Melbourne Conservatorium of Music - Theses
Permanent URI for this collection
Search Results
1 - 10 of 12
-
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)
-
ItemA critical edition and exploration of Percy Grainger's The warriors - music to an imaginary ballet( 1996-10)Commissioned by Sir Thomas Beecham for the Ballets Russes, during their London season, but ultimately completed and premiered in the United States, The Warriors - Music to an Imaginary Ballet is Grainger’s most ambitious and experimental orchestral composition. Written in a traditional full score format, by the time it was published ten years later, The Warriors had been altered to conform to Grainger’s unique compressed score layout. The concessions and omissions needed for such a drastic alteration were not true to the composer’s ideas. Along with a comprehensive historical introduction to the work, the notion of the compressed score is placed into the context of Grainger’s own scoring methods, as well as the greater context of avant-garde score layout in the twentieth century. A detailed chronology of The Warriors autograph and printed sources provides a working model of how a ms. study of Grainger’s music may be undertaken. 2 vols. xi +124 pp., 5 illustrations, 45 examples, bibliography, discography, appendices. Full orchestral score and critical commentary, 125pp. (A3), with additional programme note, composer’s analysis, notes to conductors, list of instrumentation and CD recording of edition’s premiere performance.
-
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.
-
ItemThe title Toward the shining light as an influencing factor on the basic form and structural components in Broadstock's first symphony( 1994)A study of Broadstock's first symphony, Toward the Shining Light directed from an analytical perspective. The composer is greatly inspired by the use of evocative titles, which provide him with images and symbols that can be translated into musical terms. Believing that his music must reflect his own personal social concerns, Broadstock entrusts expression of the most pressing of these to the symphonic genre; a genre he considers profound, and wanting to make some sort of statement. Toward the Shining Light relates both autobiographically and biographically to the birth of his son Matthew in 1983, and the gradual realisation of the severity of the child's handicap. The work is deeply personal and powerfully communicative, reflecting Broadstock's concern for the injustice of human inequality, and his struggle to accept, if not understand his son's condition. Evidence is drawn from the score in support of the contention that Broadstock used the title, together with its extra-musical significance, to influence his choice of basic form; and that this in turn affected the nature of the thematic material employed and associated structural components (namely treatment of large-scale harmonic structure, texture - orchestration and density -, dynamics, tempi, general rhythmic activity, and tessitura).
-
ItemOrchestral, chamber, electronic and visual compositions( 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.
-
ItemThe Castilian composer Antonio José Martínez Palacios (1902-1936): a biographical study with a catalogue of works( 1995)A study of the Spanish composer Antonio Jose Martinez Palacios (1902-1936), one of the most promising composers, conductors and folklorists of his generation, who was assassinated in Burgos at the outset of the Spanish Civil War. Extensive use of the city's two most important newspapers of the period, the Diario de Burgos and El Castellano, has been made and has provided many new biographical and bibliographical details. These, together with the incorporation of material from unpublished and autobiographical manuscripts, have revealed the extent and significance of Antonio Jose's critical and musicological activity for the first time. Each of the four main periods of Antonio Jose's life is presented in a new light: from his childhood in Burgos and studies in Madrid, to his four-year term as a music teacher in Malaga and his return to Burgos in 1929 to conduct the Orfe6n Burgales. These four periods are discussed in the four sections of the main body of the thesis. Possible reasons for his death, which is now known to have taken place on 8 October, three days earlier than has previously been thought, are explored in the conclusion. A compilation of his writings and interviews, as well as an extensive catalogue of works, complements these findings. 2 volumes, vii + 134, 336pp, bibliography, discography, catalogue of works, collection of texts.
-
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.