Melbourne Conservatorium of Music - Theses
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ItemMusic and the ordinary listener: music appreciation and the media in England, 1918-1939( 2000)This study examines the nature and impact of the music appreciation movement in England between 1918 and 1939. Protagonists of this movement, notably Percy Scholes and Sir Walford Davies, sought to foster a love of "good" music amongst the listening public, through written and verbal expositions of composers, works and music history. This thesis draws on hitherto untapped archival resources of the British Broadcasting Corporation, Oxford University Press and Percy Scholes' own papers (held in the National Library of Canada). It contextualises the movement both musically and socially, examining diverse efforts to inculcate musical taste. Inexpensive music appreciation books such as Dent's Master Musicians series and Kegan Paul's The Music-Lover’s Library were immensely popular. A case study of the contribution to music appreciation of Oxford University Press, with its Musical Pilgrim series, is followed by an exploration of Percy Scholes' contribution to the popular literature on music. Scholes' Oxford Companion to Music crowned his association with the Press. The public-service policies and programming of the British Broadcasting Company (established in 1923) were of profound importance in the development of music education for the mass public. Programming of the long-running Foundations of Music series is assessed to determine the content of the music appreciation "canon" of works, and BBC publications which supported such programmes are also examined. Percy Scholes and Walford Davies were prominent BBC figures who broadcast to the "ordinary listener" on a regular basis throughout the inter-war period. The nature and impact of educational gramophone records and, perhaps the most striking medium of music appreciation, annotated player piano rolls produced by the Aeolian Company, are similarly explored in detail. Throughout this study, documentary evidence - particularly that of letters from individual listeners - of the reception of these various music appreciation endeavours is incorporated. This facilitates a comprehensive understanding of the place of serious music in the lives of English people during the 1920s and 1930s, restoring the balance in a field of scholarship hitherto focussed narrowly on the achievements of composers during the English Musical Renaissance.
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ItemPauline Viardot: her music and the Spanish influence( 2000)Pauline Viardot (1821-1910) was a Mezzo-Soprano of international acclaim and a respected vocal pedagogue of the nineteenth century, but also a composer of some renown. As a result of Viardot's extensive travels, she developed an interest in a variety of different European musical styles. This thesis is a detailed study of selected solo vocal works to help ascertain defining characteristics of Viardot's compositional style with particular emphasis on her use of Spanish styles and techniques which until now have remained unresearched. The findings will reflect the composer's interest and interpretation of cultural musical elements that are stylistically foreign to French listeners. Also referred to will be Viardot's stay in Spain during 1842. Until now, details of this tour have remained incomplete.
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ItemMelodia et rhetorica: the devotional song repertory of Hildegard of Bingen( 2000-07)A central focus of this thesis is the word-music relationship in the devotional-song-repertory of Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179). Surrounding this focus is an examination of aspects of her life and work that relate to the production of her seventy-seven monophonic songs. This examination commences with a review of biographical sources, collation and discussion of parchment sources of her music, and identification of her music scribes. The theme of Hildegard’s music scribes is then developed, including their influence upon the liturgical genres in which her songs are cast and the melodic behaviour of her music. It is argued that, as a result of the rendering of her melodies on the medieval gamut, the surviving sources of her songs represent corruptions of orally produced chant. The word-music relationship in Hildegard’s songs is then introduced. Her views on the role of music and her own role as monastic preacher form the basis of an examination of the relationship between rhetoric and her songs. This examination draws on contemporary modes of rhetorical criticism, and an approach which treats her songs as musically articulated rhetorical discourse is developed. A selection of her songs is then examined through this approach, and particular attention is given to songs which preserve unusual melodic behaviours. It is argued that her songs represent iubilatio responses to both the grammatical and rhetorical syntagms of her song texts, and melodic characteristics which suggest traces of her pre-redacted melodies are identified. As a codicil to this study, a critique of ‘new’ and ‘unusual’ monastic practices in Germany by Anselm of Havelberg (c.1100-1158) forms a point of departure for discussion of a small number of surviving songs which surrounded the production of Hildegard’s music - the five monophonic songs comprising the Epithalamia to the Speculum virginum (c.1140), and a twelfth-century canticle setting emanating from the monastic home of her music scribes. This examination points towards a tradition of ‘new’ and ‘unusual’ musical practices in Southern Germany during the twelfth century and provides one possible context for Hildegard’s devotional-song repertory.
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ItemMusical composition in Australia in the period 1960-1970: individual triumph or historical inevitability?( 2000)An examination of oral records casts a fresh and first-hand light on the sudden flowering of Australian musical composition in the 1960-70 decade. Accepted accounts concerning the musical activity of this time are few and the composers who were involved in the new music world are cited rarely. Building on the views and perceptions of Roger Covell, James Murdoch, Frank Callaway, David Tunley and Andrew McCredie, the impressions concerning this period from eight composers - those from the pre•-1960 generation and those who came to prominence in the designated decade - are investigated, with a view to determining what caused the abrupt adoption of contemporary compositional practice fro1n 1960 onwards; whether the surge in activity and the adoption of a new vocabulary resulted chiefly from individual efforts, or from the influence of individuals (administrators, bureaucrats, entrepreneurs), or through the pioneering work of certain organisations (International Society for Contemporary Music), or as the result of an inevitable if delayed historical process. The investigation begins with a survey of the relevant available material still extant on this period, which serves the purpose as a support or contrast with the core of the thesis. This is the gleaning from interviews conducted by the writer or tapes made by the Australian Broadcasting Commission and other bodies of what the decade 1960-1970 meant to the composers themselves, the intention being to come to a clearer understanding of the significance of the years in question.