This thesis is presented in two volumes, the second being an appendix to the first. Volume I contains detailed entries on the compositional history of each of the five overtures, showing which primary source has been chosen as the foundation of each edition. It examines literary and other influences which prevailed in Paris during this period, including that of Berlioz's two teachers; but the main thrust of the historical content lies with each overture. It also takes a close look at an organological issue, involving the trompette a pistons in Paris in the 1820s and 1830s. Volume II presents the five overtures in the manner of a critical edition, complete with full critical apparatus, but without a Foreword per se, since that would constitute a precis of what is found in volume 1.

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Astounding Sounds: Intention and Ambivalence in Contemporary Hollywood Film Music This project examines how music expresses the complexities of urban existence in contemporary Hollywood films. To do this I trace the history of Hollywood film music, while surveying existing literature on film scores. Significantly, I include commentary from practitioners to authenticate an evolving model of scoring practices, in addition to ideas from musicologists, film studies and film music academics. The early chapters describe the development of the specially-composed classical score, the rise of the pre-existing pop score, and the introduction of hybrid scores. Paying equal attention to classical and pop scores, I conduct a film musicological analysis of three contemporary existentialist films - Heat (1995), Magnolia (1999) and Moulin Rouge (2001). I explore ideas expressed by, among others, Claudia Gorbman on the persuasive power of the 'unheard' classical score, and by Anahid Kassabian on the open-ended permutations of the 'heard' pop score, in order to unravel the subtle changes in modern film scoring. In my chosen films, characters choose actions which result in psychological turmoil and damaging relationships. My central question is: How does contemporary film music express such ambivalence? How is it different to 'conventional' film music which privileges narrative? Indeed, is music becoming the new narrative? To pursue these questions, I controversially employ the techniques of h'aditional musicological analysis to assert the equal value of both types of score used for contemporary urban films. My study shows that when conventional film music techniques are subverted by giving the score increased status, more complicated, open-ended and challenging stories can be told, which more directly express the contemporary psyche. These 'music narratives', comprising ambiguous scoring teclmiques, generate a range of ethical questions for audience contemplation, exposing and reinforcing the deep-rooted ambivalence of survival. If the repositioning of music is redefining film narrative, then music analysis and musicological method are becoming indispensable for film studies

Music abounds in Irish literature. Whether these sounds be the “thought-tormented” music of Joyce’s “The Dead”, the folk tunes and opera that resound throughout Ulysses, or the four-part threnody in Beckett’s Watt, it is obvious that the influence of music on the written word in Ireland is significant. Although the study of words and music is a field in relative infancy, the recent pioneering work of Daniel Albright, Harry White and Eric Prieto has enlivened critical engagement with musico-literary studies, and inspired me to explore a number of questions. In particular, I am interested in the Modernist transgression of generic boundaries and the suggestion that, during the twentieth century, the segregation of artforms, promulgated by Gotthold Lessing during the Enlightenment, began to break down. I explore the ways in which this transmediality manifested itself in Irish literature. Initially, White suggests, the protectionism of Irish cultural-nationalism meant that traditional music appeared to dominate both Irish society and its literature, to the neglect of contemporary musical infrastructure, which led to the appropriation of musical devices into literature: and yet, there also appears to be a hidden desire for a Romantic intangibility like that of music, a longing for a less explicit, non-representational form; a desire that is fulfilled in hitherto coded, or secret ways. Beckett was himself an accomplished pianist and the presence of music manifests itself in three distinct ways in his work. First, actual musical quotations such as those from Beethoven and Schubert inhabit his texts. Second, structural devices like the da capo are metaphorically employed. Third, and perhaps most striking yet most neglected in terms of scholarship, is the development in his later prose, of something I term “semantic fluidity”, an erosion of explicit meaning brought about through an extensive use of repetition and influenced by Beckett’s reading of Schopenhauer’s philosophy of music. It is this third category that becomes the basis of my explorations, and a progressive taxonomy of repetition is developed that can be applied transmedially to both music and literature. Engaging with a wide range of repetition theory and musico-literary issues, this thesis compares the use of the device in various forms of literature and music, from alliterative verse and refrains to minimalism and noise. Beckett’s writing has attracted the attention of numerous contemporary composers. New music based on his novels, plays and poems has ranged from direct settings of his text to abstract instrumental pieces, from opera to solo prepared piano. In order to investigate why composers have been drawn to the writer’s work, the second part of this thesis focuses on the Beckett-inspired music of experimental composer Morton Feldman and the structured improvisations of avant-jazz guitarist Scott Fields. The importance of Beckett’s work in modern music will be positioned alongside the author’s own musical aesthetic, in order to address the larger issues inherent in the field of word and music studies. Repetition—one of the key factors in musicians’ connection with Beckett—will be explored theoretically in order to question what happens when repetitions in words are translated into music beyond Beckett.

A box containing eight musical scores, one supplementary commentary providing information on these compositions, and a CD containing recordings of two compositions.

One box containing seven original music compositions, an accompanying text consisting of commentaries on each composition, and one compact disc containing recordings of three compositions.

Between 1732 and 1744, Handel inserted Italian texts in 48 out of his 100 English oratorio performances. The extent of Italian material used ranged from the insertion of a few Italian arias into largely English works (Alexander's Feast [1736] and Israel in Egypt [1739]), to an entire character's role being translated/reworked in Italian (Athalia [1735], Sau/ [1741] and Semele [1744]), to the creation of bilingual hybrids in which the two languages are more or less balanced and in which the modifications are of such an extent that they must be considered distinct works in themselves rather than merely adaptations (Acis and Galatea [1732]). Hitherto dismissed by critics as inept or hasty compromises, the increasing attention given by recent scholarship to Handel's performing life in the 1730s calls for a reappraisal of these works. This study traces the rather complicated performance history often of Handel's bilingual oratorios, reconstructing performances where necessary, and determining, with differing degrees of certainty. the singers and librettists involved. Furthermore, an examination of the political and social contexts of their creation, as well as of the interplay between English and Italian texts, reveals that Handel's bilingual oratorio revivals of the 1730s represent an important, if ultimately failed, attempt by the composer to negotiate the competing demands of his Italian singers and his London audiences while still creating effective music drama.

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This thesis examines the usefulness of the work of Pierre Bourdieu and Raymond Williams for discussions of material mediation in musicology. In part I, I focus on Bourdieu's discussions of cultural production as set out in The Rules of Art and "The Field of Cultural Production", and reconstruct the terms of Williams's late theoretical project. In establishing the terms of these projects, I draw a parallel between their attempts to materialize the categories of Marx's superstructure - noting in Williams's subsequent use of a revised Marxist production paradigm a proximity to the work of Adorno - before noting the differences imposed by the pressures and limits of their respective intellectual cultures. The tensions between these two models are therefore identified as the opportunity for dialogue between theoretical traditions. In part 2, these reflections are tested through a discussion of Arvo Pärt's music and the record label Edition of Contemporary Music (ECM). Using data from musical scores, CDs, reviews, critical essays, magazine articles, interviews, and so on, Part's emergent field position in the late 1970s and early 1980s is reconstructed and ECM's function as both institution and artistic formation is argued. These instances of musical practice remain rhetorically committed to the ideals of autonomy while spanning the opposition of autonomy and heteronomy. This ambiguity puts strain on Williams's and Bourdieu's readings of cultural production, allowing for a critical approach to this range of debate. In this sense, the method becomes part of the subject matter, and the discussions combine both theoretical and musical reflection.

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