Browsing by Subject "Virtual agency"
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Item A new symphonism : linearity, modulation, and virtual agency in Prokofiev's War Symphonies(2018-05-04) Mott, Joel Davis; Hatten, Robert S.; Almén, Byron; Bazayev, Inessa; Drott, Eric; Wheeldon, MarianneOne of the most exciting aspects of Prokofiev’s music emerges in his distantly-related yet smoothly articulated modulations. One reason these quick key changes still sound coherent pertains to stepwise melodic gestures that operate in the foreground or middleground. In addition to spanning two harmonic realms, these lines may also bridge different degrees of tonal stability and instability. In the first two chapters, I trace the function of these lines in Prokofiev’s Fifth and Sixth Symphonies, often grouped together as the War Symphonies, since they were composed either during or in reaction to World War II. In the subsequent chapters, I draw on Robert Hatten’s framework regarding virtual agency and Steve Larson’s research on musical forces to explain the experiential aspects of these lines. In chapter 3, I discuss how musical forces use metaphors for the actual, physical forces we encounter as humans in order to explain how we may interpret a melody moving in a virtual, musical environment. We may also attribute human-like characteristics to this musical motion, such as a sense of striving associated with an ascending melodic line, or relenting for a descending one. In chapter 4, simultaneous lines, appearing as contrapuntal wedges, often push outward towards a generalized musical goal, such as a cadence, and allow for the inference of fictionalized overcoming or a failure to achieve. Chapter 5 points inward towards a given work’s dialogue between thematic variations and the emerging virtual subjectivity we may infer from the fictionalized narratives of linear structures. In the final chapter, I contextualize linear virtual agency within Boris Asafiev’s concept of symphonism, a processual approach to form that foregrounds this dialogue based on thematic variation. I argue that his more energeticist, discursive, and dramatic formal emphases highlight ways in which Prokofiev adapted his music to the political demands of the Stalin-era Soviet Union. I conclude with a new approach to formal analysis in the third movement from the Fifth Symphony, showing how Prokofiev invoked common-practice sonata form while formulating his own approach to the emerging genre of the Soviet Symphony.Item Eva and the Angel of Death : a Holocaust remembrance opera : the compositional staging of ritual as memory(2020-06-30) Yee, Thomas B.; Grantham, Donald, 1947-; Hatten, Robert S.; Sharlat, Yevgeniy, 1977-; Wiley, Darlene C.; Bos, Pascale R.As the world grows removed in time from the Holocaust, it becomes increasingly important to preserve and share the stories of those who survived its horrors. The contemporary Holocaust remembrance opera Eva and the Angel of Death presents the powerful story of Holocaust survivor Eva Mozes Kor, who, along with her twin sister Miriam, was subjected to sadistic medical experiments by Dr. Josef Mengele in Auschwitz. At the fifty-year anniversary of her liberation from the camp, Kor returned to Auschwitz and, to the surprise of many, announced to the world that she personally forgave the Nazis for what had been done to her. In the context of Holocaust remembrance, an opera like Eva and the Angel of Death contributes a unique ensemble of benefits, constituting an immersive memorial ritual that binds audiences together in a communal and aesthetic act of Holocaust remembrance. Eva Mozes Kor’s story is then summarized and its public reception explored, including the controversy surrounding her decision to forgive. Then, the Eva opera is analyzed in music-theoretic detail at a variety of levels—including a quasi-Schenkerian tonal plan and in-depth analyses of two of the opera’s pivotal arias. Of special note is an array of six semiotic strategies employed throughout the opera to establish meaningful relationships in musical material across wide temporal spans and to encode in music nuanced psychological experiences of trauma and memory. The selected strategies covered include leitmotif, associative textural fields, textural stratification and collage, intertextuality, musical topics, and virtual agency, which connect this modern opera to time-honored techniques of musical semiotics. Logistical plans for the opera’s premiere performances, surrounding programming, and organizational partnerships are presented— though the original performance schedule of an April 18-19 premiere was disrupted by the global outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Finally, the investigation concludes with a philosophical reflection on the theme of forgiveness as espoused by Eva Mozes Kor, suggesting that forgiveness may constitute a productive orientation for future Holocaust remembrance efforts as the historical events transition into cultural memory. As Eva did decades after her trauma, the next generation must discern a path forward to carry their memorial task into the future.Item Medtner’s Sonata-ballade : interpreting its dramatic trajectory through virtual subjectivities(2016-12) Emerson, Bradley James; Hatten, Robert S.; Nel, Anton; Antokoletz, Elliott; Renner, David A; Gilmson, Sophia; O'Hare, Thomas JAs one of his more programmatic works, Nikolai Medtner’s Sonata-Ballade, Op. 27 exemplifies the composer’s structural mastery of form in framing an expressive narrative. In accounts given by Medtner’s students, the sonata was partly conceived in connection to a religious poem by Fet detailing Christ’s temptation in the desert. His pupils additionally recall an underpinning theme of inner conflict between light and darkness in the human soul. Medtner’s program is indeed a sort of two-tiered narrative, incorporating Fet’s biblical drama within a larger narrative of personal struggle and redemption. In the music, this manifests itself in the form of a variable subjectivity that alternates between a virtual, human protagonist and a scriptural drama. My analysis of the Sonata-Ballade uncovers implicit meanings in Medtner’s use of musical gestures, intertexts, topics, and his employment of genre. In addition, I survey the composer’s symbolic conception of his ‘muse’ to better contextualize the use of an associated leitmotif in the sonata. In these discussions, I support the ongoing reassessment of Medtner as a composer—from once being dismissed as a mere structuralist, to attaining greater recognition for the symbolic and narrative elements incorporated within his formal designs.Item Motivations for interpretation in recorded performances of Villa-Lobos’s Five preludes for solo guitar(2019-05) Raabe, Joan Esther; Hatten, Robert S.; Wheeldon, MarianneThis study will focus on various motivations for wide-ranging interpretations by prominent classical guitarists of Villa-Lobos’s Five Preludes for solo guitar. The recorded performances I examine are by well-known classical guitarists, chosen because they best represent a wide range of possible performance interpretations, even when these may go beyond literal adherence to the notated score. I propose expressive motivations for their interpretations, utilizing theories of musical energy (Larson), agential energies (Hatten), virtual agency (Hatten) and musical narrative (Almén)