This dissertation examines modernist music and literature in Central Europe during the 20th century. My critical aims for this work are twofold. Firstly, I consider ideas about cultural identity, political solidarity, and nationalism as refracted through Central European musical…
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This project examines the musical activities of Georgian gentlemen with the goal of illustrating the ways that recreational music-making tested the boundaries of gender, class, and nationality. While the English nobility could respectably engage in music-making, socialize with p…
When Danish composer Per Nørgård discovered the visually arresting sketches of the schizophrenic Swiss artist Adolf Wölfli in 1979, he felt as though his vision of an “ideal world” had been challenged and thus became completely engrossed in the life and works of Wölfli. Nørgård’…
Musician, teacher, and preacher, Reverend Gary Davis was a critical figure of the American Folk Music Revival. Due to the commercial success of many of his students as well as a large body of recorded music both sacred and secular, Davis’s repertoire, virtuosity, and influence c…
Alma Mahler (1879–1964) grew up surrounded by artists in late nineteenth-century Vienna. Despite her musical training, demonstrated passion for music, and publication of several Lieder, Mahler’s identity as a composer has remained overshadowed by narratives surrounding her perso…
In the nineteenth century, Jews across Europe entered a period of emancipation, at best a vaguely defined term that indicated the granting of equal civil and political rights, though sometimes conditionally and often incrementally. Concurrent to this, art music was dominated by …
The 1918 ballet, Parade, and its music by Erik Satie is a fascinating, and historically significant example of the avant-garde, yet it has not received full attention in the field of musicology. This thesis will provide a study of Parade and the avant-garde, and specifically dis…
Seventeenth-century Venetian operatic divas pioneered a new social identity for women both onstage, as virtuosic opera singers, and as independent professionals in Venice. They accomplished this partly in prototypical commercial opera houses. From such spaces, the sounds of thei…
This project explores British post-punk music of the late 1970s. It examines the subtle and explicit ways post-punk musicians adopted ideas from concurrent black American genres, and how those ideas disrupted rock’s traditional musical and social hierarchies. This project examin…
Roger Griffin notes that “there can be no term in the political lexicon which has generated more conflicting theories about its basic definition than ‘fascism’.” The difficulty articulating a singular definition of fascism is indicative of its complexities and ideological change…
This thesis examines the ethical implications of writing about music, focussing on the analysis of tonal art music. While some recent publications have studied various ethical situations involving music, none has taken the theoretical engagement with Western Art Music as its sta…
The purpose of this oral history research is to explore the experiences, thoughts, and values of higher education experts who have written and presented on popular music techniques over time (from 1980-forward) and who incorporate popular music strategies into their own teaching…
In the late 16th century, the chacona was the most energetic and wild type of baile, a popular Spanish dance. It was a lively, suggestive, and festive peasant dance, which, by the early 17th century, had developed into a distinct variation form involving a repeated bass line or …
In the art song genre, one of the main areas of the discussion focuses on whether the piano part can capture and convey the composer’s idea, mood, and scenery even without knowledge of the lyrics which are sung by the voice. As a collaborative pianist, I have always been curious…
Music of Three Continents is a survey of choral music from Europe, North America and Africa. The works represent six countries and six languages: Austria (German), Italy (Latin), Nigeria (Igbo), South Africa (Xhosa and Zulu), the United States (English), and Wales (English). The…
A framework of corporeal analysis posits that the physicality of the performer can be construed as a primary analytical parameter in a work. This dissertation seeks to set up such a method of analysis largely through anecdata and autoethnography with the aim of eliciting a deepe…