Michael Nyman: The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat (open access)

Michael Nyman: The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat

Composer Michael Nyman wrote the one-act, minimalist opera The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, based off the neurological case study written by Oliver Sacks under the same title. The opera is about a professional singer and professor whom suffers from visual agnosia. In chapter 1, the plot and history of the opera are discussed. Chapter 2 places The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat alongside a selection of minimalist operas from Philip Glass and John Adams. Chapter 3 contains a history of the Fluxus art movement and shows where Fluxus-like examples appear in the opera. Chapter 4 includes Nyman's usage of minimalism, vocal congruencies, and Robert Schumann as musical elements that convey the drama.
Date: May 2008
Creator: Avant-Rossi, Joan
System: The UNT Digital Library
Beyond the Human Voice: Francis Poulenc's Psychological Drama La Voix humaine (1958) (open access)

Beyond the Human Voice: Francis Poulenc's Psychological Drama La Voix humaine (1958)

Francis Poulenc's one-character opera La Voix humaine (1958), a setting of the homonymous play by Jean Cocteau, explores the psychological complexities of an unnamed woman as she experiences the end of a romantic relationship. During the forty-minute work, she sings in a declamatory manner into a telephone, which serves as a sign of the unrevealed man at the other end. Poulenc uses musical motives to underscore the woman's changing emotional states as she recalls her past relationship. The musical dramaturgy in this work resignifies Debussy's impressionist symbolism by collapsing devices used in Pelléas et Mélisande in a language that shifts between octatonicism, chromaticism, harmonic and melodic whole tone passages, and diatonicism. This late work recontextualizes elements in Poulenc's Dialogues des Carmélites (1953-56), and the end of the opera provides a theme for his Sonate pour Clarinet et Piano(1962), as Poulenc reflects on his youthful encounters with Cocteau, Erik Satie, and Les Six.
Date: May 2000
Creator: Beard, Cynthia C.
System: The UNT Digital Library
Mus. Ms. 1511b: A Historical Review of a Lute Manuscript in the Herwarth Collection at the Bavarian Library, Munich (open access)

Mus. Ms. 1511b: A Historical Review of a Lute Manuscript in the Herwarth Collection at the Bavarian Library, Munich

The purpose of this paper is to create a modern transcription/edition and an historical study of Munich Mus. Ms. 1511b thereby helping to define the social and pedagogical ramifications of lute repertoire from the mid-sixteenth-century. Because of the amateurish nature of the compositions, the conclusion of this study is that a member of the Herwarth family probably used the manuscript for learning purposes. Dance, grounds and other related forms found in the manuscript are discussed. Also included is an incipit concordance that can be used as a cross-reference for further research.
Date: August 2007
Creator: Beasley, Douglas William
System: The UNT Digital Library
Belle Musique and Fin' Amour: Thibaut de Champagne, Gace Brulé, and an Aristocratic Trouvére Tradition (open access)

Belle Musique and Fin' Amour: Thibaut de Champagne, Gace Brulé, and an Aristocratic Trouvére Tradition

Many consider Gace Brulé (c1160-c1213) and Thibaut IV, Count of Champagne, (1201-1253) to have been the greatest trouvères. Writers on this subject have not adequately examined this assumption, having focused their energies on such issues as tracking melodic variants of individual works as preserved in different song-books (or chansonniers), the interpretation of rhythm in performance, and creation of modern editions of these songs. This thesis examines the esteem enjoyed by Gace and Thibaut in both medieval and modern times which derives from their exemplarity of, rather than difference from their noble contemporaries.
Date: December 2008
Creator: Bly, Emily
System: The UNT Digital Library
The Waning of Victorian Imperialism: Stylistic Dualism in Gustav Holst's One-Act Opera Sāvitri (1908-9) (open access)

The Waning of Victorian Imperialism: Stylistic Dualism in Gustav Holst's One-Act Opera Sāvitri (1908-9)

