Paganini's 24th caprice still remains to this day one of the most celebrated themes in classical music history. Many composers have used this theme to create variations and each composer attempted to produce stylistically unique variations on this piece. Hamelin's Variations on a Theme of Paganini stands out because his piece incorporates musical borrowing and many different composers' styles. His variations integrate music from different centuries, using pastiche and musical borrowing from figures such as Beethoven, Liszt, Brahms, Chopin, and Rachmaninoff. More provocatively, Hamelin's variations reach outside of Classical music, even adopting elements from salsa and friska. The spectrum of composers and styles included in this set are so radical and shocking that it creates a parody of not only Paganini's theme, but also the tradition of theme and variation pieces it has inspired. Due to its multiple variations juxtaposing extremely different styles, Hamelin's Variations on a Theme of Paganini presents the listener with a musical puzzle that is designed to invoke surprise. The juxtapositions of extremely different styles in these variations create disjointed variations with polystylism. The polystylism in this work diversifies his variations, while unifying these seemingly unbalanced movements through broad musical references. As such, both performers and listeners stand to benefit from a detailed, critical examination of the piece. I consider not just the musical sources themselves, but also the ways in which they interact, paying close attention to Hamelin's use of parody and humor.

Arnold Schoenberg's String Quartet No. 1, Op. 7 stands out as being the first chamber music piece to use a vast number and variety of extended string techniques within one composition. This paper examines a brief history of extended string techniques in chamber music, analyses the unique ways in which Schoenberg applied extended string techniques to manipulate motives in his Op. 7 quartet, and ultimately shows that Schoenberg's use of extended string techniques influenced future composers to employ even more extended techniques and special effects in their own twentieth-century chamber music.

Among the Voices Voiceless is a composition for flute (doubling piccolo), clarinet (doubling bass clarinet), viola, cello, percussion, piano, and electronics, based on the poem "What would I do without this world faceless incurious" by Samuel Beckett. The piece is a setting for disembodied voice: the vocal part exists solely in the electronics. Having no physical body, the voice is obscured as the point of empathy for the audience. In addition, instrumental solos compete for focus during the work's twenty minute duration. In passages including a soloist, the soloist functions simultaneously as antagonist and avatar to the disembodied voice. Spoken word recordings and electronic manipulation of instrumental material provides further layers of ambiguity. The companion critical essay "Among the Voices Voiceless": Setting the Words of Samuel Beckett proposes the distillation of Beckett's style into the elements of prosaicness, repetition, fragmentation, ambiguity, and symmetry. Discussions of Beckett's works such as Waiting for Godot and Molloy demonstrate these elements in his practice. This framework informs the examination of two other musical settings of Beckett's poetry: Neither by Morton Feldman and Odyssey by Roger Reynolds. Finally, these elements are used to analyze and elucidate the compositional decisions made in Among the Voices Voiceless.

The censorship of Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District is a familiar story to musicologists, but reception of the opera is not frequently mentioned. Examining the reception of a work can bring a work's relative importance into focus. In this thesis, German literary and reception theorist Hans Robert Jauss's model of the horizon of expectations is applied to reviews of American productions of Lady Macbeth. Curiosity about communism following the Great Depression in 1930s, America and American music critics' knowledge that Soviet composers worked for the Soviet regime led to the belief that Lady Macbeth was officially approved export from the Soviet Union. When the article condemning the opera as a Western formalism appeared in the Soviet magazine, Pravda, Americans needed to adjust their understanding of Lady Macbeth as a socialist expression. Following the work's revival in San Francisco in 1981, the influence of Solomon Volkov's Testimony is prevalent in many reviews. Many reviewers use Volkov's narrative of Shostakovich as covert dissident of the Soviet Union to assert that the censorship of the opera was about the content of the plot and not the music. Following the Soviet rejection of the work, American critics tried to claim Shostakovich for the West based on the values of individual freedom and feminism set forth in Lady Macbeth.

In the Baroque period, the baritone voice was not yet well-defined, but many composers wrote vocal pieces with a range appropriate for the modern baritone voice. Composers used the general categories of soprano, alto, tenor, and bass for solo voice in their compositions. Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) was no different from other Baroque composers in writing solo works to be performed by one of the four main voice types. The various ranges and tessituras of J. S. Bach's vocal works for bass solo voice are not limited to being sung by low basses, but may also be sung by more medium ranged baritones. The purpose of this research is to guide collegiate voice teachers and their baritone students in selecting appropriate repertoire from the works of Bach on the basis of each students' level of development and to categorize four groups of bass solos by Bach for collegiate baritone students: beginning level for freshmen, intermediate level for sophomores, advanced level for juniors and seniors, and pre-professional level for seniors and graduate students. This research was prepared in conjunction with a DMA lecture-recital of eight bass solos for collegiate baritone voice, selected from the study; two vocal works for each proficiency level.

