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The current research focuses on the spectral nature of sound, its timbre manipulation and contribution to the overall syntax of a composition. It describes the compositional thinking that emerged in the early 20th Century, and further recognized by the spectralists, which acknowledges timbre as an autonomous phenomenon and an agent of music creation. It also describes the spectral composers’ technological advancements and influences from the early electronic studios and the adaptation of electronic techniques in the acoustical domain. Furthermore, it includes my methodology and preoccupations concerning the creation of compositional models and the reliance on dynamic analysis techniques for the fabrication of material that serve as a guide for formal structures.

This thesis investigates the factors that affect the enjoyment of classical music concert attendance and identifies audience members' underlying motivations for attending classical performances. The experience of listening at live music events has been a topic largely neglected by both musicology and music psychology. This thesis therefore contributes to an emerging field of empirical research on classical music audience experience, with most key existing studies published within the last five years. A combined approach to data collection was employed to increase understanding of audience experience and enjoyment at orchestral concerts. Unlike previous studies of orchestral audiences, a questionnaire distributed to a concert audience ('attenders') was combined with in-depth interviews with a subset of respondents to gain deeper experiential accounts of classical concert attendance. In addition, a further study gained wider perspectives on the factors that affect the enjoyment of concert attendance by inviting eight individuals new to classical concert-going ('non-attenders') to three orchestral concerts, eliciting their responses through focus group and individual interviews. The degree to which a concert provides accessible information with which to contextualise the music is critical in determining non-attenders' enjoyment, as is discerning interaction or communication with the performers. For both attenders and non-attenders, familiarity with the repertoire performed did not necessarily equate to greater levels of enjoyment, with some attenders consciously balancing the presence of familiarity and novelty across the concert experience. Distinct elements of witnessing a live performance acted as key underlying motivations for attending classical performances, as did the types of individual and shared experiences facilitated by listening to classical music within the concert hall setting. The thesis demonstrates the complexity of individual responses to live classical listening, while arguing that audience enjoyment relies on a series of predominantly social interactions between audience members themselves, the performers, and the music performed.

To date, very little academic attention has been awarded specifically to English broadsheet music writing and of the few texts which do touch upon this area many have relied upon the anecdotal accounts of only a handful of authors. As such, this research was undertaken to provide new insights into this relatively untouched area, concentrating particularly upon the period 1981 to 1991 during which, it was anticipated, a number of fundamental changes might be observed. The research triangulates fmdings from three sources; firstly, quantitative analysis is drawn from a large database constructed for the purposes of this study, which details the music-related content of 744 sample broadsheet publications, to reveal a series of shifts in the nature of broadsheet music coverage during the period under review. A detailed qualitative analysis of38 sample broadsheet music reviews then highlights differences in the critical styles adopted by broadsheet music writers across and within the spectrum of music genres and time period examined. Secondly, insights into the nature of change within broadsheet music coverage between 1981 and 1991 are presented from the perspectives of thirteen broadsheet music writers themselves, resulting from interviews conducted specifically for this research. Finally, the research findings are placed within a suggested literary and conceptual framework through reference to a range of secondary sources. In considering the motives for change, particular attention is devoted to the Thatcher government, whose free market policies fuelled an increase in music marketing and whose reduction of trade union powers resulted in the Wapping Dispute of 1986 and the subsequent upheaval of broadsheet production practices. Consideration is also given to both the impact of emergent and discontinued contemporary publications, with particular attention awarded to The Independent newspaper, and to shifting editorial attitudes - the latter of which, it is suggested here, led to a destabilisation of the traditional genre hierarchy. The thesis also examines the employment conditions of broadsheet music journalists during the period under review in order to understand how their recruitment, training, reward and working relationships may have affected their critical output. Finally, a brief examination of a sample of broadsheets from 2009 suggests that the editorial mindset inherited from the latter 1980s has possibly deepened, if not become entrenched, in twenty first century broadsheet production practices. The thesis, by virtue of the original evidence gathered here, argues that a significant dynamic of change within broadsheet music coverage was indeed in place during the period 1981 to 1991 and that, given its possible implications for music audiences, further scholarly examination of this subject is imperative.

