Born in 1927 in Bombay, Vanraj Bhatia is an Indian composer of music for concerts, film, television, opera, meditation, and commercial jingles. His musical style is unique, stemming from his training in both Western and North Indian classical, or Hindustani, music. Little is known about Vanraj Bhatia in the Western classical world, and in India he is recognized primarily as a composer of film music. This dissertation aims to bring awareness of Vanraj Bhatia's significance as a Western classical composer, focusing on uncovering the cross-cultural influences of his only solo flute piece, Night Music, composed in 1964. This research offers Western flutists a better understanding of Indian music, specifically Hindustani and Indian folk music traditions, often not fully understood since Indian music is an aural tradition, rarely transcribed and notated, and relies on a guru/shishya (teacher/student) relationship. Such an understanding will elucidate the compositional choices made in Night Music, allowing flutists to be more informed in their performance of it. Although the focus of this study is on Night Music, other repertoire from Bhatia's concert music and film music will also be examined to illuminate Bhatia's compositional style, which includes elements of Hindustani music, Indian folk music, and Western musical traditions. An exploration of some of Bhatia's other compositions written for Western musicians will give readers beyond the realm of flutists a better understanding of his distinctive, cross-cultural style and influences, and will introduce larger audiences to this exceptional and little-known composer.

While unaccompanied music encompasses an ever increasing portion of clarinet literature, it comprises a comparatively small percentage of music performed. However, study of unaccompanied repertoire provides a valuable pedagogical bridge between etudes and accompanied music that is abundant with opportunity to address larger universal musical concepts, rather than repertoire-specific solutions. This dissertation demonstrates the application of concept-based pedagogy to selected unaccompanied clarinet repertoire of five different ability levels. Using principals of concept-based pedagogy, each work is broken down to its component technical and expressive parts in order to address larger musical concepts. Three to five exercises addressing each work's technical and expressive challenges are provided and explained.

For woodwind and brass performers, intraoral pressure is the measure of force exerted on the surface area of the oral cavity by the air transmitted from the lungs. This pressure is the combined effect of the volume of air forced into the oral cavity by the breathing apparatus and the resistance of the embouchure, reed opening, and instrument’s back pressure. Recent research by Michael Adduci shows that intraoral pressures during oboe performance can exceed capabilities for corresponding increases in sound output, suggesting a potentially hazardous situation for the development of soft tissue disorders in the throat and velopharyngeal insufficiencies. However, considering that oboe back pressure is perhaps the highest among the woodwind instruments, this problem may or may not occur in other woodwinds. There has been no research of this type for the other woodwind instruments. My study was completed to expand the current research by comparing intraoral pressure (IOP) and sound pressure when performing with a characteristic tone on oboe, clarinet, flute, bassoon, and saxophone. The expected results should show that, as sound pressure levels increase, intraoral pressure will also increase. The subjects, undergraduate and graduate music majors at the University of North Texas, performed a series of musical tasks on bassoon, clarinet, flute, oboe, and alto saxophone. The musical tasks cover the standard ranges of each instrument, differences between vibrato and straight-tone, and a variety of musical dynamics. The data was collected and examined for trends. The specific aims of this study are to (1) determine whether there is a correlation between IOP and sound pressure, (2) shed light on how well each instrument responds to rapid fluctuation, and (3) determine which instruments are most efficient when converting air pressure into sound output. Results of this study raised concerns shared by previous studies – that woodwind players are potentially causing harm to their oropharynx by inaccurately perceiving intraoral pressure needed to achieve a characteristic sound. Evidence found by this study suggests that while oboists generate high intraoral pressure for relatively little sound output (a fact corroborated by past studies), the same cannot be said for all of the woodwind instruments, particularly the flute.

