Melbourne Conservatorium of Music - Theses
Permanent URI for this collection
Search Results
1 - 8 of 8
-
ItemA unity of vision: the ideas of Dalcroze, Kodaly and Orff and their historical development( 1993)Twentieth-century music education has been considerably enhanced by the respective-pedagogies devised by Emile Jaques-Dalcroze, Zoltan Kodály, and Carl Orff. Originality, even genius, aside, these educationalists drew upon past ideals in order to create music-learning strategies appropriate to individual needs and circumstances. This eclecticism embraced ideas as disparate as the Greek Choral Trinity, Jean-Jacques Rousseau's numeric notation, Galin-Paris-Chevé's music education method, Sarah Glover's and John Curwen's sol-fa, Mathis Lussy's theories concerning rhythm, Adolphe Appia's prophetic theories on stage-craft, Edouard Claparède's psychological research, Eugene Ysaÿe's thoughts on violin practice, and the "new wave" dance inaugurated by such artists as Isadora Duncan and Mary Wigman. Collectively, Dalcroze's Eurhythmics, Kodály's Choral Method, and Orff’s Schulwerk provide wide ranging principles and strategies for teaching music appropriate to young children and the training of professional singers and instrumentalists. The question remains, should the Dalcroze, Kodály and Orff systems be taught as mutually exclusive methodologies, a course of action strenuously advocated by some educationalists, or should each music teacher adopt a holistic approach, turning to the example set by these celebrated Swiss, Hungarian and German pedagogues, in order to create a music program tailored to the student's needs as judged by the professional teacher? The search for an answer gives rise to deep-seated methodological conflicts, at least one of which - the notorious 'fixed' versus 'movable' doh - has generated dissension amongst music educators for more than a century. At the same time, this investigation provides an opportunity to rectify the neglect which Anglo-Saxon educators have afforded Dalcroze's solfège studies and, no less, their neglect of his influence upon both Kodály and Orff.
-
ItemA phenomenological study of pivotal moments in Guided Imagery and Music (GIM) Therapy( 1999-10)A phenomenological study was undertaken to investigate pivotal moments in Guided Imagery and music (GIM) Therapy, from three perspectives: the client’s experience, the therapist’s experience and the music which underpinned the moment. The questions posed were: how do clients experience moments in GIM therapy which are pivotal – are there features of these experiences which are similar to all participants? How do the GIM therapists perceive these moments identified by their clients as pivotal – are there features which are similar to the GIM therapists? What are the features of the music which underpin the pivotal moments – are there similarities in structure and/or elements? (For complete abstract open document)
-
ItemAspects of the creative process in Manuel de Falla's El retablo Maese Pedro and Concerto( 1997)Manuel de Falla's output during the 1920s was a product of his conscious identification with elements of the Parisian avant-garde in order to create universal manifestations of Spanish musical nationalism. These ideals were pursued in El retablo de Maese Pedro (1918-23) and the Concerto (1923-26), works which were enthusiastically received in certain modernist circles despite their more limited appeal with the broader public. The extended period of gestation for both works allowed Falla to explore an ever increasing range of contemporary, historical and folk musical models, literary and historical sources, and religious, philosophical and aesthetic considerations, in an attempt to realise his aims. To a greater extent than in his earlier works, El retablo and the Concerto reflect Falla's preoccupation with innovation and resulted from a more pronounced interdependence of poetic, evocative, structural and technical parameters. His attempts to theorise his procedures at this time, however, unsystematic, were also symptomatic of an increasingly conscious, analytical, synthetic and at times articulated approach to composition. Through a detailed study of the material held at the Archivo Manuel de Falla, this dissertation examines the ideas that Falla explored and brought to the composition of El retablo and the Concerto, and attempts to contextualise them within his aesthetic, cultural and personal framework. The conception and evolution of these works is outlined and this discussion is informed by an examination of the musical and extra-musical sources studied by Falla, biographical documentation of the composer and his works, and reference to compositional sketch material. While El retablo and the Concerto formed the principal focus of his creative activity between 1919 and 1926, his overall literary and compositional activity throughout this period is taken into consideration as it relates to the two works in question. The evolution of his musical language during this period is also examined in relation to contemporary developments within his artistic milieu, and through an overview of stylistic precursors to this new style in Falla's own output to 1919.
