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The portfolio of compositions and the present commentary are the fulfilment of my research degree in Composition as a part-time distance learning student from 2004 to 2011 at the Birmingham Conservatoire. My research is entitled The Stained Glass Island and it includes five works for different instrumentations, from large orchestra to solo instrument. The two main works are for large orchestra: The Stained Glass Island I and The Stained Glass Island II. The supporting chamber works are for quintet (Oskar’s Circus), for trio (Oskar’s Dance) and for solo instrument (Oskar’s Dream). A number of musical materials coming from the orchestral works flow into the chamber works and vice versa, with the aim to explore their expressive and musical possibilities through different instrumental forces. The portfolio also includes a CD with recordings of my works premièred in the US, Spain, Italy and the UK, on the occasion of international composition competitions and concert series. The initial inspiration for my research comes from The Dreaming Youths (Die träumenden Knaben), eight colour lithographs and a poetic text by Oskar Kokoschka, the expressionist painter and poet. Kokoschka’s narration of a fantastic journey, his use of stylisation, the deformed figures, the emphasis on intense contrasting inner moods and the allusive and hallucinated poetic language impressed me greatly, creating powerful visual and emotional suggestions for the composition of this series of works. This commentary begins with a short background focusing on a number of compositions by other composers that were particularly influential on my work. The next chapter explains my harmonic technique and how it tries to express in music the main aspects of Kokoschka’s work. After a short analysis of Die traümenden Knaben lithographs and poetic text the following chapters analyse my works in greater detail. The conclusion looks at the motivation of this research, its development and outcomes, in light of the whole work, its performances and achievements during these years.

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The thesis Seeing is listening, comprises a portfolio of five original compositions and a written commentary. This commentary examines the role of extra-musical visual stimuli as catalysts in the creative musical process. My research has focussed on composition, drawing stimulus from visual artworks, from the writings of their creators, and from naturally-occurring visual structures, with the overall intention of consolidating my compositional language. The Introduction is biographical and articulates a raison d'etre for doctoral study. Chapter 1: Key Influences on my Musical Aesthetic summarises the key influences of Olivier Messiaen and Henri Dutilleux, and the consequences are examined further in the chapters on individual works. It also introduces two painters, Wassily Kandinsky and Paul Klee, whose work provided extramusical visual stimuli, and a consideration of paintings as 'catalysts'. Such cross-fertilisation TI from visual to musical, links all five works contained in this portfolio, compositions that were written during the period: 2007 - 2013. Chapter 2 explores the relationship between my music and the dramatic text of Gerard Manley Hopkins in The Starlight Night. Chapter 3 marks a new stage in the development of my research: the use of a visual stimulus in the form of three paintings by Paul Klee, and discusses my musical response to them in String Quartet No 2, a substantial work in three movements. In Chapter 4, the dual stimulus of an essay by Kandinsky, which is linked to three of his paintings, forms a complex backdrop for Remeniscences/Three Pictures, a concerto for solo double bass and chamber orchestra. Chapter 5 is an exploration of the past within the present, as it examines Doom Triptych, a duo for trumpet and organ, in which the content of mediaeval paintings provides a visual 'programme' for music with liturgical content. Finally, in Chapter 6, a set of five miniatures for wind quintet is investigated; the visual stimulus for Crystal Eyes is no longer man-made and comprises inanimate objects such as rocks and crystals. Appendices, a bibliography comprising a list of the works cited, as well as texts referred to conclude the commentary. Also included in the portfolio are audio recordings on a CD of all five works, and one DVD (of Doom Triptych).

