Melbourne Conservatorium of Music - Theses
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ItemThe ripieno bass section of the Dresden Hofkapelle during the reign of August the Strong, 1709–1733: players, repertoire, performance( 2017)This thesis examines the ripieno bass section of the Dresden Hofkapelle during the period 1709–1733, the final twenty-five years of the reign of Saxon Elector and King of Poland August the Strong (1670–1733). It was especially during this quarter century when significant changes to the membership, structure, and direction of this pan-European ensemble took place. There are three strands of the inquiry—players, instruments, and repertoire. After an introduction setting out the court’s musical life, each strand is explored through documentary archival and music manuscript studies, and contemporaneous writings. Biographies of the orchestral musicians associated with ripieno basso instruments are presented in chronological order by year of first court service and drawing on archival research. These men ranged from internationally famed individuals of the stature of lute virtuoso Silvius Leopold Weiss to numerous colleagues largely forgotten through the course of history. Personnel and other court records provide insight into the musical style and career activities each musician would have brought to the ensemble. As a group, these individual stories build a fascinating picture of the changing experience of being an orchestral musician at a major German court during the early eighteenth century. Especially relevant to understanding bass performance practices is the question of which instrument types were in use in Dresden. This point is discussed in detail. Local evidence of instruments, terminology and association with individual careers are drawn on to build a case for a more detailed understanding of changing practices, including the rising prominence of contrabass bowed strings and demise of basse de violon use. Examples of the third strand, select repertoire case studies, are presented where they are most meaningfully connected to material examined. Therefore these are placed next to individual biographies and instrument discussions. Available evidence suggests the Dresden Hofkapelle was indeed a crucible for the mixing of national French, Italian and local musical styles in the early eighteenth century, and that this was of particular importance for the realisation of the ripieno basso; however, studies of continuo practices cannot adequately capture what occurred in the larger ripieno basso. This is because an essential aspect of the full bass section is the reinforcing and potential for 16-foot doubling bass instruments not part of the core improvisatory group of the continuo, and this is not consistently covered by continuo studies alone. This study argues that significant changes to the Dresden Hofkapelle's membership, structure, and direction occurred in the period 1709–1733, and further that practices of Dresden were crucial to the development of the modern orchestra and styles of performance.
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ItemJan Dismas Zelenka's Missa Sancti Spiritus, ZWV 4: a critical edition and study of the manuscript sources( 2015)The rapidly growing interest from both scholars and performers in the music of Jan Dismas Zelenka (1679–1745), a leading Bohemian composer who worked at the court of Dresden in the late Baroque period, is creating an increasing need for reliable scholarly-critical editions of his music. This thesis presents a critical edition of Zelenka’s Missa Sancti Spiritus (ZWV 4), accompanied by a study of the relevant manuscript sources. Part I offers the full score of ZWV 4 in a critical edition for the first time. Part II opens with background information on the work’s place in Zelenka’s output of mass settings, its performance history and the ensembles active at the court of Dresden during the 1720s. This is followed by a detailed study of the surviving manuscripts pertaining to this work. A close codicological and palaeographic analysis of the autograph manuscript reveals a complex compositional history: approximately six years after the first version of the work was composed, Zelenka expanded it into a missa tota and also made numerous revisions to the already existing sections. The study uncovers striking new evidence in the autograph of extensive recopying, rewriting and reorchestration, highlighting the differences between multiple versions of the work and providing new insight into Zelenka’s working methods. An examination of the non-autograph manuscript copies then follows, showing how the work was transmitted from Dresden to Leipzig and Berlin and presenting intriguing evidence of possible performances in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Drawing on the discoveries presented in Part II, Part III of the thesis outlines the general editorial policy and methods employed in the edition. It also provides a critical commentary detailing all significant variant readings and specific editorial emendations. A visual summary of the dating features found in Zelenka’s autograph manuscript of this work is given in the appendix.
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ItemThe Vespers psalms of Jan Dismas Zelenka (1679-1745) in the liturgy and life of the Dresden Catholic court church( 1994)This thesis examines the Vespers psalm settings of the Bohemian born composer Jan Dismas Zelenka (1679-1745), compositions which represent a significant component of the liturgical music he wrote for the Catholic court church of Dresden. The works of this contemporary and acquaintance of Johann Sebastian Bach have suffered from a series of historical neglects and injuries culminating in the bombing of Dresden in 1945, an action which caused damage to and loss of contemporary sources of Zelenka's music. Documentation surrounding the circumstances of its composition and performance has been missing since that time. Part I of the thesis investigates an unbroken set of annual letters (Annuae Literae) written between 1710 and 1740 by Dresden Superiors of the Society of Jesus who had been brought from the Province of Bohemia to staff the recently-founded Catholic court church of Dresden (1708). Happily, these letters survive in the Roman Jesuit archive (Archivum Romanum Societatis Iesu). The conversion to Catholicism of the Saxon Elector August II re-established that religion in Lutheran Saxony and as a consequence, Catholic churches, most of them open for public worship, were founded within Saxon Electoral residences. The most prestigious of these was the chapel located in the renovated theatre of the Dresden palace. The liturgical and historical information to emerge from the study of these Annuae Literae not only provides an expansive view of the developing conditions under which Zelenka (and Heinichen) composed liturgical works but, in several instances, these sources furnish precise information on the occasions for which specific works were written. In Part II of the thesis, Zelenka's settings of Vespers psalms are examined. From the Annuae Literae the circumstances surrounding the office of Vespers of the Dresden Catholic court church have been extrapolated and a Sanctoral has been reconstructed for this era of the church in which Vespers psalm sequences appropriate to the feasts of the liturgical year are suggested. A chronology, based upon palaeographic features of the autograph scores and upon the proposed Sanctoral, has been offered for Zelenka's undated psalm settings. Interpretations of the mottos which always appear at the conclusion of the settings indicate the identity of the person(s) who commissioned these compositions. These settings, most of which were written during the latter half of the 1720s, reveal aspects of Zelenka's musical originality. Yet, they were composed within established traditions of text treatment and structure of psalm composition, traditions to be seen in psalm settings of his Italian, Bohemian and Austrian contemporaries and predecessors. A great variety of manners of setting the doxology text is to be distinguished in the extant compositions. Scrutiny of the scoring indications in Zelenka's extant autographs, as well as re-workings to be seen on scores of his psalm collection, provide evidence of changing performers and altering performance practices in the Dresden Catholic court church during the third and fourth decades of the eighteenth century, reflecting the development of the distinguished musical style for which Dresden was to become famous. The thesis concludes with an analysis of the features of Zelenka's highly personal musical style. Primary sources include extracts from the foundation documents of the Dresden Catholic court church and transliterations (with translation) of musically and liturgically relevant sections of the Allnuae Literae from the Dresden Jesuits. Over 100 musical examples, many taken from unpublished works of Zelenka, together with tables, plates, diagrams and bibliography are presented. Two appendices accompany the thesis.