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.

Santa Eulalia M. Md. 7, dated January 20, 1600, is part of the San Miguel Acatán Repertory, which originated in the northwestern highlands of Guatemala and is presently owned by the Lilly Library of Indiana University. The manuscript contains thirty-four four-part songs and dances, two thirds of which are villancicos for Christmas, Easter, the Eucharist, and the feasts of All Saints and St. Michael. The remaining third consists of Latin biblical texts in either fabordón or contrapuntal settings, three pieces with Náhuatl texts, and an instrumental pavana. The thesis contains a modern edition of Santa Eulalia M. Md. 7 with critical notes and commentary, a comparison of the pieces with villancicos and fabordones of European origin, and a survey of several aspects of Mayan culture.

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.

Wagner's second opera Das Liebesverbot, composed in 1835 and first performed in Magdeburg in 1836, could be termed Wagner's "Italian" opera. It represents Wagner's attitudes and feelings at the time of its composition. During this period in Wagner's life the composer had become particularly enchanted with Italian music and also with the Italian way of sensuous and carefree living. At the same time his disillusionment with German conservatism and pedantry also had an influence on the composition of this opera.

Sebastien de Brossard (1655-1730) was a French priest, a zealous collector and historian, a musician of merit, and the author of one of the first dictionaries of musical terminology, the Dictionnaire de musigue of 1703. Largely self-taught in music, Brossard studied theology and philosophy at Caen. He was appointed curate at Strasbourg A in 1687 and maitre de musique in 1689. In 1698 he was made grand chapelain and mattre de musique at Meaux, where he remained until his death. His complete works and immense personal library are contained in the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris. The first edition of Brossard's solo motets was published in 1695 under the title Elevations et motets a voix seule, avec la basse continue. The title Prodromus Musicalis was used for the second edition, published in 1702, and may be loosely translated "Musical Forerunner" or "Musical Prelude." The motets contain a vocal line with text and a figured bass. The present edition presents a faithful rendering of the figured bass and was prepared from a second edition copy contained in the North Texas State University Music Library. In order to enhance the performance and understanding of the eight motets, much of the prefatory material included …

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.

The tragedie en musique of Quinault and Lully was a highly successful new genre, representative of contemporary Parisian life. However, it is still largely viewed in the negative terms of its detractors, the proponents of classical tragedy. The purpose of this study is to redefine the tragedie en musique in terms of seventeenth-century modernism. An examination of the society and poetry of the contemporary gallant world provides the historical framework for an analysis of both the libretto and music of Quinault and Lully's Atys (1676). This study attempts to bridge the historical and cultural distances that until now have hindered accessibility to this major new genre in seventeenth-century literature and music.

Johann Anton Kobrich (1714-1791) was the priest and organist of the parish church of Landsberg am Lech in upper Bavaria from 1730 until his death. A prolific composer, Kobrich wrote several works for organ, including the Wohlgeubter Organist (1762), a three-part collection of preludes, fugues, and toccatas. The major portion of this thesis consists of an edition of twenty-six selected pieces from the original fifty-eight in this collection. Also included are a bibliography of Kobrich, a discussion of his significance among other contemporary composers, and a survey of the organs and organ music of eighteenth-century southern Germany. In addition, there is an analysis of the Wohlgeubter Organist and a commentary on its significance.

The Composers' Collective, founded by leftist composers in 1932 New York City, sought to create proletarian music that avoided the "bourgeois" traditions of the past and functioned as a vehicle to engage Americans in political dialogue. The Collective aimed to understand how the modern composer became isolated from his public, and discussions on the relationship between music and society pervade the radical writings of Marc Blitzstein, Charles Seeger, and Elie Siegmeister, three of the organization's most vocal members. This new proletarian music juxtaposed revolutionary text with avant-garde musical idioms that were incorporated in increasingly greater quantities; thus, composers progressively acclimated the listener to the dissonance of modern music, a distinctive sound that the Collective hoped would become associated with revolutionary ideals. The mass songs of the two Workers' Song Books published by the Collective, illustrate the transitional phase of the musical implementation of their ideology. In contrast, a case study of the song "Chinaman! Laundryman!" by Ruth Crawford Seeger, a fringe member of the Collective, suggests that this song belongs within the final stage of proletarian music, where the text and highly modernist music seamlessly interact to create what Charles Seeger called an "art-product of the highest type."

Several late eighteenth-century keyboard composers indicated that some of their works were written specifically for the clavichord, as opposed to the harpsichord or pianoforte. This demand was indicated by a composer's commentary, remarks made by a contemporary, or by Bebung and Tragen der Tone indications in the music. The thesis examines selected works of C.P.E. Bach, Johann Eckard, Nathanael Gruner, Johann Hassler, Christian Neefe, F.S. Sander, and Daniel Tt*rk, and discusses elements of the music that seem particularly suited to clavichord performance. These elements are Bebung, Tragen der TOne, finely nuanced dynamic indications, certain types of melodic writing, and a thin textural composition.

The purpose of this thesis was to make available for performance and study an edition of the twenty-two secular songs published in this collection by Johann Jacob Löwe and Julius Johann Weiland in 1657. The thesis contains twenty-two secular songs for one, two, or three voices with continuo accompaniment and ritornellos for one or two violins, and/or viola, as well as translations of Lowe's preface and dedication and a poem to Lower and Weiland by Heinrich Schaffer. The work contains three chapters, the first covering Lowe's life and work and association with Weiland, the second the state of German secular song in 16050, and the third a critical commentary on the editing of the songs. Editorial corrections are included.

