Melbourne Conservatorium of Music - Theses
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ItemThe pursuit of originality: aspects of unity and individuality through compositional synthesis( 2018)This thesis forms case studies using compositions by its author Lorenzo Alvaro as a catalyst for understanding how originality is manifested in the consistent re-enactment of borrowing and self-borrowing. Understanding how compositions ‘come together’ through ‘Synthesis’ oppose long-debated theories of originality being an innate power giving rise to the notion of ‘genius’. More recent scholarship acknowledge borrowing and collaboration as a means for originality, and based on this, the thesis argues that true originality is nothing more than an ideal.
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ItemExhibiting music: music and international exhibitions in the British Empire, 1879-1890( 2018)Between 1879 and 1890 there was barely a year in which an international exhibition was not held somewhere within the British Empire. These monumental events were intended to demonstrate, through comparative and competitive displays, the development of every branch of human endeavour: from industry and manufacturing, to art and design. They were also a massive and literal manifestation of the Victorian obsession with collecting, ordering, and classifying the world and its material contents. Though often considered in scholarly terms of grandiosity—of Victorian monumentalism and Benjamin-esque phantasmagoria—exhibitions were also social events, attended by individual members of the public for both education and entertainment. Music, as a fundamental part of cultural life in the societies that held such events, was prominent at all these exhibitions. This thesis interrogates the role of music at the international exhibitions held in the British Empire during the 1880s, arguing that the musical aspects of these events demonstrate, in microcosm, the broader musical traditions, purposes, arguments, and anxieties of the day. Further, it argues that music in all its forms—whether in performance or displays of related objects, and whether deliberately or inadvertently—was codified, ordered, and all-round ‘exhibited’ within the exhibition-sphere in multiple ways. Exploring thirteen exhibitions held in England, Scotland, Australia and India it traces ideas and trends relating to music and the idea of ‘display’ across the imperial cultural network. This thesis begins with an historical survey of music and exhibitions in London from the Great Exhibition of 1851 to the 1880s, analysed through the lens of contemporary discourses around music and concepts of display, and recent museological scholarship on the presentation of musical art in physical space. Arranged thematically rather than chronologically, several broad concepts relating to music at the 1880s exhibitions are then examined. These include a discussion of musical instruments as spectacularised commodities within the phantasmagoric exhibition space, music as both an educational device and a means of entertainment and leisure in line with contemporary theories of rational recreation, and the ways exhibitions created forums for engagement for Western audiences with non-Western musics.
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ItemRhetoric and the keyboard preludes of Louis Couperin (ca.1626-1661)( 2018)The preludes of Louis Couperin (ca.1626-1661) are a staple of seventeenth-century harpsichord performance. Previous studies have focussed on the interpretation of the written script, an elusive combination of curves and rhythmless notation, deciphered many of the notational mysteries, and extracted stylistic influences. A vital element, absent in the literature, is an in-depth understanding of the perceptions and expectations of the listener of the seventeenth century, the audience for whom the pieces were originally conceived. This study complements the present state of research on the preludes by addressing the aesthetic environment of seventeenth-century France, and its influence on the performance of the keyboard preludes. The foundation of a critical language in preparing these preludes is based on ancient rhetoric. Philosophical and structural components of rhetorical theory and style are based on ancient sources, and the reception of rhetorical theory in music of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century sources and studies. The rhetorical inquiry is deepened by focussing on the metaphysics of the introduction of a speech and a comparative analysis of the rhetorical exordium with descriptions of the musical prelude from seventeenth-century sources. Early biographical sources of Louis Couperin’s life are recontextualised in a critical examination of French society focussing on the events of the Fronde and the impact this had on his actions and life. The observations on harpsichord playing by Monsieur Le Gallois are also incorporated to provide critical guidance in the performance of the preludes. The nature of the audience of Couperin’s preludes is brought into focus. This draws on modern studies of the society, explaining its origins and the formulation of artistic values and judgements. These ideas of aristocratic taste are illustrated with passages from Jean de La Bruyère’s Caractères and philosophical writings by René Descartes. A final chapter analyses a selection of Louis Couperin’s preludes, informed by the ideas and models formulated in the previous chapters. The thesis also includes an appendix of a recording of fourteen of Louis Couperin’s preludes and a selection of other near-contemporary preludes, which explores performative ideas and issues that are raised in the thesis. The study shows that the application of rhetorical theory uncovers a deeper level of understanding preludial concepts, which are missing from period descriptions, and enhances objectives in performance and audience communication.
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ItemThe remains of decay: composing auditory afterimages( 2018)This autoethnographic critical exploration reflects on an accompanying folio of music compositions created between early 2013 and late 2016: Suite from The Bloody Chamber for three harps, Rung for electric guitar, contrabass recorder, violin, double bass and sensor-triggered bells, extracts from The Experiment: a musical monodrama; bound south for string quartet and Harp Guitar Double Concerto for two soloists and chamber orchestra. A post-structuralist reading reveals an emergent philosophical and practice preoccupation with the sonic phenomenon of the auditory afterimage.