Melbourne Conservatorium of Music - Theses
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ItemA question of style: Australian art song for low female voice, 1961–1979( 2016)This thesis is an investigation into the styles of Western art song for low female voice written in Australia between 1961 and 1979. Australian art song has received only scant discussion in the academic literature. This thesis begins the discussion at a time of experimentation and change in Australian music, when Australian composers first began to receive sustained institutional support for their work, and ends at a turning point in historical style: the establishment of postmodernism. Based on scores and recordings found in the Australian Music Centre database, I have gathered existing analytical data on each of the ninety-three songs from twenty-five composers chosen for the study. Style analysis is then applied to the songs and they are divided into style categories. These categories show a strong thread of Modernism, especially earlier in the period, and a development of tonal languages into Postmodernism by the end of the 1970s. Abundant musical examples are provided to support the category divisions. Many of these identified categories align with developments in art song internationally and with the styles of Australian instrumental music of the 1960s and 1970s. An examination of the relationship between the texts and the music further illuminates the composers’ stylistic choices. This thesis helps to lay the groundwork for further research into this largely unexplored area of Australian music history.