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The Solo Piano Works of John Corigliano: Etude Fantasy (1976) and Fantasia on an Ostinato (1985)

Description: John Corigliano (b. 1938) is a contemporary American composer who has in the last twenty years established himself as a composer whose versatility and accessibility are appreciated by a wide range of audiences. He has labeled himself an eclectic composer who unashamedly borrows from other musical styles and periods in an effort to create works that appeal to a variety of listeners. He has been mentioned along with George Rochberg, George Crumb, and Jacob Druckman as an advocate of the post-mode… more
Date: August 1990
Creator: Simms, Beverley
Partner: UNT Libraries
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Contemporary Swedish Music for Solo Trumpet and Trumpet in Mixed Chamber Ensembles with a Performance Analysis of Selected Works of Bo Nilsson, Folke Rabe, and Tommy Zwedberg

Description: This study discusses how cultural and social aspects of contemporary Swedish society impact the musical arts. It contains biographical information on representative Swedish composers, and analyzes technical and structural elements of their compositional styles. Finally, it recommends performance practice considerations regarding technical and interpretive details in Tommy Zwedberg's Face the Music for trumpet and prepared audio tape, Folke Habe's Shazam for unaccompanied trumpet, and Bo Nilsson… more
Date: August 1991
Creator: Engstrom, Larry M. (Larry Milton)
Partner: UNT Libraries
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Evolution, Symmetrization, and Synthesis : The Piano Sonatas of Alberto Ginastera

Description: When Alberto Ginastera's oeuvre is viewed as a whole, an essential continuity between compositional ideas often appears in different works. This is especially apparent in the three piano sonatas, where each sonata represents an evolution and a condensation of ideas occurring in the previous one. The evolution of ideas throughout the three sonatas takes place through two primary processes. The first is a shift in cultural focus from reliance on Ibero-American material in the first sonata (1952) … more
Date: August 1991
Creator: Campbell, Grace M.
Partner: UNT Libraries
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Practices of English Diction for Singers 1900-1971

Description: Specialized training in English diction for singers became increasingly prevalent in the twentieth century. Along with this growth, a small but significant literature on the subject developed. There are divergent practices recommended for American singers, displayed by nine authors in ten books published between 1900 and 1971. A comparative study yields pedagogies of vowel and consonant production. Issues of sounds in context, including proper linkage and stress, adjustments from speech to song… more
Date: August 1991
Creator: Barber, Carol H. (Carol Hansell)
Partner: UNT Libraries
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A Study of Idiomatic Piano Compositions During the Cultural Revolution in the People's Republic of China

Description: This study demonstrated that the piano, a typical Western instrument, became the Chinese composer's tool for expressing the sound ideals and tone qualities that are intrinsic to Chinese music. A new musical idiom was created in these piano compositions, an idiom that combined Western compositional techniques and traditionally-based Chinese ideals.
Date: August 1991
Creator: Fan-Long, Grace (Chun Grace)
Partner: UNT Libraries
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Hartley Wood Day: Inventor of Numeral Notation and Adversary of Lowell Mason

Description: Ignorance of the basic principles of music reading was one of the primary obstacles to the improvement of congregational singing in nineteenth-century America. Six separate numeral notation systems arose to provide a simple way for the common man to learn the basic principles of music. Hartley Day developed his own numeral notation system and published six tune-books that enjoyed modest success in the New England area. This thesis examines Day's numeral notation system as it appeared in the Bos… more
Date: December 1991
Creator: Carnes, Tara Barker
Partner: UNT Libraries
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The Offstage Effect: An Historical and Stylistic Perspective with Performance Considerations for Trumpet

Description: The present study does not attempt to present a complete or exhaustive survey of the myriad spatial orchestrational devices occurring in the symphonic and operatic repertoire. Rather, the study is limited to an examination of the specified use of the trumpet as an offstage instrument in selected representative works. The study's purpose is to identify trends in the use of this orchestrational device, to serve as an aid to the trumpeter in matters of interpretation, and to provide a practical r… more
Date: December 1991
Creator: Trout, Marion T. (Marion Thomas)
Partner: UNT Libraries
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Jindrich Feld's Introduzione, Toccata E Fuga Per Flauto Solo With Three Recitals of Selected Works of J.S. Bach, Mozart, Messiaen, Berio, Martinu, Persichetti, and Others

