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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ItemFritz Bennicke Hart: an introduction to his life and music( 1993)This thesis presents a broad study of the life, times and creative output of the English born Australian composer Fritz Bennicke Hart (1874-1949) concentrating on the formative period of Australian cultural history in which he lived and contributed. It examines and evaluates Hart's particular personal achievements, relationships with his contemporaries, and his work for various Melbourne and Hawaiian musical institutions. It argues that the creative output of Hart, particularly that associated with the Celtic revival, reveals much about contemporary perceptions of Australian identity and culture. The thesis includes an introductory contextual examination of Hart's music. A comprehensive cross-referenced catalogue of all known manuscript sources of Hart's music, including a detailed description of the manuscript sources of his operas, is included as an Appendix.
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ItemEdward Goll: Melbourne pianist and teacher: the war years 1914-1918( 2007)This thesis examines the foundational period and early contribution in the Australian career of the prominent concert pianist Edward Goll focussing on the years 1914--1918. The multifarious opposition that Goll faced during the war, mainly arising from contention regarding his nationality, forms the setting of this study which is then juxtaposed against a discussion of Goll’s contribution to music in Australia during that period. The educational value of Goll’s large and catholic repertoire, the benefits of listening to an artist of Goll’s high calibre and the impact and popularity of his concerts were recurrent themes in the press, and were qualities for which he was to be later acknowledged. These aspects of his contribution as a performer are followed by a discussion of Goll’s pedagogical contribution as one of the first pianists to introduce the concept of "weight-touch" to Australia.
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ItemThe 1870s Australian tours of Madame Arabella Goddard( 2001)The aim of this research paper is to explore the Australian components of the 1870s three-year world tour of the English pianist Arabella Goddard. This tour included two visits to Australia of more than four months each; the first began in June 1873, the second in June 1874. My desire was to document Goddard's itinerary, repertoire and programming within Australia and to reflect upon the reasons for her immense appeal throughout the country, as indicated through the press. In addition, her visits stimulated the discussion of wider cultural issues and therefore a concurrent study of the role of music in 1870s Australian society was appropriate. This paper aims to contribute knowledge to two areas. Firstly, it appears that there is no substantial text devoted solely to Arabella Goddard's life and career, from either a commercial or scholarly standpoint. Secondly, the study of the Australian press coverage enables a solid portrait to be drawn of the nature of touring at the time. Source material for this research was largely biased towards primary sources as the details of Goddard's Australian tours have not been previously documented. Some studies of the history of western art music in Australia do mention her as a visiting artist: Music in Australia: More than 150 Years of Development gives the basic framework of her visits. Orchard writes that Goddard arrived shortly after the violinist Jenny Claus (whose tour, Orchard writes, began in 1873), that she enjoyed a triumphant season performing in Melbourne, Adelaide, Sydney and Brisbane, had departed for India and then returned to Australian before visiting New Zealand. (From Introduction)
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ItemThe influence of Dr. A. E. Floyd as music critic and broadcaster on musical culture in Australia 1915-1974( 2001)Alfred Ernest Floyd arrived in Australia from the United Kingdom in February 1915 to take up an appointment as Organist and Master of the Choristers at St. Paul's Cathedral in Melbourne. Floyd devoted his professional life to the performance and promulgation of music. From the time of his arrival in Australia he exerted an enormous influence as educator, teacher, lecturer, examiner, adjudicator, organist, choir-trainer, writer, composer, music critic and broadcaster. Floyd brought the music at St Paul's to a pinnacle of musical performance and professionalism. At St. Paul's he trained many who later went on either to establish musical careers or to become active and useful amateur musicians. The focus of his promotion of music for all was education in the widest sense. This he undertook through the various media (press, radio and television) and through public lectures and music appreciation classes. As music critic for The Argus and as a broadcaster Floyd established a significant following as a commentator and entertainer and he was influential in shaping public taste in music and attitudes towards music. His work in schools, particularly at Melbourne Church of England Girls' Grammar School and at the Methodist Ladies' College engendered a joy of making and listening to music and many past pupils of these institutions have strong and fond memories of his classes and visits. The legacy of Floyd's personal papers now housed in the Grainger Museum at the University of Melbourne, radio archives, newspapers, journals, and the reminiscences of those who worked with him professionally, provided the material for an examination of his influence on Australian music culture from his arrival in Australia in 1915 until shortly before his death in 1974.
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ItemThe operas of G. W. L. Marshall-Hall( 1978)G. W. L. Marshall-Hall, 1862-1915, English-born musician who settled in Australia in 1891, is chiefly remembered as a pioneer teacher and conductor, founder of the Melbourne University Conservatorium and the Melba Memorial Conservatorium, Melbourne, propagator of the first orchestral subscription concerts in Melbourne, and founding Professor of Music at the University of Melbourne. An outspoken Bohemian, his book of poems Hymns ancient and modern (1898) was judged lewd and sacrilegious and led to his severance from the University in 1900. Marshall-Hall was also a composer of over 50 works, including operas, symphonies, overtures, string quartets, and numerous songs. The six extant operas are a representative sample of his creative work, exhibiting strong influence of Wagner and later Puccini, but flawed by the limits of a largely untutored technique. Most interesting is the effect on the composer's creative work of prolonged isolation from and occasional return-visits to Europe.