The compositional peculiarities of the Grave of Johann Sebastian Bach’s Toccata in C, BWV 564 make authoritative performance practice of the same quite difficult. Often, disparate solutions concerning the performance practice thereof, primarily those that concern registration and interpretation of the work, result. Upon discussing the resemblance of BWV 564 in its entirety with that of the genre of the Italian concerto, I assess the precise nature of Italian concerto influence upon the work, assigning primary compositional influence to Tomaso Albinoni, specifically via Johann Gottfried Walther’s transcription of Concerto IV of Albinoni’s Concerto a cinque, Op. 2 of 1700, effectively placing such influence prior to Bach’s c. 1713-1714 encounter with the concerted works of Antonio Vivaldi and thus assigning Bach’s composition of the work to his initial years as court organist and chamber musician at the Weimar ducal chapel. I also assess the resemblance of the sectional character of BWV 564 with that of the early Baroque multisectional Praeludium, exemplified in Dieterich Buxtehude’s Praeludium in A, BuxWV 151, ultimately to assert the rhetorical orientation of BWV 564 and to raise the registration implications thereof. Given the numerous renovations to the Compenius organ in the Weimar ducal chapel that occurred before, during, and after Bach’s tenure as court organist and chamber musician, I set forth a likely specification set for the Compenius organ of the Weimar ducal chapel during the initial years of Bach’s first appointment at Weimar. With the compositional timeframe and physical conditions reasonably established, and on account of both the accompanimental textures and musical idiomatic allusions present in the movement, I advance not only a one-manual performance practice of the Adagio of BWV 564 in its entirety but also a single general registration scheme resonant with continuo performance practices that were contemporaneous with the composition of the work. / text

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Thesis (PhD)--Stellenbosch University, 2012. / Sensitive areas within this text have been blacked out. Please refer to the attachment. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: In this dissertation, I examine contemporary South African art music performance practice and the social function it fulfils. Performance practice is understood in this study to mean an art practice or cultural item constituted by three types of 'role-players': performers of art music, composers of works in the art music genre and audiences that assimilate and respond to these works when performed. My own position as a performing artist in South Africa has suggested most of the research questions and problems dealt with in this dissertation, which was approached as a practice-based research study. Practice-based research, an emergent kind of research which aims at integrating practical and scholarly work, is becoming increasingly prevalent in academe internationally, although the present study is one of the first examples of such an approach in South Africa. Drawing on contemporary interpretations of the theories of phenomenology articulated by Edmund Husserl and Maurice Merleau-Ponty, my position as a performer of art music in South Africa and the personal experiences I have had as a practitioner within this art practice are interrogated. While I was involved in a variety of practical engagements during the course of this study, all of which have contributed on some level to the final research product, the research design comprised five 'performance projects' that were designed to interrogate specific issues in contemporary art music performance practice in South Africa. The knowledge gained through these performance projects are presented together with theoretical work in this dissertation. An attempt is made to explicate these subjective experiences gained through practice and interrogate them through the application of social theory, ultimately translating them into an objective research outcome which is presented discursively. In this sense, the research project is approached according to a two-pronged strategy: subjective experiences generated through practice are examined through the use of social theory, ultimately resulting in a discursively articulated research outcome. I suggest in this dissertation that art music practice in contemporary South Africa has been and has remained a cultural territory largely inhabited by white South Africans. I further argue that this practice has shown little transformation since the end of apartheid in South Africa, in spite of the political, social and cultural transformation that has characterized the country since the beginning of democracy in 1994. Drawing on the theories of Homi Bhabha and Regula Qureshi, I posit that contemporary art music performance practice is providing an ideological counter-environment to predominant socio-cultural realities in post-apartheid South Africa. Qureshi suggests that the art music practice of a society 'constitutes a meaningful, cultural world for those who inhabit it'(Qureshi 2000: 26). Such a 'world within a society' is here interpreted as providing a counter-environment within which white South African identity can be articulated, negotiated and propagated. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: In hierdie proefskrif ondersoek ek die uitvoeringspraktyk van kontemporêre kunsmusiek in Suid-Afrika en die sosiale funksie wat dit vervul. Uitvoeringspraktyk word in hierdie studie geïnterpreteer as ‘n kunspraktyk of kulturele item wat uit drie 'rol-spelers' bestaan: uitvoerders van kunsmusiek, komponiste van werke in die kunsmusiek genre en gehore wat kunsmusiek assimileer en daarop reageer wanneer hierdie werke uitgevoer word. My eie posisie as uitvoerende kunstenaar het gelei tot die navorsingsvrae en navorsingsprobleme wat hierdie studie informeer. As sulks neem hierdie studie die vorm aan van ‘n praktyk-gebasseerde navorsingsstudie. Praktyk-gebasseerde navorsing is ‘n ontwikkelende soort navorsing wat internasionaal toenemend beoefen word. Hierdie studie is een van die eerste Suid-Afrikaanse voorbeelde van hierdie tipe navorsing in musiek. Die fenomenologiese teorieë van Edmund Husserl en Maurice Merleau-Ponty is gebruik om my persoonlike ervarings as uitvoerder van oorwegend kunsmusiek in Suid-Afrika te kontekstualiseer. My betrokkenheid by verskeie praktiese projekte gedurende die studietydperk, sowel as vyf praktiese projekte wat spesifiek vir die doeleindes van hierdie studie onderneem is, het deurgaans die studie geïnformeer. Hierdie projekte is aangepak om die bestudering van spesifieke aspekte van Suid-Afrikaanse uitvoeringspraktyk van kunsmusiek te fasiliteer. Die kennis wat deur middel van die praktiese werk ingewin is, is deurgaans in hierdie proefskrif met teoretiese werk versterk. Daar is gepoog om die subjektiewe ervarings van die uitvoerder aan te vul deur die toepassing van sosiale toerie, met die uiteindelike doel om hierdie ervarings in ‘n objektiewe en diskursief-artikuleerbare navorsingsresultaat te omskep. Die navorsing in hierdie proefskrif volg dus ‘n tweeledige benadering: subjektiewe, persoonlike ervarings wat deur praktyk gegenereer word, word deur middel van sosiale teorie benader, wat lei tot die uiteindelike navorsingsresultaat soos in die proefskrif aangebied. Ek stel dit in hierdie proefskrif dat kunsmusiekpraktyk in kontemporêre Suid-Afrika min bewyse van transformasie toon, ten spyte van die veranderende politiese- en sosio-kulturele omstandighede in Suid-Afrika sedert 1994. Dié praktyk word steeds gekenmerk deur deelname en ondersteuning vanuit die wit bevolkingsgroep. Die teorieë van Homi Bhabha en Regula Qureshi word gebruik om die argument te onderskryf dat kontemporêre kunsusiekpraktyk ‘n omgewing skep wat dien as ideologiese teenpool vir die sosio-kulturele realiteite van Suid-Afrika vandag. Qureshi is van mening dat ‘n gemeenskap se kunsmusiekpraktyk ‘n 'betekenisvolle, kulturele wereld skep vir die wat dit bewoon' (Qureshi 2000: 26). Hierdie 'wereld binne ‘n gemeenskap' word in hierdie proefskrif vertolk as ‘n 'ideologiese teen-omgewing' waarvandaan wit Suid-Afrikaanse identiteit geartikuleer, onderhandel en bevorder kan word.