Description: The Czechoslovakian composer Jindrich Feld (b.1925) composed Introduzione, Toccata e Fuga per Flauto Solo, for the Italian flutist Roberto Frabbriciani. Feld's Introduzione is from his third style period. This work may be labeled as a synthesis of the experiments and experiences that have enabled him to create his own mature style of expression.
Date: May 1992
Creator: Derby McDermott, Dennette
Partner: UNT Libraries
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Parallels in the Development of Electronic and Percussion Music and an Examination of Performance Problems in Lejaren Hiller's Machine Music for Piano, Percussion and Two-Channel Tape Recorder with Three Recitals of Selected Works of Rolnick, Kessner, Xenakis, Winsor, Niimi, and Others

Description: This study traces the significant developments in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries which led to the development of electronic music and increased writing for percussion. Whether by coincidence or premeditation, the field of percussion in Western culture and electronic music share many parallel aspects in their history. Carlos Chavez, Edgard Varese and John Cage foresaw a time when electronic music would allow composers to realize compositions with ease, provide new sounds to t… more
Date: May 1992
Creator: Smith, Jeffrey B., 1957-
Partner: UNT Libraries
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Structure and Form in Two Late Works for Flute and Orchestra by Ernest Bloch (1880-1959): Suite Modale (1956) and Two Last Poems (Maybe. . .) (1958) -- a Lecture Recital, Together With Three Recitals of Selected Works of J.S. Bach, Jolivet, Mozart,and Others

Description: The lecture was presented on November 18, 1991. This presentation focused on the only two compositions for solo flute and orchestra by Ernest Bloch. Written during the last three years of the composer's life, the pieces are representative of his last style period. While Suite Modale is neobaroque in style, Two Last Poems is much more subjective. Together they represent a synthesis of many of the stylistic characteristics of Ernest Bloch. The musical parameters discussed included form, melody, t… more
Date: May 1992
Creator: Stirzaker, Kim E. (Kim Elizabeth)
Partner: UNT Libraries
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Designs

Description: Designs is an algorithmic composition for small orchestra. The main compositional process used involves the realization and implementation of various musical algorithms discussed in the book Composition with Pitch-Classes by theorist/composer Robert Morris.
Date: August 1993
Creator: Fu, Yuen-Wai
Partner: UNT Libraries
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The Flute: the Mechanical Improvements on the Body of the Orchestral Instrument since 1847

Description: This thesis uniquely explains the mechanical improvements which have occurred to the flute over the last 147 years. Theobald Boehm revolutionized the flute by changing many of its components culminating with the 1847 model flute. Since that time other improvements have been made which enhance the flute's capabilities in terms of pitch, tone, timbre, and simplification offingeringpassages. Among those improvements which are discussed in the following pages are the Dorus G-sharp key, the gizmo ke… more
Date: August 1994
Creator: Nussbaum, Carolyn
Partner: UNT Libraries
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Italian Influences in the Corellisirende Sonaten of Telemann

Description: George Philipp Telemann is often thought of an experimenter with many nationalistic styles during the course of his career. His Corellian Sonatas demonstrate this facet of his work in their employment of Corelli's manner, and the cultivation of the Italian style. Telemann's Corellian sonatas are stylistically close to those of Corelli, and they do not appear to vary widely from the church and chamber sonatas of Corelli; Telemann fused the two sonata types in that dance elements are found in the… more
Date: May 1995
Creator: Chang, Young-Shim
Partner: UNT Libraries
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Autographs 1928 : Four Songs for Soprano and Chamber Ensemble

Description: Autographs 1928: Four Songs for Soprano and Chamber Ensemble is a composition of approximately 16 minutes' duration and is scored for mezzo-soprano, flute, oboe, clarinet, horn in F, viola, violoncello, one keyboardist (piano and celesta), and two percussionists (marimba, xylophone, chimes, timpani, bass drum, temple blocks, triangle, and slapstick). The work consists of four songs and four readings with texts from Walls's maternal grandmother's autograph book. The composition opens with a read… more
Date: August 1995
Creator: Walls, Jay Alan
Partner: UNT Libraries
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A Capella Eletronnica

Description: The intent of A capella Eletronnica is to explore the possibility of the human voice as the most versatile of musical instruments. The voice, capable of melodic, harmonic, percussive and rhythmic effects, is also employed for spoken text and conversational elements as musical sources. My aim was to enlarge this array of vocal techniques with the use of electronic processing and amplification.
Date: August 1995
Creator: Bonneau, Paul G. (Paul Gregory)
Partner: UNT Libraries
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Schoenberg, Polyphony, and Mode : A Reception of the Composer's Twelve-tone Method in American Publications, c. 1925-1950

