Melbourne Conservatorium of Music - Theses

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The title Toward the shining light as an influencing factor on the basic form and structural components in Broadstock's first symphony

Thompson, Lesleigh Karen ( 1994)

A study of Broadstock's first symphony, Toward the Shining Light directed from an analytical perspective. The composer is greatly inspired by the use of evocative titles, which provide him with images and symbols that can be translated into musical terms. Believing that his music must reflect his own personal social concerns, Broadstock entrusts expression of the most pressing of these to the symphonic genre; a genre he considers profound, and wanting to make some sort of statement. Toward the Shining Light relates both autobiographically and biographically to the birth of his son Matthew in 1983, and the gradual realisation of the severity of the child's handicap. The work is deeply personal and powerfully communicative, reflecting Broadstock's concern for the injustice of human inequality, and his struggle to accept, if not understand his son's condition. Evidence is drawn from the score in support of the contention that Broadstock used the title, together with its extra-musical significance, to influence his choice of basic form; and that this in turn affected the nature of the thematic material employed and associated structural components (namely treatment of large-scale harmonic structure, texture - orchestration and density -, dynamics, tempi, general rhythmic activity, and tessitura).