Browsing by Subject "Musical analysis"

Now showing 1 - 14 of 14

20th century romantic serialism : the Opus 170 greeting cards of Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco
(2005-05) Asbury, David S., 1963-; Holzman, Adam, 1960-; Dell'Antonio, Andrews
20th century romantic serialism: the Opus 170 greeting cards of Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco
(2005) Asbury, David S.; Holzman, Adam; Dell'Antonio, Andrew
Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s Opus 170 Greeting Cards is a cycle of 51 pieces that span the last two decades of the composer’s life. Intended as musical gifts for his friends and colleagues, he devised a system for assigning each note in the alphabet two musical counterparts using ascending and descending chromatic scales and wrote works that derive their principal themes from the recipient’s name or names. The Greeting Cards are scored for a variety of solo instrument and duo settings, 20 of which were written for the guitar and are the primary focus of this treatise that will have format consisting of Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s biography, an overview of Opus 170 and an examination of specific works. The opus 170 Greeting Cards offer insight into the stylistic traits that characterize Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s music and historical perspective regarding many of the world’s leading musicians from the 1950’s and 1960’s. Research for the treatise has included investigation of published and non-published materials, interviews with those recipients who are still living and musical analysis of the select representative works. Castelnuovo-Tedesco was one the most influential and important musicians of the 20th century. His legacy as a composer and teacher is one that has been largely overlooked in modern scholarship where the common practice of atonal serial composition dominated all other musical styles, especially in academic circles. Castelnuovo-Tedesco always maintained tonal frameworks and a melodic lyricism in his music that in turn caused critics to dismiss him as being unworthy of serious consideration. This treatise, through the examination of one element of the composers work, seeks to help change a general perception that his style, through its conservatism, lacked currency and inventiveness. The Greeting Cards have to date not been studied collectively, leaving a formidable gap in our understanding of the compositional mechanisms employed by this influential and important composer.
A biographical and theoretical analysis of the trumpet in selected chamber works of Charles Ives
(2002-05) Vastano, Robert Guy; Welcher, Dan; Crisara, Raymond
Doctoral thesis recital (conducting) lecture
(2019-04-01) Grobey, Paul; N/A
The synthesis of a symphonic style : tracking compositional development in the symphonic works of Leevi Madetoja, 1908-1918 -- [Performance]. Kullervo : Symphonic poem / Leevi Madetoja (University of Texas Symphony Orchestra ; Paul Grobey, conductor)
Doctoral thesis recital (jazz saxophone (lecture))
(2019-04-25) Sayers, Dave (David G.); N/A
An analysis of perpetual motivic development in the blues solos of Joe Henderson -- [Performance]. Homestretch ; Granted ; If ; Computer G ; Isotope / Joe Henderson (performed by: Dave Sayers, tenor saxophone ; Sam Pankey, bass ; Don Gozzard, drums)
Doctoral thesis recital (piano (lecture))
(2018-04-20) Kim, Taejin; N/A
[Lecture]. A developing variation technique : analysis of Johannes Brahms' Variations on a theme of Robert Schumann, op. 9 -- [Performance]. Variations on a theme of Robert Schumann : op. 9 / Johannes Brahms.
Doctoral thesis recital, jazz piano (lecture)]
(2024-03-19) Mesquitic, David; Unable to determine
[Lecture]: Oscar Peterson : the unique locked hands style.
Dynamic curves and poetic lyricism in selected chansons of Jacques Brel
(2020-09-21) Weyn-Vanhentenryck, Justin Marc Joshua; Turci-Escobar, John; Hatten, Robert S.
In this thesis, I analyze eight of Belgian singer-songwriter Jacques Brel's chansons, chosen not for their popularity or Brel's preference, but for their particularities in dynamicism and poetic rhetoric. I open with Brel's first global success, Quand on n'a que l'amour, and then discuss the extensive influence of classical music on Brel, especially striking in Les Désespérés. Following my examination of text painting in Les Désespérés, I proceed with Les F..., La Dame patronnesse, Quand maman reviendra, Mon enfance, and Amsterdam, with the intent of formulating the groundwork for the dynamic highpoint. Each of these titles builds upon characteristics that punctuate the concept of a single dynamic highpoint through musically motivated narrative properties and dynamic curves. It is only upon arriving at Brel's Ces gens-là that I formulate the more complex, less intuitive but more intrinsic principle of the double dynamic highpoint. The concepts of narrative trajectory and musical agent presented throughout this report are based upon the work of Byron Almén and Robert Hatten. Combining Hatten's gestural theories and Almén's rhetorical patterning opens the door to explaining the narrative properties hidden within the musical discourse and the poetic text. I conclude my report by assessing that most of Brel's chansons follow the dynamic curve with the intent of capitalizing on the poetic meaning of the text.
Emerging Light : for wind ensemble
(2005-05) Maloy, Kristopher; Welcher, Dan
Emerging Light: for wind ensemble
(2005) Maloy, Kristopher; Welcher, Dan
Emerging Light is a wind ensemble piece of approximately fifteen minutes in performance time. It is scored for piccolo, three flutes (the third doubling piccolo), two oboes, English horn, three clarinets in B‐flat, bass clarinet, four saxophones (soprano, alto, tenor, and baritone), two bassoons, contrabassoon, four Horns, four trumpets in C, three trombones (the third is bass trombone), euphonium, tuba, piano, harp, timpani, and five percussionists. The work is an extrapolation of a single melodic subject and its variants and a two‐chord harmonic progression implied by and linked to this melody. These harmonic and melodic elements are fulfilled and revealed only gradually, with the structural and orchestrational elements of the work reinforcing the emergent quality of the material.
