Melbourne Conservatorium of Music - Theses

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    An analysis of Margaret Sutherland's sonata for clarinet and piano (1947)
    Morgan, Ian McKeon ( 1984-12)
    The sonata for clarinet and piano by Margaret Sutherland has been selected as the subject for this thesis from a substantial list of sonatas by Australian composers. The choice was for two reasons: the sonata is the earliest surviving work for the combination and while not a major work, it is at least a substantial work by one of Australia’s most important composers. The work is written in a contemporary musical style, typical of its composer, so that it sounds fresh and musically challenging even in today’s musical environment.
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    Orchestral, chamber, electronic and visual compositions
    Burke, Brigid ( 1999)
    This folio of orchestral, chamber, electronic and visual compositions collectively document a research period based on experiences with performance, free and structured improvisations, technology and visual art practices. The technical and aesthetic diversity of the material arises from opportunities and resources afforded by the research program. Of the many ideas traversed in these works, the principle focus has been towards the use of extended techniques for wind instruments and experiences from live performances. In pursuing these objectives, this research charts multiple performance practices, and diverse compositional techniques through traditional acoustic music to studio electronic soundscapes. Although the ordering of the compositions in this folio suggest that the acoustic works were completed first, many of the electronic compositions were produced in between. Consequently, compositional processes tended to inform each other in complex and often subtle ways. The two orchestral works and the quintet represent instances where extended clarinet techniques have been reconceptulized and orchestrated for larger ensembles. These techniques have also found a place together with traditional styles and intuitive performance experience in the suite for clarinet and piano, the trio and the guitar solo work. The five remaining electroacoustic works represent a rethinking of acoustic sound and performance practices not found in the approaches taken with the traditional acoustic compositions. The studio enabled a focus on issues such as context and space that do not have pre-eminence in the composition phase of traditional instrumental music. This is evident in the fact that the sounds, existing as recordings, could be subject to processing and arrangements in ways that are physically impossible through traditional musical world. The sounds in the computer based context assert a need for a different compositional outlook to that presented in the previous compositions. Finally the inclusion of visual imagery is intended to convey another creative input into the process of each musical work.
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    The Vespers psalms of Jan Dismas Zelenka (1679-1745) in the liturgy and life of the Dresden Catholic court church
    STOCKIGT, JANICE BEVERLEY ( 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.