Gustav Holst's one-act opera Sāvitri (1908-9) represents a turning point in his compositional style, which came at a significant time in British history. Holst combines a simpler style informed by his work with English folksong with the Wagnerian style that permeated his earlier compositions. Although influenced by a British imperialist view of the world, Sāvitri renders Hindu-Indian culture in positive terms without relying on the purely exotic, offers a perspective on gender relationships that does not depend solely on convention, and presents the commoner as the British ideal rather than romanticizing the aristocracy. The result is an opera subtle in its complexity, approaching the profound themes of love, death, and spirituality with emotional restraint and self-control.
Date: May 2005
Creator: Broughton, Joseph Earl
System: The UNT Digital Library
Accessibility and Authenticity in Julia Smith's Cynthia Parker (open access)

Accessibility and Authenticity in Julia Smith's Cynthia Parker

In 1939, composer Julia Smith's first opera Cynthia Parker dramatized the story of a Texas legend. Smith manipulated music, text, and visual images to make the opera accessible for the audience in accordance with compositional and institutional practices in American opera of the 1930s. Transparent musical themes and common Native Americans stereotypes are used to define characters. Folk music is presented as diegetic, creating a sense of authenticity that places the audience into the opera's Western setting. The opera is codified for the audience using popular idioms, resulting in initial but not lasting success.
Date: December 2007
Creator: Buehner, Katie R.
System: The UNT Digital Library
Finding the "Indian" in Amy Beach's Theme and Variations for Flute and String Quartet, op. 80. (open access)

Finding the "Indian" in Amy Beach's Theme and Variations for Flute and String Quartet, op. 80.

Music that is categorized as part of the Indianist movement in American music (ca. 1890-1925) typically evokes Native American culture, ritual, story, or song through compositional gestures. It may also incorporate Native American tunes. Amy Beach (1867-1944) is considered to have composed five Indianist works, but her Theme and Variations for Flute and String Quartet, op. 80 has not been included as one of them. This thesis rethinks categorization of the piece, seeking the "Indian" in it through examination of its gestures, instrumentation, and relationship to contemporary Indianist compositions.
Date: December 2007
Creator: Burgess, Stephanie J.
System: The UNT Digital Library
The Recorder Tutors in 't Uitnement Kabinet (open access)

The Recorder Tutors in 't Uitnement Kabinet

Paulus Matthysz, a prominent music printer in Amsterdam during the seventeenth century, published Jacob van Eyck's Der Fluyten Lust-hof and a collection entitled 't Uitnement Kabinet. Three extant copies of Lust-hof include a tutor Vertoninge...op de Handt-fluit, presumably by Matthysz, and a tutor by Gerband van Blanckenburgh, Onderwyzinge...op deHandt-Fluyt. Their content is not correlated with Lust-hof, and they were presumably designed for inclusion in the Kabinet II. Confusion over the tutors' conception has led to published misinformation jeopardizing their historical worth. The casual generalizations regarding the two tutors can be refuted by reestablishing the interrelationship between the tutors and the two collections. This paper employs a comprehensive study into their origins in order to rectify how the tutors are referenced in the twenty-first century.
Date: August 2005
Creator: Carpenter, Jennifer
System: The UNT Digital Library
Eighteenth-Century French Oboes: A Comparative Study (open access)

Eighteenth-Century French Oboes: A Comparative Study

The oboe, which first came into being in the middle of the seventeenth century in France, underwent a number of changes throughout the following century. French instruments were influenced both by local practices and by the introduction of influences from other parts of Europe. The background of the makers of these instruments as well as the physical properties of the oboes help to illuminate the development of the instrument during this period. The examination of measurements, technical drawings, photographs, and biographical data clarify the development and dissemination of practices in oboe building throughout eighteenth-century France. This clarification provides new insight into a critical period of oboe development which has hitherto not been exclusively addressed.
Date: May 2001
Creator: Cleveland, Susannah, 1972-
System: The UNT Digital Library
Scoring for the Specter: Dualities in the Music of the Ghost Scene in Four Film Adaptations of Hamlet (open access)

Scoring for the Specter: Dualities in the Music of the Ghost Scene in Four Film Adaptations of Hamlet

