Melbourne Conservatorium of Music - Theses
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ItemRediscovering Mirrie Hill (1889-1986): composer in her own right( 2002)Australian composer, pianist and educator Mirrie Hill (nee Solomon) was born in Sydney in 1889. She studied piano with Joseph Kretschmann and Laurence Godfrey-Smith, theory with Ernest Truman and composition with Alfred Hill. The outbreak of World War One in 1914 thwarted Mirrie Solomon's plans to study music in Europe and led to her entering the newly established New South Wales State Conservatorium of Music. In 1916, she was awarded a composition scholarship by the Director, Henri Verbrugghen. She later took on the role of Assistant Professor of Harmony, Counterpoint and Composition at the Conservatorium from 1918 until1944. Her teaching position and role as an examiner for the Australian Music Examinations Board served as complementary interests to her primary work as a composer. In 1921 Mirrie Solomon married the renowned Australian composer Alfred Hill. This marriage had a considerable impact on her ability to establish a reputation as a composer in her own right, and her contributions to Australian music have been largely overshadowed by Alfred Hill's more prominent status. Mirrie Hill composed over five hundred works across many genres. She wrote symphonic works, chamber music and film music and was a prolific writer of art songs, piano works and elementary works for children. Almost half of her compositions were published in Australia and many of her orchestral works were performed, broadcast and recorded during her lifetime. Mirrie Hill's reputation as a composer of 'miniatures' has lingered, despite her remarkable successes in other areas of music. To date, no in-depth study of Mirrie Hill has been attempted, and as such, her substantial creative output and contributions to Australian music have gone largely unrecognised. This thesis will explore both biographical and musical aspects of the composer and is intended as an overview of Mirrie Hill's contribution to many facets of Australian music throughout her lifetime.
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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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ItemComposer, wife and mother: Margaret Sutherland as conflicted subject( 2001)Margaret Sutherland (1897-1984) is regarded as one of the most innovative and influential Australian composers of the first half of the twentieth century. As early as the 1920s, she could be compared with contemporary composers in Europe who were reacting against aspects of the Romantic style of the nineteenth century. Sutherland was brought up in the midst of a liberal, intellectual, creative and artistic family, in which her principal role models were single women and intellectual men, and her musical aspirations were encouraged and fostered. Having studied for two years in Europe (1923-1925), she returned to Australia, where she expected to develop her vocation as a composer. In 1927 she married, and had two children, the first in 1929 and the second in 1931.During her troubled marriage she experienced conflict beyond her expectations in combining the pursuit of her musical aspirations with her domestic responsibilities as wife and mother. To date, an in-depth feminist biographical study of Sutherland has not been attempted, yet the challenges women face in successfully combining marriage, motherhood and career can only be revealed through closer inspection of this female experience. Using a methodology derived from contemporary feminist biographical theory, the basis for and manifestation of the conflict Sutherland experienced between her public, musical and her private, domestic roles will be explored. It will be shown that in spite of the difficulties faced as a woman composer and in her private life, she managed to achieve a considerable amount, making contributions which should be valued, both in the private, domestic sphere, and in her public life as composer and champion of the interests of Australian composers and Australian music in general. The nature of her achievements suggests that she had the tenacity to avoid being smothered by the unhappiness of her circumstances, or to allow her individuality and ambitions to be thwarted by domesticity.
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ItemFanny Hensel and virtuosity( 2002)Fanny Hensel occupied a unique position in the history of music. She received an exceptional music education, and revealed a rare ability as performer and composer. In the early years of her life, she was often compared favourably to her brother, Felix Mendelssohn. However, Hensel was discouraged by her father, and later by her brother, Felix Mendelssohn, from practising her art in public, as composer or performer. Most of her musical life was enacted in the 'semi-public' space of her Sonntagsmusiken, the series of concerts she staged in the Mendelssohn family home. The thesis examines the results of these restrictions on Hensel's musical life, as performer and composer. It situates Hensel in relation to various public/private dichotomies: 'virtuosity' versus 'accomplishment'; 'public' versus 'private' genres of music; and the published as opposed to the amateur composer. Chapter 1 provides a background of the life of Fanny Hensel. Chapter 2 seeks a definition of 'virtuosity', and explores Fanny Hensel as a pianist in relation to this concept. It draws on contemporary records of her playing and her performance history, and explores her deep-seated ambivalence about virtuosity. It concludes that Fanny Hensel can indeed by labelled a 'virtuoso', albeit a conflicted one. Chapter 3 explores Fanny Hensel as a composer, and Felix Mendelssohn's impact on her compositional life. Felix Mendelssohn urged her to write, but discouraged publication: a restriction she was only able to overcome in the last year of her life. The effect of Hensel's enforced privacy on her compositions is explored. The last chapter takes Fanny Hensel's piano trio in D minor as a specific focus, and tabulates its virtuoso textures. Hensel's trio is situated in the context of its genre, which highlights the originality of her choices. This chapter draws on my own experience as pianist, as I examine the way the trio both celebrates and suppresses virtuosity.