-
ItemHans Ott, Hieronymus Formschneider, and the Novum et insigne opus musicum (Nuremberg, 1537-1538)( 1998)The work of the Nuremberg bookseller and publisher, Hans Ott, and the printer, block-cutter, and type-cutter, Hieronymus Formschneider, is examined in part I. Ott's publications form two series: that devoted to secular music contains three lied anthologies (the Schone auszerlesne Lieder is identified as his 'lost' second lied anthology), and that devoted to sacred music includes anthologies of motets and mass ordinaries, and was planned to continue with mass propers. All but his last anthology were printed by Formschneider; the printer of the 115 guter newer Liedlein (1544) is identified as Berg & Neuber, with whom, at the time of his death, he was planning further volumes including the Choralis Constantinus. Ott's six realised anthologies are among the most important and influential German sources from the first half of the sixteenth century. Formschneider was one of the great artisans of his time, noted especially for preparing woodcuts from artists' sketches and for the Fraktur and music typefaces that he cut; his work as a printer was secondary. It is argued that his role in the production of books and music was purely as a printer, those who commissioned the printing being responsible for the volumes' intellectual content and sale to the public. The music prints which he was believed to have edited are assigned to others. Arguments for a direct link with Senfl are dismissed: the 1526 Quinque salutationes is a 'ghost', and correspondence shows that others were responsible for the publication of the Varia carminum genera. Their most ambitious collaboration, the Novum et insigne opus musicum, a two-volume anthology of one hundred motets published in 1537-1538, is examined in part II. It is of key historical importance as the first anthology of Latin-texted sacred music which shows the influence of the Reformation, and as the most influential print in the establishment of the central motet repertoire in Reformation Germany. Ott's primary concern as compiler was with the verbal texts, which he revised as he felt appropriate. His revisions fall into two groups: the emendation of ceremonial motets to make them in praise of members of the dedicatee's family, and the Protestantisation of texts. He appears not to have been responsible for the contrafacta which involved completely new texts, and apparently had little concern for purely musical matters. The anthology is of great interest as a physical object. It has survived in more exemplars that any other set of partbooks published before 1550; all but two of the 177 known extant partbooks have been examined first-hand. The discussion of in-house practices focuses on the internal order of printing, the proofreading, and in-house correction; evidence is put forward for a print-run of 500 copies. The provenance and use of each exemplar is considered, drawing on evidence including bindings, manuscript additions, and the many annotations made by sixteenth-century users. This allows conclusions to be drawn about issues ranging from music education in the Lutheran Latin schools or the understanding of perfect mensuration in mid-sixteenth-century Germany, to attitudes about Marian texts and the dissemination of music in Protestant Europe. The wealth of material allows a picture of the compilation, printing, and reception of a sixteenth-century music print to be drawn in unparalleled detail.
-
ItemThe guitar in nineteenth-century Buenos Aires: towards a cultural history of an Argentine musical emblem( 1998)This study examines the role of the guitar in Argentine culture through an in-depth analysis of historical, musical, pictorial and literary documentation from nineteenth-century Buenos Aires. Esteemed as an instrument of art music and simultaneously stigmatised by its relationship with the gaucho during the first half of the nineteenth century, the guitar was promoted, towards the 1880s, to the status of "national instrument." However, at the same time that it was celebrated as the musical emblem of the nation, the prestige of the classic guitar diminished, and it was relegated to a peripheral position within mainstream art music. This apparent paradox, it is argued, is deeply entrenched in the process of identity construction and nation-building that took place in Argentina during that period and is the result of discursive practices that present and represent the instrument (as well as Argentine culture) in an endless play of binary oppositions. The monolithic image of a unified "Argentine guitar" is questioned, and it is proposed that the physical object that we call guitar was regarded as at least two different cultural artefacts between which a continual slippage of meaning occurred. Accordingly, the binary opposition "classic guitar/popular guitar," is considered analogous to the forceful antinomy "civilisation/barbarism," a well-known dichotomy that has had a profound influence on Argentine and Latin American thought since it was coined in 1845 by Domingo F. Sarmiento in his influential Civilizacion y Barbarie. This dissertation is organised in two sections. The first examines the situation of the guitar from the revolution of May 25, 1810 until the end of Juan Manuel de Rosas's government in 1852. Chapter 1 provides a brief overview of the social map and the political history of this period, addresses the ideological agenda of the elite groups that came to power after the May revolution and presents the dichotomy civilisation/barbarism. Chapter 2 focuses on the gaucho guitar. Literary and pictorial representations are scrutinised in three levels, focusing on their role in the elite's construction of the Self and the Other, their importance in the genesis of a dominant discourse on the gaucho, and assessing the actual information about the gaucho's musical practices that they convey. Chapter 3 explores the classic guitar tradition in Buenos Aires during the first half of the nineteenth century in the form of a documentary history, demonstrating the presence of the guitar in the music-making of the upper-classes and its prestige and esteem within the porteno musical world. Critical biographies of the major guitarists and guitarist-composers of the period are provided, and the extant music composed in the area is described and analysed. The second section of the study is concerned with the guitar from the fall of Rosas up to the centennial of the May revolution in 1910. Chapter 4 sets out the historical and theoretical background for this period, focusing on the nation-building process and the debate on "Argentineness" generated by the unwanted effects of mass immigration and the rapid modernisation of the country. This situation gave rise to the so-called "resurrection" of the gaucho and the appropriation of his cultural universe as the essence of Argentine identity. The role played by representations of the guitar in this process is examined in Chapter 5, drawing attention to their most salient characteristics: distancing and nostalgia. The images of the gaucho guitar in literature, visual arts, advertisements and piano music are analysed and it is argued that the manner in which the guitar was incorporated into these discourses discloses the ideological agenda of the nation-building project. Chapter 6 concentrates on the classic guitar tradition during this period and, in that respect, it can be regarded as a mirror of Chapter 3. Although the instrument was still cultivated by the middle and upper-classes, it experienced a substantial loss of prestige, and it was no longer deemed at the same level as other art music instruments. As in Chapter 3, the spaces for performance are explored, critical biographies of the main guitarists of the period are offered, and the extant repertory is described and analysed. A catalogue of the guitar music composed in Buenos Aires during the nineteenth century is presented in the Appendix, providing a thematic index, publishing data, and location of copies where available.