Horizon : for wind ensemble : creating narrative in post-serial tonality
(2002-12) Harchanko, Joseph, 1971-; Grantham, Donald, 1947-
Horizon: for wind ensemble : creating narrative in post-serial tonality
(2002) Harchanko, Joseph; Grantham, Donald, 1947-
Present trends in composition present unique challenges and opportunities for the development of symphonic style. Post-modern and post-serial composers have an unprecedented freedom to use musical elements from the near and distant past to synthesize a new style and a new approach to tonal construction. This freedom of choice provides an opportunity to create a uniquely expressive musical language that has the potential to add an important new chapter in the historic development of symphonic style. The primary focus of this treatise is an original work for wind ensemble entitled “Horizon.” The goal of “Horizon” was to create a symphonic, post-tonal work incorporating elements of minimalism in a heroic narrative in a consistent and expressive musical language. Specifically, “Horizon” synthesizes the concept of nineteenth-century motivic transformation and twentieth century post-tonal harmony. It employs a fresh approach to what I believe is capable of supporting large-scale structures. The accompanying theoretical paper is divided into two sections. The first section explores the development of the symphonic style in common practice tonality, its inherent narrative and monumental qualities, and the relation between high and low level structures. The second section presents an analytical method that is a hybridization of set theory and tonal root movement analysis. This analytical method is then applied to “Horizon,” demonstrating tonal function and narrative structure in a post-serial work. The expression of narrative qualities in symphonic style is purely musical. It is from this perspective that “Horizon” functions as a heroic narrative in which the musical elements, rather than programmatic characteristics, engage in a dialectic struggle. The structural framework of musical motifs is used to create a narrative that exists within its own consistent language; a language which both incorporates historical allusions and creates something unique to this moment in music history.
Human-based percussion and self-similarity detection in electroacoustic music
(2008-08) Mills, John Anderson, 1970-; Hixson, Elmer L.; Becker, Michael F.
Electroacoustic music is music that uses electronic technology for the compositional manipulation of sound, and is a unique genre of music for many reasons. Analyzing electroacoustic music requires special measures, some of which are integrated into the design of a preliminary percussion analysis tool set for electroacoustic music. This tool set is designed to incorporate the human processing of music and sound. Models of the human auditory periphery are used as a front end to the analysis algorithms. The audio properties of percussivity and self-similarity are chosen as the focus because these properties are computable and informative. A collection of human judgments about percussion was undertaken to acquire clearly specified, sound-event dimensions that humans use as a percussive cue. A total of 29 participants was asked to make judgments about the percussivity of 360 pairs of synthesized snare-drum sounds. The grouped results indicate that of the dimensions tested rise time is the strongest cue for percussivity. String resonance also has a strong effect, but because of the complex nature of string resonance, it is not a fundamental dimension of a sound event. Gross spectral filtering also has an effect on the judgment of percussivity but the effect is weaker than for rise time and string resonance. Gross spectral filtering also has less effect when the stronger cue of rise time is modified simultaneously. A percussivity-profile algorithm (PPA) is designed to identify those instants in pieces of music that humans also would identify as percussive. The PPA is implemented using a time-domain, channel-based approach and psychoacoustic models. The input parameters are tuned to maximize performance at matching participants’ choices in the percussion-judgment collection. After the PPA is tuned, the PPA then is used to analyze pieces of electroacoustic music. Real electroacoustic music introduces new challenges for the PPA, though those same challenges might affect human judgment as well. A similarity matrix is combined with the PPA in order to find self-similarity in the percussive sounds of electroacoustic music. This percussive similarity matrix is then used to identify structural characteristics in two pieces of electroacoustic music.
Octatonic, chromatic, modal, and symmetrical forms that supplant tonality in five piano preludes by Claude Debussy
(2002-05) Tobin, Anthony Aubrey; Antokoletz, Elliott; Allen, Gregory, 1949-
This treatise identifies and clarifies pitch relations that have supplanted the tonal system in selected piano preludes by Claude Debussy. Interval cycles based on the equalization of the twelve chromatic tones, octatonic, pentatonic, whole-tone, chromatic, and modal structures forge unique relationships that render each prelude a self-contained system of reflexive elements. Debussy’s musical style represents an intermediary stage in the transition from purely tonal melody and accompaniment to purely abstract melodic and harmonic constructions. An important issue in each prelude is whether vestiges of tonality exist, and if so, whether the traces contain functional connotations. In addition, “hybrid” melodic/harmonic structures, rather than invoking one single pitch set, render the identity of seemingly fundamental forms ambiguous and open for interpretation. This treatise also explores the role of proportional schemes derived from the Golden Section ratios of Ernó Lendvai and the Fibonacci number series. In many instances, the formalized schemes resulting from these symbolic number relations in Debussy’s Préludes replace traditional formal structures. This study of the complex relations found in the Préludes is warranted because their means of progression and texture affected 20thcentury composers and contributed to the dissolution of the tonal system.