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This project takes the form of a series of compositions in a variety of styles and media. Presented alongside the scores and recordings, the ensuing commentary engages with the creative/research process, documenting significant activities and insights as they arose during the course of the investigation. The documentation aims to mimic the compositional techniques employed in the scores referenced, and is consequently delivered through a mixture of media — this includes written word, graphical analysis, illustration and audio deconstruction. The research project centres on narratives and their expression (or repression) through music. “Narrative” is here used to mean: temporal syntax — its presence, or absence, and the possible implications for reception and critical discourse. The enquiry begins with structuralist approaches, those bound by formal architectures in sound that seek to guide temporal perception (Chapter One). Drawing on the work of Jonathan Kramer (1988), this section divides the enquiry into two distinct timebased varieties — “multi-linearity” and “non-linearity” — explored in detail through a number of original compositions. In the second stage, I explore interdisciplinary strategies, using visual media to organise sound non-temporally, or in “non-narrative” terms (Chapter Two). This second stage investigates the relationship between process and product, and between action and research, in the context of musical composition, drawing on poststructural and performance research theories (Nelson 2006; Lyotard 2005; Barthes 1977), and finding ways in which a multi-media approach can be used as a means of analysing creative practice. Through exploring process-product relationships, this second stage also seeks to deconstruct the means of production traditionally underlying musical composition — from-composer-to-performer-to-listener — identifying ways in which these clearly defined roles can become unstuck, mixed and even reversed in certain contexts. Building on the developments of the second stage, the works referenced in Chapter Three concern sound as a physical presence: a tangible, sensate medium that implicates all of us in its production (Voegelin 2010; Toop 1997). This final stage explores ways in which (musical) sound can be engaged with on a non-semantic level, as an “anti-narrative”, without the structural connotations of a language. This x exploration takes the form of a self-contained series of deconstructions of Schubert’s Meeresstille (1815). The series begins with an audio transformation of a recording by Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau and Gerald Moore, which is transcribed and recomposed into an extended string quartet movement, expanded into a five-day audio-visual installation, and transformed into a 17 minute film reimagining the recording process for the string quartet. Each of these stages emphasises the means of production (bow movements, movement around a performance space, etc.) over and above the presence of an emotional or linguistic meaning, though these aspects may also be discernible in the work considered. The project loosely concludes by stating some key insights gained over the course of the research, followed by a series of open questions outlining new paths to explore based on the work already undertaken.

Luigi Boccherini's chamber works form the largest part of his compositional output of nearly 500 works. In these works Boccherini included performance markings to a much greater extent that in his violoncello sonatas and concertos. His string quintets, in particular, present a large variety of dynamic, articulation and special-effect markings, constituting an important source for the study of eighteenth-century performance practice. Boccherini listed 125 string quintets in his thematic catalogue - composed between 1771 and 1802 - of which 113 were originally scored for two violoncellos and 12 for two violas. If we add to this number transcriptions he made for string quintet, his total output for this genre rises by at least another 24 works. The quintets were mostly composed during Boccherini's employment with the Spanish Infante Don Luis de Borbön between 1770 and 1785, and subsequently, during his employment with King Friedrich Wilhelm II of Prussia, between 1786 and 1797. This study discusses dynamic, articulation, and special-effect markings in Boccherini's string quintets in terms of their notation and use. Special attention has been given to the manuscript sources of these works and in particular to Boccherini's autographs - located at the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Musikabteilung mit Mendelssohn-Archiv and the Bibliotheque nationale de France - in order to draw a clearer picture of the composer's notational habits, which are not always reflected in early and modern editions of these works. Since performance markings were not present to a great extent in eighteenth-century repertoire, particularly solo music, this study aims to add not only to the scholarship of Boccherini's individual notational and compositional practices, but also to the wider knowledge of eighteenth-century performance practice.

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