This dissertation presents evidence for the influence which tenor Enrico Caruso had on the Italian Vocal Tradition. This impact was clearly boosted by the revolution realized in the fledgling recording industry, and the recordable disc. In the years of 1902-1920 gramophones became commonplace, and collecting recordings became an interest for many. This new technology required specialized skills, and was especially suited to certain qualities of voice. Caruso enjoyed immense success in this medium, in recording over 250 records. Italian vocal style at the turn of the century was changing, and Caruso employed a new "modern" style in his singing. His interpretive decisions, vocal method, and repertoire which he championed had an impact on the vocal tradition of future generations. Comparison of his recordings with tenors Fernando de Lucia, Giuseppe Anselmi, and Alessandro Bonci shows a marked contrast in styles of "the old school" and Caruso's "more straightforward" approach. A collection of historical documents for those who succeeded him include many biographies, reviews, and quotes to demonstrate the extent of his influence. Recordings also show a movement toward "the Caruso Sound." Jussi Bjoerling, Franco Corelli, Richard Tucker, Mario Lanza, and Luciano Pavarotti were all influenced by the great Caruso. Almost 100 years have passed since he sang his last performance. He continues to inspire singers to this day, through his recordings and legacy passed on by many generations. He is the ideal, the measuring stick for all tenors to follow, and continues even to today.

The purpose of this study is to explore neoclassical elements present in Krenek’s George Washington Variations. By identifying the stylistic features associated with the eighteenth and twentieth centuries, the study will examine Krenek’s application of his neoclassical tendencies. Key neoclassical elements include musical form and structure, key relationships, melody and harmony, and chromaticism. Since at this time there is little research on Krenek’s piano works, and none on the George Washington Variations, the result of this examination provides pianists and instructors with historically constructive information about Krenek’s musical style, as well as a deeper understanding of Krenek’s Neoclassicism in his George Washington Variations.

Paul Robert Fauchet's Symphonie pour Musique d'Harmonie, known in the United States as Symphony in B-flat, is a four-movement composition spanning nearly thirty minutes in length and written in the style of the late romantic composers. Despite its place as one of the first symphonies for wind band, a performance of the piece that represents the composer's 1926 orchestration is difficult due to the inclusion of instruments that are no longer in common practice, including bugles, alto horns, and saxhorns. Later American editions of the work by James Robert Gillette (1933) and Frank Campbell-Watson (1948/1949) replaced these instruments, but also took several other liberties with orchestration and voicing. The primary purpose of this study was the creation of a performance edition of the Symphony for modern wind band that is accessible to a larger audience of performers and listeners. The method involved in creating the modern edition eliminates errors of extant editions and clarifies a number of the discrepancies surrounding the symphony's multiple publications. This edition attempts to retain the composer's voicing and orchestration choices. To accomplish this, the present project considered where modern instrumentation differed from the original sources and attempted to balance timbral similarities between those instruments, while also considering ease of comprehension for a modern ensemble to perform the work. Sources used to create this edition included all published editions of scores and parts, as well as a newly created full score of the 1926 printed parts. The study concludes with the inclusion of the full score of the new performance edition.

Marilyn Shrude is a champion for contemporary concert music. Throughout her career, she has written multiple works including the saxophone that utilize its unique timbre. Atonality is a chief characteristic of her compositional style. Her contributions to the saxophone repertoire include solos, duos with piano, chamber works, quartets and larger works with band. This study surveys five chamber pieces that include saxophone with diverse instruments written by Marilyn Shrude. The pieces includes are Splintered Visions (1985), Notturno: In Memorium Toru Takemitsu (1996), Transparent Eyes (2000), Face of the Moon (2000) and Within Silence (2012). The analysis of each work includes information pertaining to the creation of cohesion and atonality throughout the piece.

