Any direction modern music will take in England will come about only through Cardew, because of him, by way of him. If the new ideas in music are felt today as a movement in England, it's because he acts as a moral force, a moral centre. Feldman, 1967: 43 These words, uttered by Morton Feldman in 1967, are often cited in the literature surrounding Cornelius Cardew but their veracity is rarely discussed. The extent to which Cardew has been a central figure and force for new ideas in music forms the backbone to this thesis. This thesis attempts to identify and define a 'Cardew aesthetic': a framework of underpinning principles and values that inform an approach and attitude towards music making. This is achieved through an exploration of Cardew's work, starting with his formative experiences with Stockhausen, the European traditions and his growing sympathies with John Cage and the American experimentalists. The thesis discusses Cardew's developing ideological awareness informed by his work with the Scratch Orchestra, and his ultimate rejection of the avant-garde and experimentalism, and his commitment to Marxism. The thesis identifies the significant threads and traits apparent across this diverse body of work. It argues that they represent a new way of approaching musical activity, and that this is the legacy of Cornelius Cardew. The thesis then discusses the extent to which this legacy has influenced and informed a range of individuals and groups within a range of contexts. The thesis concludes by suggesting that Cardew was not only a central character in the development of 'new ideas' in the 1960s and 70s but that the Cardew legacy continues to inform practice and thinking, and continues to act as the moral force and centre of which Feldman speaks.

This thesis presents a holistic approach to the music and life of the Spanish contemporary composer Tomás Marco (b. 1942). Such an approach combines a number of interconnected perspectives (historical, sociological, philosophical, analytical and performative) that aim to provide a general picture of Marco’s music and intellectuality, proposing over‐arching analytical frameworks that take as a point of departure, but go beyond, the consideration of a selection of Marco’s works for violin. The lack of scholarship on Marco in English makes necessary a biographical introduction, presented in Chapter 1: a number of crucial historical and sociological elements are considered in order to develop a critical perspective on Marco’s life and oeuvre. Chapter 2 analyses Marco’s relationship, during the 1960s, with the avant‐garde Spanish musical movement ZAJ. It traces the parallelisms between ZAJ and Fluxus, considers its political dimension and explores its influence on the formation of Marco’s mature musical idiom. Chapter 3 examines the connections between Marco’s thinking and Theodor W. Adorno’s and Henri‐Louis Bergson’s philosophies. Such analysis seeks, ultimately, to uncover Marco’s consideration of time and its relationship with specific elements of their philosophical worlds, which will work as the basis for the development and application of a number of time‐related analytical perspectives, in Chapter 4, on Marco’s works Umbral de la Desolación, Dúo Concertante nº 3, Dúo Concertante nº 6 and Iris. Performance plays a key role in those analytical perspectives: I include my own recording of Marco’s works, used both as analytical material and to introduce the centrality of the performative side of music, as its realisation through time, in the consideration and analysis of musical time. A second volume, consisting of an important collection of material on which a significant part of the arguments developed throughout the thesis are based, is included for two main reasons: the lack of material in English, and the hope that this research project might ignite an interest in Marco’s work and the world of Spanish contemporary music to which the annexed material is clearly relevant.

Robert Simpson's Third Symphony (1961-2) marks a transition between the two stages into which the composer's oeuvre is generally divided (as one of his last works based upon major/minor keys, before his conscious composition with intervals). It is unusual within Simpson's output in three respects: it incorporates models, from Beethoven; its genesis can be traced in two manuscript autograph scores and two published versions; and the autograph scores preserve unique revisions by the composer. The issues that arise in consequence are considered in the context of general influences upon the symphony, a description of the manuscripts and published scores, and remarks about manuscript interpretation. From an analysis of the modelling of the first movement upon the first movement of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, a reconstruction is offered of music lost from the earliest stage of composition. This reconstruction permits the elaboration of a hypothesis with respect to an atypical feature of Simpson's style: Simpson's revisions were most far-reaching where Beethoven's influence had initially been strongest. Further Beethovenian influences are identified, with their bearing on the manner in which Simpson revised and utilized the typical features of his style which are fundamental to the Third Symphony's symphonic structure: rhythm and pace, tonality and harmony. The influence of these revisions upon Simpson's Fourth and Fifth Symphonies is also investigated. With reference to the Beethoven influences identified earlier, parallels are drawn between developments in Simpson's style, and Beethoven's between his 'second' and 'third' periods. 'Suggestion' (a process used by Simpson, of statement 'by implication', related to compositional compression in the revisions) is discussed and considered as a metaphor for the development of Simpson's style as Beethoven's influence upon him weakened. A brief comparison of Simpson's Third Symphony with his Fourth and Fifth Symphonies is also included.