This document's purpose is to analyze dualities found in different films of Shakespeare's Hamlet. Each version brings different ideas to it. By analyzing each version and focusing on the Ghost Scene, comparisons of the scene's symbolism are made between the musical scores. The beginning chapters provide a history of film, film music, the play, and events up to the ghost scene. After these chapters come analyses of the scene itself. Each version uses different parts of the play for its own purposes, but there are many commonalities between them. The score for each version of the Ghost Scene will be analyzed independently of each other. This work will contribute to musicology, film research, Shakespeare studies, and English scholarship.
Date: August 2002
Creator: Dunn, John T.
System: The UNT Digital Library
The sixteenth-century basse de violon: fact or fiction? Identification of the bass violin (1535-1635). (open access)

The sixteenth-century basse de violon: fact or fiction? Identification of the bass violin (1535-1635).

Research on the origins of the violoncello reveals considerable dispute concerning the existence and identity of its ancestor, the bass violin. This study focuses on the classification of the sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century bass violin by means of the following criteria: construction, early history and development, role due the social status of builders and players, use within the violin band, performing positions, and defining terminology. Accounts of inventories, organological treatises, music theoretical writings, lists of households and royal courts, descriptions of feasts, reports of choreographies and iconographical examples confirm the bass violin's presence in the late sixteenth century and beyond. Three of the earliest unchanged extant organological examples embody, complement and corroborate the bass violin's identification, and conclude the essay.
Date: August 2009
Creator: Erodi, Gyongy Iren
System: The UNT Digital Library
Carlo Milanuzzi's Quarto Scherzo and the Climate of Venetian Popular Music in the 1620s (open access)

Carlo Milanuzzi's Quarto Scherzo and the Climate of Venetian Popular Music in the 1620s

Although music publishing in Italy was on the decline around the turn of the seventeenth century, Venice emerged as one of the most prolific publishing centers of secular song in Italy throughout the first three decades of the 1600s. Many Venetian song collections were printed with alfabeto, a chordal tablature designed to facilitate even the most untrained of musicians with the necessary tools for accompanying singers on the fashionable five-course Spanish guitar. Carlo Milanuzzi's Quarto Scherzo (1624) stands out among its contemporary Venetian song collections with alfabeto as an anthology of Venetian secular songs, including compositions by Miniscalchi, Berti, and Claudio and Francesco Monteverdi. Issues surrounding its publication, instrumentation, and musical and poetic style not only contribute to the understanding of Venetian Baroque monody, but also help to construe a repertory of vocal music with defining characteristics usually associated with popular music of the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries.
Date: August 2001
Creator: Gavito, Cory Michael
System: The UNT Digital Library
Singing Songs of Social Significance: Children's Music and Leftist Pedagogy in 1930s America (open access)

Singing Songs of Social Significance: Children's Music and Leftist Pedagogy in 1930s America

In their shared goal of communicating left-wing principles to children through music, Marc Blitzstein's Worker's Kids of the World (1935), Aaron Copland's The Second Hurricane (1937), and Alex North's The Hither and Thither of Danny Dither (1941) exhibit a fundamental unity of purpose that binds them both to each other and to the extensive leftist pedagogical efforts of their time. By observing the parallel relationship among these three children's works and contemporary youth organizations, summer camps, and children's literature, their cultural objectives and stylistic idiosyncrasies emerge as expressions of a continuously evolving educational tradition. Whereas Worker's Kids comes out of the revolutionary Communist aesthetics of the Composers' Collective and the militant activism of The Young Pioneers, The Second Hurricane and Danny Dither reflect the increasingly accommodating educational efforts of the American Popular Front.
Date: December 2008
Creator: Haas, Benjamin D.
System: The UNT Digital Library
Poetry and Patronage: Alessandro Scarlatti, The Accademia Degli Arcadia, and the Development of the Conversazione Cantata in Rome 1700-1710 (open access)

Poetry and Patronage: Alessandro Scarlatti, The Accademia Degli Arcadia, and the Development of the Conversazione Cantata in Rome 1700-1710