This narrative chronicles the dissemination of sacred music from the eastern seaboard to the West and South spanning a time frame from the colonial era to the latter part of the Early Nationalist Period (1700-1820). Musical culture in its migration away from the eastern seaboard also parallels the greater western and southern expansion of the United States from its initial configuration of localized regional subgroups to the beginnings of a larger national identity. From this conceptual base, sacred music becomes a vehicle for understanding not only religious and musical changes over time, but also the broader maturity of a nation. Focusing on this period allows for inquiries both into the development of hymnody in the Middle Atlantic, and the subsequent developments of the West and South. These chronological delimitations allow for a discussion of musical practice beginning with formative sacred music developments and continuing to the incorporation of techniques shaped by reform-minded musicians from the eastern seaboard. The following topics guided the construction of this thesis: explicating how the Middle Atlantic region shaped compositional trends, aesthetic, and performance practice of the American West and South; identifying the various southern cultures as understood by eighteenth and nineteenth-century southerners and their application to sacred music practice; understanding how nineteenth-century Americans distinguished between the West and the South; understanding how southern and western music relates to individual denominations and cultures within these areas; and understanding performance practice common to the evangelical and non-evangelical branches of individual sects. Identifying patterns of development in American sacred music of the South and West involves documentation of performance practice, denominational aesthetics, and tunebook bibliography. The study of eighteenth-and-nineteenth-century material by twentieth-and-twenty-first-century writers has falsely defined cultural borders of this region according to a post-bellum conceptualization of the boundaries of the North and South. Prior to 1850, writers defined their borders according to a different set of geographic boundaries than today. Consequently, this thesis differs in terms of geographic and cultural definitions of the North and South from current scholarship because of this writer’s application of colonial and Early Nationalist understandings of American culture.

When Baroque keyboard works are performed on the piano, some pianists try to imitate the sound of the harpsichord and clavichord. Others try to avoid this by applying performance practices of the Romantic period to Baroque keyboard works, for the sake of musical expression. The aim of this study is to determine which alterations can be made to the performance of Baroque keyboard works on the piano to ensure a musically expressive, yet stylistically acceptable result. The following aspects are investigated: The production and quality of sound, as well as technique of playing at the harpsichord, clavichord and piano. The possibilities of musical expression at these instruments are also compared. The manner of accomplishing musical expression within a Baroque keyboard work, in terms of appropriate tempo, dynamics and articulation. The extent to which the sound qualities of the piano can be utilised when performing Baroque keyboard works on the piano. This study proves that the alterations made to the performance of Baroque keyboard works on the piano can be of such nature that the unique sound possibilities of the piano are utilised, but that the performance still corresponds to Baroque performance practice. / Thesis (M.Mus.)--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2007.