The Korean woman composer, Unsuk Chin (b.1961), who received the Grawemeyer Award in 2001, has become increasingly acknowledged as a major voice in Western music. This dissertation examines her six Piano Etudes (1993-2003), including their structure and perforn1ance, in the context of Chin's background. Her Korean upbringing and musical education, her gender and her diasporic life, as well as the remarkable depth of the musical influences upon her, are all considered. Via her Korean teacher, Sukhi Kang, she absorbed the techniques of electronic music and those of extended techniques in instrumental music, while via Ligeti, her later teacher, she absorbed many other influences, including that of Nancarrow's music. Some, like that of Korean music itself, she seems to have gained on her own initiative. However, she claims that the works of Lewis Carroll and Conlon Nancarrow fit into this category, too, despite the overwhelming preoccupation of Ligeti with both of these sources; she also disavows any concerns with being a woman composer, despite her reception's clearly being affected by this. These issues, often puzzling, all . prove worthy of close consideration. The two penultimate chapters are devoted to an analysis of each of the six Piano Etudes; an understanding of their design and achievement is dependent on knowledge of all these background materials. This is followed by a discussion of performance issues in the pieces, which were written, as Chin declares, away from the piano and published in her own script, and which offer immense practical challenges to the performer.

My interest in the connection between tonality and meaning in Beethoven's music arose when writing a graduate paper on the use of key characteristics in Mozart's Don Giovanni and Beethoven's Fidelio. In the course of my research, I observed a remarkable correlation between key and tonal affect, and found myself questioning whether this would hold true for all of Beethoven's vocal music, and, if so, might also be applicable to his untexted instrumental works. An initial survey of Beethoven's complete solo song output, in order to ascertain if a firm connection between tonality and affective meaning could be established, proved to be extremely fertile, paving the way for the inception of this thesis. The Introduction outlines a justification for revisiting the concept of meaning in Beethoven's music. Chapter One builds the historical case for Beethoven's knowledge of key characteristics, examining materials with which he was familiar, his own views, and various anecdotal evidence. Chapter Two presents a survey of the keys employed by Beethoven, using evidence from contemporary writers, theorists, and composers to establish congruency of affective meaning. The ironic usage of tonal affect is discussed, and the supposed paradox of keys having more than one affective meaning explained. Beethoven's establishment of new affective uses of certain keys is also detailed. Chapters Three to Five identify the significant body of empirical evidence which connects tonality and meaning in an examination of the solo songs, revealing the strong nexus between textual meaning and choice of key in almost all cases. Certain ancillary features are also used as supporting evidence, including movement headings, descriptive titles, dynamics, interval structure, and harmonic vocabulary. The concepts of the `affective spectrum', `affective modulation', `affective tonicization', `affective modality' and `depictive harmony' are introduced and applied to the music. Chapter Six examines five case studies from vocal and choral music with orchestral accompaniment, in order to illustrate how tonal symbolism can function in a wider variety of contexts in Beethoven's oeuvre. Finally, Chapter Seven presents an instrumental case study, the Piano Sonata in D Minor, Op. 31, No. 2, applying the semiotic of affect established earlier as the principal tool for deconstructing meaning in this work. This thesis demonstrates through a combination of historical and empirical evidence that, in most instances, Beethoven does employ tonality in an affective way in his vocal music, paving the way for an examination of his instrumental music for the nexus between tonality and meaning.

This submission comprises a portfolio of twelve original compositions (totalling circa 103 minutes of music), accompanied by a written commentary. Recordings of six of the works are included. These works demonstrate my ongoing compositional concerns and document the efforts I have made to develop and expand the techniques used in my approach to composition. I have detailed the process of creating these works in the commentary, with reference to the harmonic, melodic, rhythmic, and structural processes used in each work. I begin the commentary with two contextual chapters. The first chapter addresses two specific questions, What Kind of Music do You Compose?, and Why Compose? The second chapter attempts provide some background to my main compositional concerns by outlining my approach to harmony, rhythm, texture, and form. In the remaining chapters, I have dedicated one chapter to each work and I have presented the commentaries for the works in the order in which they were composed.

