in 1934 and 1935, respectively. They are examples for solo trumpet of the late German Romantic style of melody, harmony, form and structure. Musicians and audience often overlook composer Karl Pilss outside his native Vienna. His ties to the Trompeterchor der Stadt Wien and the National Socialist Party during the years preceding the Second World War have limited widespread acceptance of this composer. Pilss' output includes concertos for trumpet, horn, bass trombone, and piano, sonatas for trumpet, violin, and oboe, wind quintets and octets, piano pieces, choral works, and numerous large and small brass works. Pilss' teacher Franz Schmidt is more widely known. His four symphonies provide examples of post-Romanticism at the beginning of the twentieth century. His characteristic use of melody, harmony, form and structure is in the mold of Richard Strauss. Schmidt did not write any works for solo trumpet. However, his Symphony No. 4 begins and ends with extended passages for solo trumpet. Pilss inherited and adopted many of Schmidt's melodic, harmonic and formal traits. These can be clearly heard in his Concerto for Trumpet and Orchestra and the …