The use of interactive multimedia within live performance is now well established and a significant body of exciting and sophisticated work has been produced. However, almost all work in the field seems to start by creating at least some of the software and hardware systems that will provide the infrastructure for the project, an approach which might involve significant duplication of effort. The research described in this thesis sets out to discover if there are common features in the practice of artists from a range of performance backgrounds and, if so, whether the features of a system which might support these common aspects could be established. Based on evidence from a set of interviews, it is shown that there are indeed common factors in work in this field, especially the intensive linking of elements in performances and the use of triggering or cuing. A statement of requirements for a generic system to support work in digital performance is then established based on interview analysis and personal creative work. A general model of live performance, based on set theory, is described which provides a rationale for the integration of digital technology within live performance. A computational model outlining the formal requirements of a general system for use in live performance is then presented. The thesis then describes the creation of a domain specific language specifically for controlling live performance and the development of a prototype reference implementation of a generic system, the Live Interactive Multimedia Performance Toolkit (LIMPT). The system is then evaluated from a number of standpoints including a set of criteria established earlier in the study. It is concluded that, while there are many resources currently used by artists working in digital performance (a comprehensive survey of current resources is presented), none offer the combination of functionality, usability and scalability offered by the prototype LIMPT system. The thesis concludes with a discussion of possible future work and the potential for increased creative activity in multimedia and live performance.

This thesis traces the development of a number of mobile computer music systems and their use in ensemble percussion performances. The research is motivated by the challenges of working with laptop based computer music systems in ensemble situations. The aims were to develop elegant, portable, and flexible computer music tools, to make these tools accessible to other percussionists, and to discover the opportunities that they enable in performance practice.These aims have been explored through three musical projects for percussion and Apple's iOS devices: Nordlig Vinter, a suite of duo compositions; and two collaborative works, 3p3p and Snow Music developed together with two other percussionists.Articulated from a performer's perspective, this artistic research examines a number of software frameworks for developing mobile computer music applications. The development, rehearsal process and performances of the musical projects have been documented with video and audio recordings.An ethnographic investigation of this data has given insight into the limitations and affordances of mobile computer music devices in a variety of performance contexts. All of the projects implemented elegant computer music setups and the limited visual interfaces of the mobile devices demanded simple but clear interface design. In Snow Music in particular, "percussive" interaction with the mobile devices along with an improvised performance practice contributed to a collaborative development cycle. This process revealed some of the limits of expression with the computer sounds used and led to a very successful series of performance outcomes. / <p>Validerat; 20120614 (anonymous)</p>

With a career spanning over four decades, Henry Fillmore earned wide recognition as an important and prolific composer of marches and trombone smears in the wind band medium. While he contributed significantly to chamber music, solo literature, vocal settings, and arrangements for band, his compositions for wind band have arguably provided his most universal acclaim. Fillmore’s published marches are unique in that scores rarely had performance markings and contained little more than notes and repeat signs. Fillmore conducted most of his marches and altered march strains, changed orchestration, and added stylistic markings that were not indicated in the original printed score. This research is focused on preparing and presenting historically accurate performances of the marches and smears of Henry Fillmore with appropriate march style. More specifically, the author wishes to provide an approach to the interpretation of Fillmore’s music that directly portrays the historical performance practices of Fillmore’s performances of his own works and interpretative methodology. Those who wish to consider this historically accurate approach may apply this document’s analysis of primary source recordings of Fillmore conducting his music in addition to new included performance editions of specified marches and smears.

Philipp Heinrich Erlebach (1657-1714) was a court composer and music director in the central German town of Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt. During his day, Erlebach mastered nearly every genre of his era and turned the court of Rudolstadt into a sophisticated musical center. Unfortunately, a fire which consumed the Rudolstadt court in 1735 destroyed many of his sacred and secular manuscripts. Erlebach had a marked influence on the development of the sacred cantata. He was one of the first composers to write a cycle of texts by Erdmann Neumeister, the earliest cycle of Neumeister cantatas that survives. This study provides background and analysis of two cantatas, Ich will Wasser giessen and Christus ist mein Leben, and examines how this music can be performed today in a historically informed, logistically viable fashion.

In the eighteenth century, the art of violin performance in France was promoted. Until in the nineteenth century, France became the center of art in the Europe, including painting, literary, architecture, and they were developed vigorously. The Paris Conservatory had a key position in music and expanded outward, and the music of Belgium was influenced very much, therefore they are named ¡§Franco-Belgian Violin School.¡¨ And the music is abundant in beautiful melodies and brilliant skills. Henry Vieuxtemps was an important and representative violinist at that period. By the way, his works presented romantic emotion. First chapter in this study presents the development of violin school. The second chapter introduces Vieuxtemps¡¦ position of ¡§Franco-Belgian Violin School,¡¨ the background of his works. The third and fourth chapter, do a research of the form, the interpretation and the performance style of Violin Concerto No.2 in F# minor, op.19. Then a conclusion in the final chapter. Key words¡GFranco-Belgian Violin School¡BVieuxtemps¡BRomantic music¡Bviolin concerto¡Bperformance practice.