Edwin Fissinger (1920-1990) was a conductor and prolific choral composer. His compositional techniques, settings of text, jazz-influenced harmonies, and melodic propulsion fulfill an important role in each of his compositions. In the eight choral cycles he composed, Fissinger unified each cycle through thematic and textual elements. Although this resulted in a logical progression of poetry and music, Fissinger's final choral cycle, Prairie Scenes, was not published as he intended. Rather, individual selections from the cycle were published by two different publishing houses, out of sequence, and sixteen years apart. Consequently, the eight pieces are not currently performed together. Today's choral conductors, singers, and audience do not fully appreciate the value of this choral cycle and cannot understand its intended context. It is necessary to provide an in-depth investigation of the original eight-piece work Prairie Scenes: A Choral Cycle to place the appropriate organizational set together. This study illustrates the importance of the unification of Fissinger's Prairie Scenes: A Choral Cycle through a study of the poetry, the thematic material as it relates to the natural elements of the prairies, the manuscripts, and interviews with Fissinger's publishers and colleagues. An examination of Fissinger's compositional technique to convey the meaning of the text reveals a clear link between Prairie Scenes and the North Dakota prairies and its seasons. A description of the development of the choral cycle throughout music history and a biography of Edwin Fissinger and his compositional style are also included.

Un-Yung La was one of the first Korean composers of Western style choral music who used Korean folk elements in his composers. According to Un-Yung La's musical theory, which he demonstrated in Easter Cantata. Korean-style melody and rhythm were created based on Korean traditional scales and he also used Western-style harmonization. He attempted a new Korean style of expression through Sikimsae technique in Korean traditional vocal music genres: Pansori and Sijo. The purpose of this paepr is to discuss traditional Korean performance elements related to melody, harmony, and rhythm as employed in La's Easter Cantata. The study will increase the knowledge of western conductors who wish to understand Korean folk music in preparation for performance of choral works such as La's Easter Cantata.

This dissertation investigates how German-language critics articulated and publicly negotiated ideas about music and expressionism in the first five years after World War I. A close reading of largely unexplored primary sources reveals that "musical expressionism" was originally conceived as an intrinsically musical matter rather than as a stylistic analog to expressionism in other art forms, and thus as especially relevant to purely instrumental rather than vocal and stage genres. By focusing on critical reception of an unlikely group of instrumental chamber works, I elucidate how the acts of performing, listening to, and evaluating "expressionist" music were enmeshed in the complexities of a politicized public concert life in the immediate postwar period. The opening chapters establish broad music-aesthetic and sociopolitical contexts for critics' postwar discussions of "musical expressionism." After the first, introductory chapter, Chapter 2 traces how art and literary critics came to position music as the most expressionist of the arts based on nineteenth-century ideas about the apparently unique ontology of music. Chapter 3 considers how this conception of expressionism led progressive-minded music critics to interpret expressionist music as the next step in the historical development of absolute music. These critics strategically—and controversially—portrayed Schoenberg's "atonal" polyphony as a legitimate revival of "linear" polyphony in fugues by Bach and late Beethoven. Chapter 4 then situates critical debates about the musical and cultural value of expressionism within broader struggles to construct narratives that would explain Germany's traumatic defeat in the Great War and abrupt restructuring as a fragile democratic republic. Against this backdrop, the later chapters explore critics' responses to public performances of specific "expressionist" chamber works. Chapter 5 traces reactions to a provocative performance of Schoenberg's Chamber Symphony, op. 9 (1906) at the Berlin Volksbühne in February 1920. Chapter 6 examines the interplay of musical-aesthetic and sociopolitical issues in critical reception of several postwar concerts that juxtaposed Schoenberg's "expressionist" Chamber Symphony with Franz Schreker's "impressionist" Chamber Symphony (1916). Chapter 7 considers how critics situated performances of Alexander Zemlinsky's Second String Quartet, op. 15 (1916) in relation to ideas about "expressionism" in music. Finally, Chapter 8 considers critical reception of performances of Béla Bartók's Second String Quartet, op. 17 (1917) in the context of two concert series sponsored by "expressionist" journals: the Anbruch-Abende in Vienna (1918) and the Melos-Abende in Berlin (1922 and 1923). Each of these final chapters uses contemporary criticism as a vehicle for a close reading of the relevant musical work, resulting in a portrait of "expressionist" music that is both contextually and musically nuanced.