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The Keyboard Suites of Matthew Locke and Henry Purcell

Description: This work largely concerns the roles of Matthew Locke and Henry Purcell in the history of English keyboard music as reflected in their keyboard suites. Both, as composers of the Restoration period, integrated the French style with the more traditional English techniques--especially, in the case of Purcell, the virginalist heritage-- in their keyboard music. Through a detailed examination of their suites, I reveal differences in their individual styles and set forth unique characteristics of eac… more
Date: August 1989
Creator: Kim, Hae-Jeong
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Keyboard Tablatures of the Mid-Seventeenth Century in the Royal Library, Copenhagen: Edition and Commentary

Description: In the history of seventeenth-century European music the court of Christian IV (r. 1588-1648) occupies a position of prominence. Christian, eager for fame as a patron of the arts, drew to Denmark many of the musical giants of the age, among them the lutenist John Dowland and the composer Heinrich Schltz. Sadly, except for financial records and occasional letters still in the archives, few traces remain of these brilliant years in Denmark. The music composed and played during this half century h… more
Date: December 1973
Creator: Dickinson, Alis
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The Lady of the Lake: a Reconstructed Piano-Vocal Score, with Commentary on the Historical Background

Description: 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 … more
Date: May 1979
Creator: Knox, Robert E., Jr.
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Liturgy, Music, and Patronage at the Cappella di Medici in the Church of San Lorenzo in Florence, 1550-1609

Description: This dissertation describes the musical and religious support of the Medici family to the Medici Chapel in Florence and the historical role of the church of San Lorenzo in the liturgical development of the period. During the later Middle Ages polyphony was allowed in the Office services only at Matins and Lauds during the Tenebrae service, the last three days of Holy Week, and at Vespers anytime. This practice continued until the end of the sixteenth century when more polyphonic motets based on… more
Date: August 1995
Creator: Kim, Hae-Jeong
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The Lute Books of Giulio Cesare Barbetta: A Polyphonic Transcription of the Composer's Complete Works and an Analysis of the Fourteen Fantasias Volume I

Description: The great number of musical sources preserved in manuscript and printed form clearly reflects the prominent position held by the lute as a musical instrument during the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Only a relatively small portion of this vast literature is presently available to scholars and interested laymen in the form of modern transcriptions. Referred to as "l'instrument noble par excellence," the lute's popular and fashionable appeal is evidenced by the large number of compos… more
Date: August 1973
Creator: Thomas, Benjamin W., 1937-
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The Lute Books of Giulio Cesare Barbetta: A Polyphonic Transcription of the Composer's Complete Works and an Analysis of the Fourteen Fantasias Volume II

Description: The great number of musical sources preserved in manuscript and printed form clearly reflects the prominent position held by the lute as a musical instrument during the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Only a relatively small portion of this vast literature is presently available to scholars and interested laymen in the form of modern transcriptions. Referred to as "l'instrument noble par excellence," the lute's popular and fashionable appeal is evidenced by the large number of compos… more
Date: August 1973
Creator: Thomas, Benjamin W., 1937-
open access

The Lute Books of Giulio Cesare Barbetta: A Polyphonic Transcription of the Composer's Complete Works and an Analysis of the Fourteen Fantasias Volume III

Description: The great number of musical sources preserved in manuscript and printed form clearly reflects the prominent position held by the lute as a musical instrument during the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Only a relatively small portion of this vast literature is presently available to scholars and interested laymen in the form of modern transcriptions. Referred to as "l'instrument noble par excellence," the lute's popular and fashionable appeal is evidenced by the large number of compos… more
Date: August 1973
Creator: Thomas, Benjamin W., 1937-
open access