The special relationship of patrons, librettists, and composers, in the Accademia degli'Arcadia in Rome from 1700-1710 appears in Alessandro Scarlatti's settings of Antonio Ottoboni's cantata librettos in the anthology GB Lbm. Add. 34056. An examination of Arcadian cantatas and their texts reveals the nature of their audience, function, and their place within the historical development of the genre. The conversazione cantata did not exist outside of Rome and was popular for only a brief period in the early eighteenth century. Critical examination of primary sources, including minutes from the Arcadian Academy meetings as well as household documents regarding the Cardinals Ottoboni and Pamphili, Prince Ruspoli, and other noble families, sheds light on the culture of the Arcadian Academy and the cantata within it, broader study clarifies the individuality of the conversazione cantata within Rome, and closer study of the contribution of the greatest cantata composer 1700-1710, Alessandro Scarlatti.
Date: May 2005
Creator: Hale Harris, Kimberly Coulter
System: The UNT Digital Library
Robert Schumann's Symphony in D Minor, Op. 120: A Critical Study of Interpretation in the Nineteenth-Century German Symphony (open access)

Robert Schumann's Symphony in D Minor, Op. 120: A Critical Study of Interpretation in the Nineteenth-Century German Symphony

Robert Schumann's D-minor Symphony endured harsh criticism during the second half of the nineteenth century because of misunderstandings regarding his compositional approach to the genre of the symphony; changes in performance practices amplified the problems, leading to charges that Schumann was an inept orchestrator. Editions published by Clara Schumann and Alfred Dörffel as well as performing editions prepared by Woldemar Bargiel and Gustav Mahler reflect ideals of the late nineteenth century that differ markedly from those Schumann advanced in his 1851 autograph and in the Symphony's first publication in 1853. An examination of the manuscript sources and the editions authorized by Schumann reveals that he imbued the Symphony with what he called a "special meaning" in the form of an implied narrative. Although Schumann provided no written account of this narrative, it is revealed in orchestrational devices, particularly orchestration, dynamics, and articulation, many of which have been either altered or suppressed by later editors. A reconsideration of these devices as they are transmitted through the authorized sources permits a rediscovery of the work's special meaning and rectifies long-standing misperceptions that have become entrenched in the general literature concerning Schumann in general and the D-minor Symphony in particular.
Date: May 2003
Creator: Hellner, Jean Marie
System: The UNT Digital Library
Social Discourse in the Savoy Theatre's Productions of The Nautch Girl (1891) and Utopia Limited (1893): Exoticism and Victorian Self-Reflection (open access)

Social Discourse in the Savoy Theatre's Productions of The Nautch Girl (1891) and Utopia Limited (1893): Exoticism and Victorian Self-Reflection

As a consequence to Gilbert and Sullivan's famed Carpet Quarrel, two operettas with decidedly "exotic" themes, The Nautch Girl; or, The Rajah of Chutneypore, and Utopia Limited; or, The Flowers of Progress were presented to London audiences. Neither has been accepted as part of the larger Savoy canon. This thesis considers the conspicuous business atmosphere of their originally performed contexts to understand why this situation arose. Critical social theory makes it possible to read the two documents as overt reflections on British imperialism. Examined more closely, however, the operettas reveal a great deal more about the highly introverted nature of exotic representation and the ambiguous dialogue between race and class hierarchies in late nineteenth-century British society.
Date: August 2003
Creator: Hicks, William L.
System: The UNT Digital Library
"Schattenhaft" in Mahler's Seventh and Ninth Symphonies: An Examination of a Passage in Adorno's Mahler: A Musical Physiognomy (open access)

"Schattenhaft" in Mahler's Seventh and Ninth Symphonies: An Examination of a Passage in Adorno's Mahler: A Musical Physiognomy

The expressive marking "schattenhaft" appears twice in Gustav Mahler's symphonies: at the beginning of the scherzo in the Seventh and within the first movement of the Ninth. Theodor Adorno's observations regarding Mahler's use of this marking, which connect it to Schopenhauer and Romantic aesthetics, provide the framework for an examination of possible meanings of these two passages in Mahler. Drawing also on references elsewhere in Adorno's book to stylistic and formal features peculiar to Mahler's music, and especially on the comparison he makes between the experiences of reading novels and listening to Mahler's symphonies, this thesis demonstrates that close analysis of the "schattenhaft" passages offers a valuable point of entry into the thinking of both Adorno and Mahler.
Date: December 2007
Creator: Houser, Krista Lea
System: The UNT Digital Library
In-between Music: The Musical Creation of Cholo Identity in Cochabamba, Bolivia (open access)

