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Thomas Tertius Noble (1867-1953) was a British organist, who, after completing successful tenures at Ely Cathedral and York Minster, uprooted his life and immigrated to America to establish a choir school, in the English cathedral tradition,at New York’s illustrious St Thomas’s Church, Fifth Avenue. Noble’s early training at the Royal College of Music, under Charles Stanford, Frederick Bridge and Walter Parratt, equipped him with extraordinary skills, which coupled with his charismatic persona, made him one of the finest musicians of his generation. Noble’s unique ability for forming lasting relationships and inspiring musicians of all levels and backgrounds, created the ideal situation for achieving the task he undertook during his thirty years in New York. With the support of the rector, the music committee and vestry of St Thomas’s, he formed a choir school for the boy choristers, which served (and still serves) as the epitome of taste and musical quality within the tradition of Anglican choral music in the United States. The convergence of primarily source material and personal accounts of Noble as a man and musician, have brought about a significant contribution to knowledge surrounding the life of this extraordinary individual. Through insight gained in his unpublished autobiographical Memoirs, personal and professional papers, vestry minutes, parish yearbooks and considerable archives of both the church and choir school, an understanding of Noble’s successful career and his unfortunate departure from St Thomas’s, has been brought to light for the first time. The importance of St Thomas’s Church in the international world of cathedral music is profound. Alongside Westminster Abbey, it possesses the only remaining choir school that exists for the sole purpose of training and educating the boy chorister. If not for the vision and expertise of Noble, this tradition in the new world would be merely a legend, rather than a thriving reality.

Through the eight pieces in my portfolio of compositions, I have addressed the concept of musical transfonnation, exploring it in multiple ways appropriate to the demands of each piece. The works are for a range of instrumental, vocal and electronic forces. The instrumental pieces include: Trio for Horn, Violin and Piano, Beboonikae for 14 players, North for orchestra, ceaseless voice for flute, guitar and percussion and empty chambers for string quartet. There is also one choral work, The Child for two part choir and piano, and an electronic work, Secret Gardens, for six loudspeakers, an installation created using MAXlMsp. The central work in the portfolio is a chamber opera, based on the story by Oscar Wilde, The Selfish Giant, for six soloists, children's chorus and chamber orchestra. Alongside, and as part of musical transfonnation, my work explores spectral harmony and spectral analysis, spatialisation, the use of borrowed material (usually early French carols) and the relationship between gesture and silence. Drama and the theatre shape much of the compositional work; infonned by an extended study of Luigi Nono's Prometeo: Tragedia dell'ascolto.

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The emergence of folk, jazz, blues, skiffle, rock n roll and R&B scenes in the post-war period of 1945 – 1964 was a major development in Anglophonic music culture. Key individuals operating within these scenes frequently pursued authenticity, or framed their musical activities as “authentic” – that is as cultural produce that was supposedly “true” to a certain way of life, or that offered something “real” in the face of the commercial culture of the mainstream. While this “authenticism” was productive in many respects it also represents a problem for the cultural historian. This thesis tackles this problem by first diagnosing the origins, nature and effects of authenticism, and then by undertaking three new historical studies through which a differently inflected history of this remarkable phase of popular music can be drawn. The first part of this thesis describes the emergence of authenticism in the 1940s and 50s as constituted by certain forms of language. I situate authenticism as a broad current within post war culture which fed upon the growing sense of dissatisfaction with the status-quo. I pay particular attention to its association with the New Left, a confluence whose legacy I argue should now be reappraised. The second part of the thesis proposes three alternative approaches to the subject: a data-based and textual analysis of chart pop, an analytical biography of Lonnie Donegan and a consideration of space and music culture focused upon London. These three case studies will provide a critical and evidence-led analysis that asserts the hybrid and de-centred nature of post war music culture and its place within the broader narratives of modernity. The aim is to create distance from the discourses of authenticism that still influence popular and academic understandings of this field.

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This thesis comprises a study of cello performance practices throughout the nineteenth century and into the early decades of the twentieth. It is organised in terms of the increasing complexity of the concepts which it examines, as they are to be found in printed and manuscript music, instrumental methods and larger treatises, early recordings, concert reviews and pictures. Basic posture is considered along with different ways of holding the bow. The development of the tail-pin shows that even when it was widely used, the older posture was still referred to as a model. Some implications for tone quality and tonal projection are considered in the light of the shape of the arms. Some connections between the cellist's posture and that recommended by etiquette books are explored. The functionality of the left hand and arm, and the development of modem scale fingerings, show that there was a considerable period of overlap between newer and older practices, with modern scale fingerings evolving over a long period of time. Similarly, views on the function of the right wrist in bowing are shown to change gradually, moving towards a more active upper arm movement with less extreme flexibility of the wrist. Two central expressive techniques especially associated with string playing arc considered in the context of the cello, namely vibrato and portamento. These topics are examined in the light of written indications in music, recommendations in cello treatises, and the practices evidenced in early recordings. The sources for this study can be brought into an overall framework of a constant dialogue between `theory', as expressed in verbal instructions to the learner, or general a priori reflections about the cello, and `practice', manifested in performing editions and early recordings, or in individual acts of reception. A wide divergence is noted, both between theory and practice in general, and in terms of different styles of playing observable at any one time. It is suggested that tensions between practice and critical disapproval can be resolved in terms of Lacanian discourse. Several test cases are used in order to compare several different recordings of the same works. The question of the musical character of the cello is discussed in terms of widespread assumptions about its gendered identity. A wide range of sources suggest that this moved from a straightforwardly `masculine' identity expressed through a controlling, elevated eloquence to a less clearly defined one, incorporating the 'feminine', with a greater stress on uninhibited emotional expression. Some performance implications for this change of view are pursued with respect to specific repertoires. Broad conclusions stress the importance of the diversity of performance practices as opposed to unifying generalisations.