The Lute Music and Related Writings in the Stammbuch of Johann Stobaeus

Description: The Stammbueh or album of Johann Stobaeus, MS Sloane 1021 in the British Library, is dated January 8, 1640. Stobaeus, its owner, was Kapellmeister in Konigsberg, East Prussia. The album contains 164 pieces for ten- or eleven-course lute, including dances, secular pieces with generic titles, and settings of chorale tunes. Other major material includes two short sets of lute instructions; instructions for singers of liturgical music; poems by members of the Komgsberger Diahterkre's; and short rhy… more
Date: December 1981
Creator: Arnold, Donna M.
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Mahler's Tristan, A Documentary Study of Reception

Description: Conductors are oftern associated with a specific body of work in their repertoy. Gustav Mahler's conducting repertory contained some major Wagnerian works, including Tristan und Isolde. Mahler's first performance of Tristan took place during his tenure at the Stadttheater in Hamburg (1891-1897). It remained an integral part of his repertory through his tenure at the Vienna Hofoper (1897-1907), and was one of eight works he conducted at New York's Metropolitan Opera (1907-1910). This study inclu… more
Date: August 1994
Creator: Stauffer, Kristen K.
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Mail Order Music: the Hinners Organ Company in the Dakotas, 1879-1936

Description: Founded in 1879 by John L. Hinners, the Hinners Organ Company developed a number of stock models of small mechanical-action instruments that were advertised throughout the Midwest. Operating without outside salesmen, the company was one of the first to conduct all of its affairs by mail, including the financial arrangements, selection of the basic design, and custom alterations where required. Buyers first met a company representative when he arrived by train to set up the crated instrument tha… more
Date: August 1997
Creator: Alcorn-Oppedahl, Allison A. (Allison Ann)
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"Marvelous Accidents": The Concerto for Prepared Piano and Chamber Orchestra of John Cage

Description: John Cage’s Concerto for Prepared Piano and Chamber Orchestra (1950-51) holds a unique position within the composer’s oeuvre as the first work based in part on chance-derived compositional procedures. Cage entered into such practice gradually, incrementally abandoning subjective taste and personal expression through the course of the work. Drawing from the philosophical framework provided by Cage’s "Lecture on Nothing" (1950) and "Lecture on Something" (c. 1951-52), this thesis explores the aes… more
Date: December 1999
Creator: Boutwell, Brett N.
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Melodic Organization in Four Solos by Ornette Coleman

Description: The thesis presents annotated transcriptions and detailed analyses of four improvised solos by jazz saxophonist Ornette Coleman, a leading figure within the free jazz movement. The four solos, all of which were recorded in 1959, are: "Ramblin', " "Lonely Woman," "Congeniality," and "Free." -The focus of the analyses is upon Coleman's techniques for creating melodic continuity and development. Introductory chapters survey Coleman's career and examine his original theoretical system, "Harmolodics… more
Date: August 1989
Creator: Cogswell, Michael
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Michael Nyman: The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat

Description: 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… more
Date: May 2008
Creator: Avant-Rossi, Joan
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The Most Expressionist of All the Arts: Programs, Politics, and Performance in Critical Discourse about Music and Expressionism, c.1918-1923

Description: This dissertation investigates how German-language critics articulated and publicly negotiated ideas about music and expressionism in the first five years after World War I. A close reading of largely unexplored primary sources reveals that "musical expressionism" was originally conceived as an intrinsically musical matter rather than as a stylistic analog to expressionism in other art forms, and thus as especially relevant to purely instrumental rather than vocal and stage genres. By focusing … more
Date: August 2016
Creator: Carrasco, Clare
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Mus. Ms. 1511b: A Historical Review of a Lute Manuscript in the Herwarth Collection at the Bavarian Library, Munich

Description: 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 incl… more
Date: August 2007
Creator: Beasley, Douglas William
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Music and Patronage in Milan 1535-1550 and Vincenzo Ruffo's First Motet Book

Description: The present study reconstructs the musical milieu in which Vincenzo Ruffo's 1542 motet collection was conceived through an examination of the archival materials surviving from each of the major musical establishments known to be active in Milan 1535-1550. The relationship of the 1542 collection to Milanese musical activity. Its publication problems and its current position in source studies are then explored in light of the archival information that is currently available.
Date: 1991
Creator: Getz, Christine Suzanne, 1957-
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Musical Arrangements and Questions of Genre: A Study of Liszt's Interpretive Approaches