In-between Music: The Musical Creation of Cholo Identity in Cochabamba, Bolivia

Music and identity are inextricably linked. While a particular social or ethnic group's music may reflect characteristics of that group, it also functions in creating the identity of the group. In Andean Bolivia, the choloethnic group has very subjective and constantly changing boundaries. Cholo-ness is made possible through mediated cultural performances of all types, in which members actively choose elements from both criollo and Indian cultures. Music is one particularly effective way in which cholos create and maintain their identity. This thesis focuses on the ways in which cholos use music to create a hybrid identity in and around Cochabamba, Bolivia.
Date: August 2007
Creator: Jones, Eric
System: The UNT Digital Library
Yoon-Seong Cho's Jazz Korea: A Cross-cultural Musical Excursion (open access)

Yoon-Seong Cho's Jazz Korea: A Cross-cultural Musical Excursion

This thesis examines Yoon-Seong Cho's critically acclaimed recording Jazz Korea, in which Cho unites Korean folk music and American jazz into a single form of expression. By reinterpreting Korean folk music through jazz, Cho stimulated interest in the Korean jazz scene and a renewed interest in Korean traditional folk songs. The goal of the thesis, the first musicological essay about Yoon-Seong Cho, is to understand how Cho's diasporic experiences affected his music by leading to a process of self-discovery that allowed Cho to interpret his own identity. Through musical analysis, the study proposes a cultural interpretation of two of Cho's pieces that have achieved popularity not only among Koreans but also internationally: "Arirang" and Han-O-Baek-Nyun.
Date: May 2008
Creator: Joo, Hwajoon
System: The UNT Digital Library
Voice and Genre in Beethoven's  Deux Grandes Sonates pour le Clavecin ou Piano-Forte avec un Violoncelle obligé, Op. 5 (open access)

Voice and Genre in Beethoven's Deux Grandes Sonates pour le Clavecin ou Piano-Forte avec un Violoncelle obligé, Op. 5

This paper examines the generic aspect of Beethoven's Opus 5 Cello Sonatas (1796) from structuralist and post-structuralist perspectives, and explores the works from these viewpoints in order to gain insights into how the sonatas function as autonomous musical texts rather than historiographic documents of Beethoven's biography or transitional contributions in the development of the genre of the solo sonata as it was later cultivated. The insights offered by these perspectives argue for a reconsideration of the conventional notions of "work" and "text," which underscore the doctrine of work-immanence. This perspective also offers insights that have proven elusive when the works are considered primarily in the context of the historical-biographical construct of Beethoven's three style-periods. By applying the aesthetic practice of expressive doubling prevalent at the turn of the nineteenth century to Beethoven's Opus 5 Sonatas, a deeper understanding of the constellation of the duo sonatas in accompanied keyboard literature will be attained. Also, by illuminating the relational nature of meaning realized within a textual framework, this study attempts to enlarge the restricted scope of interpretation conventionally imposed on the Opus 5 sonatas.
Date: May 2004
Creator: Kim, Jungsun
System: The UNT Digital Library
"Now His Time Really Seems to Have Come": Ideas about Mahler's Music in Late Imperial and First Republic Vienna (open access)

"Now His Time Really Seems to Have Come": Ideas about Mahler's Music in Late Imperial and First Republic Vienna