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.

This thesis is concerned with the historical context and evaluation of the string quartets of Franz Berwald. It will establish the environment within which Berwald composed these quartets, and show the results of his efforts. The material for this investigation was gathered from musical scores and literature about music. Chapter I gives an introduction to the thesis and a short biographical sketch of Berwald. Chapter II surveys the string quartet in the first half of the nineteenth century, citing the work of major composers. This chapter concludes with an examination of the influences on Berwald's musical styles. Chapter III surveys Berwald's musical output and describes the Quartet in G Minor. Chapter IV describes his last two quartets. The evaluations and conclusions are presented in Chapter V.

Musical instruments are not static, unchanging objects. They are, instead, things that materially evolve in symmetry with human practices. Alterations to an instrument's design often attend to its ergonomic or expressive capacity, but sometimes an innovator causes an entirely new instrument to arise. One such instrument is the Chapman Stick. This instrument's history is closely intertwined with global currents that have evolved into virtual, online scenes. Virtuality obfuscates embodiment, but the Stick's world, like any instrument's, is optimally related in intercorporeal exchanges. Stickists circumvent real and virtual obstacles to engage the Stick world. Using an organology informed by the work of Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty, this study examines how the Chapman Stick, as a material "thing," speaks in and through a virtual, representational environment.

"It Follows" (2014), written and directed by David Robert Mitchell, premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in 2014. It chronicles the story of Jay, a college student who contracts a curse through sexual intercourse. The curse manifests itself as a human whom only the infected persons can see, always following at a walking pace, and determined to kill if it catches up. This thesis demonstrates the score's crucial role in establishing affect, setting, and character in a film with sparse dialogue and a silent monster. Moreover, the score creates a sense of the uncanny by complicating the binary between music and sound effect and fulfills the need to create dread without resorting to the loud or sudden sounds traditionally heard in horror films. The score's composer, Richard Vreeland, achieves this effect by drawing on both classical film scoring techniques as well as more modern horror scoring styles. It is this interaction between styles that enhances the viewers' experience of dread and horror in the film. This thesis analyzes how Vreeland's score for "It Follows" exploits the poetics of the fantastical gap, of the uncanny, and of musical semiosis. I primarily focus on the "Heels" theme and use of drones in …

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.

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.

The document consists of a commentary on the historical background of the work and an edition of the restored score. The commentary treats its relationship to the ballad opera, sources and alternate settings of the music and libretto, a history of the development of "Hail to the Chief," biographical sketches of the primary composers, and a section on early productions in England and America. The commentary includes a history of the English and American premieres, lengths of the first-runs, and the names of the theatres in which the performances were mounted. The reconstructed score is a piano-vocal performance edition with dialogue, cues, scenery, costume and property plots indicated in detail.

This study is an investigation of the dramatic expression in thirty musical settings of Goethe's "Erlkonig," to attempt to determine why the works by Franz Schubert and Carl Loewe have achieved such popularity.

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.

Don Gillis wrote Symphony No. 5½ (1947) in order to reconcile the American public with modern art music. By synthesizing jazz (as well as other American folk idioms), singable melodies, and humor, and then couching them into symphonic language, Gillis produced a work that lay listeners could process and enjoy. The piece was an immediate success and was played by orchestras across the globe, but it did not retain this popularity and it eventually faded from relevancy. This study focuses on elements that contributed to the initial efficacy and ultimate decline of the work. Due to its pervasive popular influences, Symphony No. 5½ is a crystallized representation of time in which it was written, and it soon became dated. Don Gillis did not harbor the idea that Symphony No. 5½ would grant him great wealth or musical immortality; he had a more pragmatic goal in mind. He used every musical element at his disposal to write a symphonic work that would communicate directly with the American people via a musical language they would understand. He was successful in this regard, but the dialogue ended soon after mid-century.

The purpose of this investigation is to examine Reichardt's reasons for his development of the genre Liederspiel. A brief biographical sketch of Reichardt reveals an innovative character who was responsible for several developments within the history of music. The Liederspiel was particularly affected by the French vaudeville. However, an investigation into the character of each shows that they are really quite different. A translation of an article by Reichardt from the Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitun discloses the purpose of the composer in his presentation of the Liederspiel to the public. The first Liederspiel was Liebe und Treue and was a complete success. The libretto and piano vocal score shows the construction of liebe und Treueand an English translation aids in its understanding.

A concentrated reading of Benjamin Britten's Nocturne through details of the composer's biography can lead to new perspectives on the composer's identity. The method employed broadens current understandings of Britten's personality and its relationship to the music. After creating a context for this kind of work within Britten scholarship, each chapter explores a specific aspect of Britten's identity through the individual songs of the Nocturne. Chapter 2 focuses on how Britten used genres in a pastoral style to create his own British identity. Chapter 3 concentrates on the complex relationship between Britten's homosexuality and his pacifism. Chapter 4 aims to achieve a deeper understanding of Britten's idealization of innocence. The various aspects of Britten's personality are related to one another in the Conclusion.

Alan Berg's two musical settings of Theodor Storm's poem"Schliesse mir die Augen beide" have received little in the way of scholarly analytical attention. The three major chapters of this thesis deal with the two settings on three different levels. Chapter II surveys the political and cultural milieu in which Berg functioned as a young composer of Lieder in the years 1900-1910. Chapter III examines the special quality of lyricism which is often attributed to Berg and his works. Chapter IV provides more definitive and complete musical analyses of the two settings than have heretofore been available. The question of what role songwriting played in the development of Berg's compositional process is addressed in the conclusion.