The evolution of my musical thinking over the period 2008-13 has been essentially driven by the quest for a personal language capable of asserting a genuinely contemplative musical idiom. In this context, how to dissociate rhythmic structuring from pitch organisation at the compositional level is recognised as a key question. It is addressed through a reflection focusing on two major aspects: (i) the formalisation of intervallic transformation processes based on topological principles, and (ii) the development of techniques of temporal organisation aimed at establishing rhythmic design as an autonomous compositional resource. Intervals are primarily conceived as plastic structures rather than acoustical phenomena. As such, they are subject to distortional forces that transform one interval class into another. Intervallic distortion is performed by means of an inversional procedure using a dual axis of symmetry on the pitch-class clock. Its formalisation draws on David Lewin's transformational theory. The technique provides a constructive principle for generating complex pcset sequences. Temporal organisation is systematically derived from a network of spatial coordinates (or 'time-point matrix') that defines the rhythmic surface of the music independently from pitch. The time-point matrix is conceived as a stratified structure combining various layers, each of which consists of a linear pattern of time-points, regular or not, itself forming a sequence of temporal intervals. The resulting methodology of composition consists in essence in projecting a harmonic scheme onto a time-point matrix. By confining the harmonic grammar to pc-set transformations based on intervallic distortion and apprehending the physical time of the composition as a bi-dimensional map - i.e., a fixed spatial expanse - rather than a linear flow, the system seeks to establish an intrinsically static, non-narrative mode of discourse.

Mae dwy ran i'r ddoethuriaeth, sef perfformio ar Y'deiyn a phorffolio 0 gyfansoddiadau. o ran y perfformio, rhoddwyd dau ddatganiad Ilawn a pherfformiwyd consierto gyda Cherddorfa Symffoni'r Brifysgol. Cyflwynir CD wedi ei recordio a'j -olygu , mewn stiwdio broffesiynol. Yn y perfformiadau a'r CD dangoswyd datblygiad y delyn ers y 18fed ganrif hyd at heddiw, gan ganolbwyntio'n bennaf ar ddatblygiad yn yr arddull gyfansoddi, a !hechnegau modern y delyn yn yr 20fed a'r 21 ain ganrif. o ran y cyfansoddi, cyflwynir portffolio 0 gyfansoddiadau gwreiddio! ar gyfer gwahano! gyfuniadau 0 offerynnau/ensemblau gan ddefnyddio arddulliau amrywiol. Mae'n cynnwys cerddoriaeth unawdol, siambr, cerddorfaol, cerddoriaeth acwsmatig a cherddoriaeth ar gyfer delweddau symudol.

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The Introduction presents the notion. of composition as an act of interpretation: all of the works of the portfolio are based on existing repertoire, which is thus seen to be 'interpreted' through Computer-Assisted Composition (CAC) processes, entailing the combination, modification, analysis and transcription of recorded materials of the 'interpreted' work. Chapter 1 documents the use of real-time physical modelling synthesis in the Max/MSP programming environment. In Funeral Sentences for ensemble and electronics, a 'string meta-instrument' is created through the combination of violin, cello, guitar, percussion - the latter two often bowed to better blend with the others - and physically-modelled strings, menus morceaux par un autre moi reunis for guitar and electronics combines real-time physically-modelled strings with physically-inspired stochastic models (PhiSM) of percussion instruments. In the electroacoustic series Nani, the noise content - such as breaths and consonants - of an a cappella recording is used to excite percussion models. All of the works documented in Chapter 2 engage with visual manifestations of sound in addition to instruments and speakers, including transducing sound through objects and interactive video projection: in Adagio sans quatuor (2010), suspended plates are bent by motors to tune their resonant frequencies, while three-dimensional (3D) physical modelling simulates bending motion for one of the two instruments; Adagio pour l'absence (2010) maps data from a game environment to interactive networked performance including real-time score generation and 3D physical modelling synthesis; Mismoded (2011) features real-time concatenation of audio and video; and Gurre-K/(inge (2012) combines video projected on resonating metal plates and other surfaces with interactive performance involving improvisatory feedback systems. The Conclusion considers the compositions in the portfolio in terms of the provenance of sound in relation to visual and aural perception, and introduces future projects which continue in the direction of reinforcing visual correlates and the physical presence of sound.

This thesis presents a portfolio of original compositions. The pieces, which comprise both instrumental and electronic forces, examine compositional and theoretical approaches to the embodied structures that underpin music performance. The portfolio includes eight scores, nine original compositions in total. The works are discussed in the context of prevailing theories and practices relating to music and meaning, music and time and music notation. Inconsistencies between theory and practice will be explored and, where one exceeds notional boundaries set by the other, amendments suggested. The common thread that runs throughout this thesis is that our capacity to create, reason about, and notate music is deeply rooted in the body's interactions with the world. Endeavouring to understand the embodied origins. of music will advance the cause of both theorist and practitioner.