In Vienna from about 1918 until the 1930s, contemporaries perceived a high point in the music-historical significance of Mahler's works, with regard to both the history of compositional style and the social history of music. The ideas and meanings that became attached to Mahler's works in this milieu are tied inextricably to the city's political and cultural life. Although the performances of Mahler's works under the auspices of Vienna's Social Democrats are sometimes construed today as mere acts of political appropriation, David Josef Bach's writings suggest that the innovative and controversial aspects of Mahler's works held social value in line with the ideal of Arbeiterbildung. Richard Specht, Arnold Schoenberg, and Theodor Adorno embraced oft-criticized features in Mahler's music, regarding the composer as a prophetic artist whose compositional style was the epitome of faithful adherence to one's inner artistic vision, regardless of its popularity. While all three critics addressed the relationship between detail and whole in Mahler's music, Adorno construed it as an act of subversion. Mahler's popularity also affected Viennese composers during this time in obvious and subtle ways. The formal structure and thematic construction of Berg's Chamber Concerto suggest a compositional approach close to what his student Adorno described …
Date: December 2009
Creator: Kinnett, Forest Randolph
System: The UNT Digital Library
The "Beethoven Folksong Project" in the Reception of Beethoven and His Music (open access)

The "Beethoven Folksong Project" in the Reception of Beethoven and His Music

Beethoven's folksong arrangements and variations have been coldly received in recent scholarship. Their melodic and harmonic simplicity, fusion of highbrow and lowbrow styles, seemingly diminished emphasis on originality, and the assorted nationalities of the tunes have caused them to be viewed as musical rubble within the heritage of Western art music. The canonic composer's relationship with the Scottish amateur folksong collector and publisher George Thomson, as well as with his audience, amateur music lovers, has been largely downplayed in the reception of Beethoven. I define Beethoven's engagement with folksongs and their audience as the "Beethoven Folksong Project," evaluating it in the history of Beethoven reception as well as within the cultural and ideological contexts of the British Isles and German-speaking lands at the turn of the nineteenth century. I broaden the image of Beethoven during his lifetime by demonstrating that he served as an ideal not only for highly educated listeners and performers but also for amateur music lovers in search of cultivation through music. I explore the repertory under consideration in relation to the idea of Bildung ("formation" or "education" of the self or of selves as a nation) that pervaded contemporary culture, manifesting itself in music as the …
Date: December 2006
Creator: Lee, Hee Seung
System: The UNT Digital Library
The Sounds of the Dystopian Future:  Music for Science Fiction Films of the New Hollywood Era, 1966-1976 (open access)

The Sounds of the Dystopian Future: Music for Science Fiction Films of the New Hollywood Era, 1966-1976

From 1966 to1976, science fiction films tended to depict civilizations of the future that had become intrinsically antagonistic to their inhabitants as a result of some internal or external cataclysm. This dystopian turn in science fiction films, following a similar move in science fiction literature, reflected concerns about social and ecological changes occurring during the late 1960s and early 1970s and their future implications. In these films, "dystopian" conditions are indicated as such by music incorporating distinctly modernist sounds and techniques reminiscent of twentieth-century concert works that abandon the common practice. In contrast, music associated with the protagonists is generally more accessible, often using common practice harmonies and traditional instrumentation. These films appeared during a period referred to as the "New Hollywood," which saw younger American filmmakers responding to developments in European cinema, notably the French New Wave. New Hollywood filmmakers treated their films as cinematic "statements" reflecting the filmmaker's artistic vision. Often, this encouraged an idiosyncratic use of music to enhance the perceived artistic nature of their films. This study examines the scores of ten science fiction films produced between 1966 and 1976: Fahrenheit 451, Planet of the Apes, 2001: A Space Odyssey, THX-1138, A Clockwork Orange, Silent Running, …
Date: May 2009
Creator: McGinney, William Lawrence
System: The UNT Digital Library
The Whole as a Result of Its Parts: Assembly in Aaron Copland's Score for  The Red Pony (open access)

The Whole as a Result of Its Parts: Assembly in Aaron Copland's Score for The Red Pony

Aaron Copland's music for The Red Pony (1948-49), based on John Steinbeck's story collection, is probably the best known of his film scores. The effectiveness of The Red Pony score stems from Copland's belief that film music should be subordinate to the film it accompanies. Copland composed The Red Pony score using his self-described method of "assembly," augmenting this process with devices to synchronize the music with the picture. Examination of archival sources shows how the score reflects the acknowledged influence of Igor Stravinsky, the needs of the film medium, and the plot of The Red Pony specifically. Despite Copland's modern style characteristics, the music functions much like a conventional Hollywood film score.
Date: May 2003
Creator: McGinney, William Lawrence
System: The UNT Digital Library