Melbourne Conservatorium of Music - Theses
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ItemHans Ott, Hieronymus Formschneider, and the Novum et insigne opus musicum (Nuremberg, 1537-1538)( 1998)The work of the Nuremberg bookseller and publisher, Hans Ott, and the printer, block-cutter, and type-cutter, Hieronymus Formschneider, is examined in part I. Ott's publications form two series: that devoted to secular music contains three lied anthologies (the Schone auszerlesne Lieder is identified as his 'lost' second lied anthology), and that devoted to sacred music includes anthologies of motets and mass ordinaries, and was planned to continue with mass propers. All but his last anthology were printed by Formschneider; the printer of the 115 guter newer Liedlein (1544) is identified as Berg & Neuber, with whom, at the time of his death, he was planning further volumes including the Choralis Constantinus. Ott's six realised anthologies are among the most important and influential German sources from the first half of the sixteenth century. Formschneider was one of the great artisans of his time, noted especially for preparing woodcuts from artists' sketches and for the Fraktur and music typefaces that he cut; his work as a printer was secondary. It is argued that his role in the production of books and music was purely as a printer, those who commissioned the printing being responsible for the volumes' intellectual content and sale to the public. The music prints which he was believed to have edited are assigned to others. Arguments for a direct link with Senfl are dismissed: the 1526 Quinque salutationes is a 'ghost', and correspondence shows that others were responsible for the publication of the Varia carminum genera. Their most ambitious collaboration, the Novum et insigne opus musicum, a two-volume anthology of one hundred motets published in 1537-1538, is examined in part II. It is of key historical importance as the first anthology of Latin-texted sacred music which shows the influence of the Reformation, and as the most influential print in the establishment of the central motet repertoire in Reformation Germany. Ott's primary concern as compiler was with the verbal texts, which he revised as he felt appropriate. His revisions fall into two groups: the emendation of ceremonial motets to make them in praise of members of the dedicatee's family, and the Protestantisation of texts. He appears not to have been responsible for the contrafacta which involved completely new texts, and apparently had little concern for purely musical matters. The anthology is of great interest as a physical object. It has survived in more exemplars that any other set of partbooks published before 1550; all but two of the 177 known extant partbooks have been examined first-hand. The discussion of in-house practices focuses on the internal order of printing, the proofreading, and in-house correction; evidence is put forward for a print-run of 500 copies. The provenance and use of each exemplar is considered, drawing on evidence including bindings, manuscript additions, and the many annotations made by sixteenth-century users. This allows conclusions to be drawn about issues ranging from music education in the Lutheran Latin schools or the understanding of perfect mensuration in mid-sixteenth-century Germany, to attitudes about Marian texts and the dissemination of music in Protestant Europe. The wealth of material allows a picture of the compilation, printing, and reception of a sixteenth-century music print to be drawn in unparalleled detail.
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ItemThe guitar in nineteenth-century Buenos Aires: towards a cultural history of an Argentine musical emblem( 1998)This study examines the role of the guitar in Argentine culture through an in-depth analysis of historical, musical, pictorial and literary documentation from nineteenth-century Buenos Aires. Esteemed as an instrument of art music and simultaneously stigmatised by its relationship with the gaucho during the first half of the nineteenth century, the guitar was promoted, towards the 1880s, to the status of "national instrument." However, at the same time that it was celebrated as the musical emblem of the nation, the prestige of the classic guitar diminished, and it was relegated to a peripheral position within mainstream art music. This apparent paradox, it is argued, is deeply entrenched in the process of identity construction and nation-building that took place in Argentina during that period and is the result of discursive practices that present and represent the instrument (as well as Argentine culture) in an endless play of binary oppositions. The monolithic image of a unified "Argentine guitar" is questioned, and it is proposed that the physical object that we call guitar was regarded as at least two different cultural artefacts between which a continual slippage of meaning occurred. Accordingly, the binary opposition "classic guitar/popular guitar," is considered analogous to the forceful antinomy "civilisation/barbarism," a well-known dichotomy that has had a profound influence on Argentine and Latin American thought since it was coined in 1845 by Domingo F. Sarmiento in his influential Civilizacion y Barbarie. This dissertation is organised in two sections. The first examines the situation of the guitar from the revolution of May 25, 1810 until the end of Juan Manuel de Rosas's government in 1852. Chapter 1 provides a brief overview of the social map and the political history of this period, addresses the ideological agenda of the elite groups that came to power after the May revolution and presents the dichotomy civilisation/barbarism. Chapter 2 focuses on the gaucho guitar. Literary and pictorial representations are scrutinised in three levels, focusing on their role in the elite's construction of the Self and the Other, their importance in the genesis of a dominant discourse on the gaucho, and assessing the actual information about the gaucho's musical practices that they convey. Chapter 3 explores the classic guitar tradition in Buenos Aires during the first half of the nineteenth century in the form of a documentary history, demonstrating the presence of the guitar in the music-making of the upper-classes and its prestige and esteem within the porteno musical world. Critical biographies of the major guitarists and guitarist-composers of the period are provided, and the extant music composed in the area is described and analysed. The second section of the study is concerned with the guitar from the fall of Rosas up to the centennial of the May revolution in 1910. Chapter 4 sets out the historical and theoretical background for this period, focusing on the nation-building process and the debate on "Argentineness" generated by the unwanted effects of mass immigration and the rapid modernisation of the country. This situation gave rise to the so-called "resurrection" of the gaucho and the appropriation of his cultural universe as the essence of Argentine identity. The role played by representations of the guitar in this process is examined in Chapter 5, drawing attention to their most salient characteristics: distancing and nostalgia. The images of the gaucho guitar in literature, visual arts, advertisements and piano music are analysed and it is argued that the manner in which the guitar was incorporated into these discourses discloses the ideological agenda of the nation-building project. Chapter 6 concentrates on the classic guitar tradition during this period and, in that respect, it can be regarded as a mirror of Chapter 3. Although the instrument was still cultivated by the middle and upper-classes, it experienced a substantial loss of prestige, and it was no longer deemed at the same level as other art music instruments. As in Chapter 3, the spaces for performance are explored, critical biographies of the main guitarists of the period are offered, and the extant repertory is described and analysed. A catalogue of the guitar music composed in Buenos Aires during the nineteenth century is presented in the Appendix, providing a thematic index, publishing data, and location of copies where available.