Description: Through his exceptional creative and performing abilities, Franz Liszt was able to transform compositions of many kinds into unified, intelligible, and pleasing arrangements for piano. Nineteenth-century definitions of "arrangement" and "Klavierauszug," which focus on the process of reworking a composition for a different medium, do not adequately describe Liszt's work in this area. His piano transcriptions of Schubert's songs, Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique and the symphonies of Beethoven are… more
Date: May 2010
Creator: Van Dine, Kara Lynn
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The Musical Fallout of Political Activism: Government Investigations of Musicians in the United States, 1930-1960

Description: Government investigations into the motion picture industry are well-documented, as is the widespread blacklisting that was concurrent. Not nearly so well documented are the many investigations of musicians and musical organizations which occurred during this same period. The degree to which various musicians and musical organizations were investigated varied considerably. Some warranted only passing mention, while others were rigorously questioned in formal Congressional hearings. Hanns Eisler … more
Date: August 1993
Creator: McCall, Sarah B.
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Myth in the Early Collaborations of Benjamin Britten and William Plomer

Description: Although the most well-known collaborations of William Plomer and Benjamin Britten are the three church parables (or church operas) - Curlew River, The Burning Fiery Furnace, and The Prodigal Son - by the time of the completion of Curlew River in 1964, the librettist and composer had been working together for well over a decade. During that time, they had completed the opera Gloriana and had considered collaborating on three other projects: one a children's opera on Beatrix Potter's The Tale o… more
Date: August 2005
Creator: Salfen, Kevin McGregor
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Nobody's Fool: A Study of the Yrodivy in Boris Godunov

Description: Modest Musorgsky completed two versions of his opera Boris Godunov between 1869 and 1874, with significant changes in the second version. The second version adds a concluding lament by the fool character that serves as a warning to the people of Russia beyond the scope of the opera. The use of a fool is significant in Russian history and this connection is made between the opera and other arts of nineteenth-century Russia. These changes are, musically, rather small, but historically and sociall… more
Date: December 1999
Creator: Pollard, Carol J.
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"Now His Time Really Seems to Have Come": Ideas about Mahler's Music in Late Imperial and First Republic Vienna

Description: 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 ac… more
Date: December 2009
Creator: Kinnett, Forest Randolph
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Le Nuove Musiche: Giovanni Battista Bovicelli?

Description: This thesis is a comparative study on the late 16th century manuals of ornamentation by Girolamo Dalla Casa, Giovanni Bassano, Riccardo Rognoni, and Giovanni Battista Bovicelli. The study demonstrates that the latest Renaissance manual should be given more credit for the innovative ornamentation style that was to come in the Early Baroque era. Bovicelli's use of sequence, dissonances, and less moving notes for more rhythmic varieties are features most often associated in the style of the Baroqu… more
Date: August 2010
Creator: Gámez Hernández, Carlos
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Ode to the Ninth: the Poetic and Musical Tradition Behind the Finale of Beethoven's Choral Symphony

Description: This study examines the finale of Beethoven's choral symphony and focuses on its inspirations and aims to invoke critical theories involving genre, namely genre's "horizon of expectation", and lead to an enriched perspective that points toward a number of compelling aspects of the Choral Finale overlooked by previous commentators.
Date: May 1992
Creator: Parsons, James, 1956-
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On the Nature of Melody in Asia and Medieval Europe

Description: In current musicological research, considerable attention is given to the description of melodic structure and pitch organization. But it is problematical that the analytical concepts and terminology of the Common Practice Era are largely inadequate for meaningful description of melody of Asia and medieval Europe. For most traditions of melody in Asia and medieval Europe, there is some sort of developed system of theory, but each system is limited to the repertory it describes. Consequently, th… more
Date: December 1983
Creator: Siddons, James
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