The virtuoso Spanish pianist and composer Isaac Manuel Albeniz (1860-1909) is principally remembered through his numerous compositions for piano. From 1889-94 he lived and worked mainly in London where he met Francis Money-Coutts, a member of an eminent banking family who had literary ambitions. Money-Coutts contracted with Albeniz that the composer should set all of his lyrics and libretti for a period of ten years, during which a salary would be paid. In addition to a number of songs, the collaboration resulted in two operas, both of which their creators lived to see performed, and another (the first of a proposed trilogy) which was produced after their deaths. Albeniz's French biographer, Gabriel Laplane, deals with the period of his London residence in a brief chapter entitled "La Parenthese londonienne" ("The London Interlude"). This thesis proposes that the period Albeniz spent in London, far from being an "interlude" (defined by Webster as "an irrelevant change or happening in a course of events"), on the contrary provided the opportunity for him to begin his work with large-scale musico-dramatic forms which was to continue for the remainder of his life, and encouraged him to explore a less overtly nationalistic style than that adopted for his purely instrumental compositions. The extent of Albeniz's success in composing for the theatre is also considered here. Walter Aaron Clark, in his Spanish Music with a Universal Accent: Isaac Albeniz~s Opera "Pepita Jimenez" (Ph.D. diss., University of California, Los Angeles, 1992) and elsewhere, has done much to demythologize the first thirty years of Albeniz's life and to investigate his partnership with Money-Coutts. This present thesis concentrates more on their personal and working relationships, throwing new light on the biographical issues. Formative influences upon their styles and problems arising from the conflicting claims of Spanish and British nationalism are also examined, as are issues arising from the works themselves. In addition, comparisons are made with earlier, contemporary and later musico-dramatic works relevant to the assessment of the quality and significance of the Albeniz/Money-Coutts operas.

This dissertation contains an analysis of the libretto of Mozart's Die Zauberflote. The analysis was contemplated with apprehension, given that so much has already been written about the opera. But the work was prompted by two factors. Firstly, by a longstanding concern that the libretto contains classical, literary, historical and philosophical references which have not been referred to in previous explanations of the opera. There was a sense in which the opera may have been well documented but perhaps not well understood. Secondly, and consequentially, the study was fuelled by the magnitude of the challenge to understand how these unacknowledged references fit together to create what the librettists considered to be their "purpose". This dissertation, then, develops many new analytical themes and throws fresh light on the purpose of the opera and the methods by which it was developed. Many people have helped me in a variety of ways during this study. I am particularly grateful to my Supervisor, David Chadd, Head of the School of Music at the University of East Anglia (UEA), Norwich, for his constant support and advice, and to my two examiners Professor Julian Rushton at Leeds University and Anthony Gritten at UEA. I am also grateful to Simon Waters at UEA and Ian Biddle (formerly UEA but now at Newcastle University) for their help during an earlier M.Mus. study which unexpectedly led to the research presented here. I am particularly grateful to Edvina Franceschini for her assistance, comments, encouragement and hospitality throughout the period of this study. And I am indebted to Prebendary Michael Moreton, for reading draft text and offering helpful comments on theological and other references, and to Angela Biston for helpfully commenting on several occasions on my draft text. I also wish to acknowledge the help of a number of people on whom I have relied for specific advice on a miscellany of subjects. Their contributions may have been partial, because none were aware of the objectives of my study, but their help was nevertheless important. I am particularly grateful to Anna Plattner and Bettina Kann, Osterreichische Nationalbibliothek, Vienna; Frieder Hepp, Director, KurpJiilzisches Museum, Heidelberg; Clare Rider, The Honourable Society of the Inner Temple, London; Diana Weber, Stadtarchive, Heidelberg; Daniel Pailthorpe, Principal Flautist, English National Opera, London; Cesare Poppi, Deputy Director, The Sainsbury Centre, UEA, Norwich: Joe Taylor, Head Ranger, Sports and Parks Division, City of Coventry; Ineke Fijan, the Erasmus University, Rotterdam; Anne Mitchell, Woburn Abbey; Catherine Baron, Assistant Curator ofthe Royal Collection; Bernhard Overbeck, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Munich; Claire Leach, Voltaire Foundation; Sylvia Morris, Shakespeare Memorial Library, Stratford-uponAvon; Richard Palmer, Lambeth Palace Library, London; Lynda McLoed, Sotherby's, London; Mr. Ellis, Astrological Association, London; The Astrology Shop, London; Clive Wilkins-Jones, Norfolk and Norwich Millenium Library, Norwich; Ingrid Lamey, Schwetzingen Castle; Lucia Underhill, Kimbolton School; Omar Samy, Al Ahram Newspaper, Cairo; Ingrid Horning, Utrecht; Julian Roberts; and Jean Rafferty. Finally, I am grateful for the unfailing assistance of countless anonymous staff in many libraries and museums. Staff at The British Library, where necessarily most of my research was undertaken, have been exceptionally helpful. But I have also received considerable help from staff at the UEA library; the Bodleian; the House of Lords Record Office; the Egypt Exploration Society; the National Portrait Gallery Heinz Archive; German Historical Institute, London; London University Library; the Wellcome Library; the Victoria and Albert Museum; the Warburg Institute Library; Christie's Images; Coventry City Library; Warwickshire Records Office; the Ashmolean Museum; Centraalmuseum, Utrecht; the National Maritime Museum; the Historische Museum, Berne; the Offentliche Kunstammlung, Basle; the London Park Lane Mosque Library and the Vatican State Library.

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