Description: Although Schoenberg viewed his twelve-tone method as an extension of the Germanic musical evolution from Bach to Brahms, one group of writers in America identified twelve-tone antecedents with Medieval and Renaissance polyphony. Such a correlation of Schoenberg's practice with this textural orientation of the past was part of a larger movement (what I term "neopolyphony") recognizing twentieth-century musical developments as the genesis of a polyphonic epoch reviving both the technical and aest… more
Date: August 1995
Creator: Finnegan, Sean Justin
Partner: UNT Libraries
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Three Motivic Topics in Beethoven's Piano Quintet, Op. 16

Description: The first movement of the Piano Quintet, Op. 16 of Ludwig van Beethoven works out three significant motivic "topics": a chromatically filled-in second, appearing first as 5 - #5 - 6 (Bb - B - C in Eb major); the emphasis om the submediant, both as vi in Eb major and as the tonal region of C minor; and the melodic interval of the sixth, which, when inverted to become a descending third, determines the structure of tonal regions at crucial points in the movement. These three motivic topics are in… more
Date: August 1995
Creator: Gratton, J. Brian (John Brian)
Partner: UNT Libraries
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An Argument for the Reassessment of Stravinsky's Early Serial Compositions

Description: Between 1952 and 1957, Igor Stravinsky surprised the world of music by gradually incorporating serialism into his style of composition. Although Stravinsky still used the neo-classical trait of making strong references to the music of earlier periods, musical analyses of this transitional period have focused on serial aspects to the exclusion of anachronistic elements. Evidence of Stravinsky's possible use of musical structures adapted from earlier times is found in his consistent use of musica… more
Date: December 1995
Creator: Hughes, Timothy Stephen
Partner: UNT Libraries
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Concertino for Flute, Timpani and String Orchestra

Description: Concertino for Flute, Timpani, and String Orchestra is a three movement piece that blends Western European forms with Korean idioms. The following essay addresses pitch materials, melodic structure, rhythm, form, instrumentation, vertical structures, and developmental procedures used in the work.
Date: December 1995
Creator: Moon, Jeong-Hyun
Partner: UNT Libraries
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The Wanderer

Description: The Wanderer is an orchestra piece 18'42" in duration. The purpose of this project is to provide the composer an opportunity to express through music his experience with God, rebellion, and returning as the wanderering son did in the Bible's parable.
Date: May 1996
Creator: Wu, Dien-Foon
Partner: UNT Libraries
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Comparative Study of the Bel Canto Teaching Styles and their Effects on Vocal Agility

Description: This thesis examines the historical significance of the vocal methods employed from the middle of the seventeenth century to the beginning of the nineteenth century in what became known as the bel canto era. It provides further exploration into the pedagogical procedures of the bel canto technique through a study of the premier instructors and singers from this period. The resurgence of interest in this tradition is addressed along with its impact on current vocal pedagogy. The vital role that … more
Date: August 1996
Creator: Harper, Portia
Partner: UNT Libraries
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Harmony and Structure in Richard Strauss's Macbeth

Description: This study begins with a discussion of step theory. Included in this discussion is the basis of chord succession, the idea of fundamental representation, and the uses of reinterpretation technique. These concepts are then used to demonstrate the continuity and logic of the harmonic language found in Strauss's Macbeth.
Date: August 1996
Creator: Bills, Danny C.
Partner: UNT Libraries
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A Comparative Analysis of the "Dies Irae" in Mozart's Requiem and Cherubini's Requiem in D Minor

Description: The thesis speculates on the possible influence of Mozart's Requiem on Cherubini's Requiem in D Minor, concluding that Cherubini's setting of the Sequence ("Dies irae") was indeed influenced by Mozart's setting of this liturgical text both on the micro and macro levels.
Date: August 1997
Creator: Leong, Jeremy
Partner: UNT Libraries
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Expectation as Narrative Strategy in Richard Wagner's Parsifal

Description: The story of Parsifal is presented in two manners: through action and through narrative. Using the formalist theories of Vladimir Propp, the overall narrative is articulated in three narrative episodes. This thesis interprets the structure of narrative episodes in Parsifal on the basis of expectation. Propp's theory of functions provides labels for an interpretive analysis. Levi-Strauss' reconstruction of Propp's functions into paired structures identifies key points in the drama as moments of … more
Date: August 1997
Creator: Straughn, Greg, 1972-
Partner: UNT Libraries
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