-
ItemAnalytical and aesthetic concepts in the work of Leonard B. Meyer( 1987)This thesis argues that Meyer’s analytical and aesthetic thought are interdependent. Essential terms used in developing the theory of Emotion and Meaning in Music belong to the realm of private language. It is through the correlation of these terms with specific musical structures that the theory becomes accessible to verification. In his later analyses, put forward in The Rhythmic Structure of Music and Explaining Music, Meyer eliminates specific references to perceptual events. Instead he locates qualities produced by perception (for example ‘motion’ or ‘incompleteness’) in their intentional object, a musical structure. Aesthetic presuppositions remain in effect though descriptive language takes on the appearance of objectivity. Significant evidence of this is found in Meyer’s rejection of organicism and reappraisal of melody. An exposition of Meyer’s theories of rhythmic grouping and linear structure is included in the thesis for the purpose of clarifying his analytical methodology and use of graphic symbols. His concept of linear structure is distinguished from that of Heinrich Schenker. A comparison of their analyses of two works clearly demonstrates the consequences of Meyer’s aesthetic ideas, in that the ‘intentional object’ of his analyses is quite distinct from Schenker’s organically-unified structure. A final chapter discusses the ramifications of Meyer’s work for further discussions of the interrelationship between aesthetic ideas and analytical practices.
-
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.
-
ItemA critical study of the life and works of E. J. Moeran( 1982)Ernest John Moeran (1894-1950) was the last prominent British folk song collector/composer in the short-lived British ‘Romantic-Nationalist’ tradition. Like his older contemporaries Vaughan Williams and Bax, Moeran was highly susceptible to the influence of his environment. In Moeran’s case, the topography of East Norfolk and County Kerry, as well as the folk songs of both regions, were important influences on his music. Moeran emerges as a warm, unsophisticated personality with the ability to make friends easily. However, he was also prone to periods of deep depression, poor health and impulsive heavy drinking. His lifestyle could be described as wayward and unsettled. Musically, Moeran was a comparatively late developer. His musicfirst came to the attention of the music public during the years 1923-1925. This early reputation was built largely on his songs, piano pieces, chamber works and short orchestral rhapsodies. Later, during the 1930's, he focused his attention on the composition of large scale orchestral works, beginning with the Symphony in G minor. By the time Moeran was 50, he was considered to be amongst the most significant British composers of his period. Rather than being an original innovative composer, it would seem in retrospect that Moeran assimilated many of the idioms of his time into his own personal style. For example, Moeran's stylistic characteristics include modal melodies and harmonies, added-note chords, semitonal voice-leading, complex chromaticism, chords built on superimposed fourths, frequent use of ostinatos, cross relations, parallel harmonic progressions and bitonal chords and passages. His most substantial works, especiallythe Symphony in G minor, the Concerto for Violin and Orchestra, the Sinfonietta and some of his chamber music and songs, are notable for their attractive, expressive themes and rich harmonic language. Compared with his better known contemporaries, Moeran emerges as a composer of secondary but, nevertheless, considerable importance. This thesis attempts to :(a) record Moeran's biography in as much detail as possible;(b) examine all of the composer's extant music, including some unpublished pieces.The appendices include a critical edition of over 300 Moeran letters, a Catalogue raisonne, and a section on manuscript sources.