The objective of this dissertation is to review the discrepancies between Concert Sans Orchestre and Grande Sonate edited by Ernst Herttrich, Grosse Sonate No.3 Op.14 Erste and Zweite Ausgabe edited by Clara Schumann of Robert Schumann's No.3 Op.14, providing assistance for performers by clarifying inconsistencies between the three editions. Information in reference to major aspects such as notes, rhythms, metronome marking and expression signs is presented. Examples of discrepancies found throughout the first movement are discussed in Chapter 3. Suggested solutions are followed by each example.

Latin American classical vocal repertoire is vast, but in the United States, we only hear a fairly limited part of this literature. Much of this repertoire blends western European classical music traditions and native folk music traditions. One example of such a Latin American vocal work that is well-known in the United States is Alberto Ginastera's frequently performed song set from 1943, Cinco canciones populares argentinas. However, another lesser-known, earlier work, Cinco canciones argentinas (1923), by fellow Argentine composer Pascual De Rogatis (1880-1980) deserves attention as well. As with Ginastera's set, De Rogatis' songs are based on Argentine folk genres, but contain stylistic features of European classical music of its time. De Rogatis' neglected songs are a significant, overlooked part of Argentine classical music history, and a full understanding of well-known works such as Ginastera's song set and of the genre as a whole, must include attention to De Rogatis' Cinco canciones argentinas. Beyond vocal repertoire, De Rogatis' songs are an important part of the development of Argentine classical music. While Western musical trends change rapidly, folk music remains largely unchanged. Both De Rogatis and Ginastera were proud of their Argentine heritage, and incorporated traditional music into their compositions. I believe that De Rogatis's composition had a direct influence on Ginastera, and that the similarities between the two sets are not coincidental.

Hymnus Paradisi (1938), a large-scale choral and orchestral work, is well-known as an elegiac masterpiece written by Herbert Howells in response to the sudden loss of his young son in 1935. The composition of this work, as noted by the composer himself and those close to him, successfully served as a means of working through his grief during the difficult years that followed Michael's death. In this dissertation, I provide linear analyses for Howells' Hymnus Paradisi as well as its predecessor, Howells' Requiem (1932), which was adapted and greatly expanded in the creation of Hymnus Paradisi. These analyses and accompanying explanations are intended to provide insight into the intricate contrapuntal style in which Howells writes, showing that an often complex musical surface is underpinned by traditional linear and harmonic patterns on the deeper structural levels. In addition to examining the middleground and background structural levels within each movement, I also demonstrate how Howells creates large-scale musical continuity and shapes the overall composition through the use of large-scale linear connections, shown through the meta-Ursatz (an Ursatz which extends across multiple movements creating multi-movement unity). Finally, in my interpretation of these analyses, I discuss specific motives in Hymnus Paradisi which, I hypothesize, musically represent the crisis of Michael's death. These motives are initially introduced in the "Preludio," composed out on multiple structural levels as Hymnus Paradisi unfolds, and, finally, I argue, are transformed as a representation of the process of healing, and ultimately, catharsis.

From 1831 to 1836, Victor Hugo and Louise Bertin collaborated on an opera titled La Esmeralda. For Hugo, it would be the only opera libretto he would ever write, a mere footnote to his collection of widely admired novels, plays, and poetry; for Bertin, however, it would become her most important work, yet seemingly destined to fade into obscurity like so many great pieces of art. Using Schenkerian analysis, this thesis uncovers the tonal and voice-leading structure of the first act of La Esmeralda. A study of this nature, which operates from the premise that forms as large and complex as opera can be examined in terms of a large-scale structure, is valuable because it sheds new light on the correlation of tonal structure and dramatic organization. Through these methods, Act I of La Esmeralda is read as a background progression from D major (with F# kopfton) to F major, composing-out an F#/F♮ dichotomy introduced in the overture. With reference to several musical-symbolic ideas - including the representation of virtue through the pitch F#, the key of Notre-dame's bells - it is shown how the musical structure of Act I expresses the Hugolian themes of fate and decay.

The career of Osvaldo Lacerda (1927-2011) spanned a critical time in the development of Brazilian nationalist music. Though he was an outspoken nationalist composer, he was also influenced by European trends and training. Even within his nationalist compositions, evidence of a shift in style that mirrors the European movements of Modernism and Postmodernism is found in his works. Among his thirty-six chamber works, three are wind quintets, written between 1962 and 1997. Although all three works warrant extended discussion, Variações e Fuga para quinteto de sopros is particularly valuable for studying Lacerda's musical language. It was originally written in 1962. However, Lacerda made significant revisions in 1994, completely rewriting and expanding it. Through comparing the 1962 and 1994 versions of Variações e Fuga and analyzing the significant differences between the two, this document aims show that even with his strong stance as a Brazilian nationalist composer, Lacerda was clearly influenced by the movements of the broader music world. Examples from his other two woodwind quintets, Quinteto de sopro and Suíte pra cinco, written in 1988 and 1997 respectively, help to support the idea that this change in his musical language was not an anomaly, but rather a true evolution of style impacted by his own culture and that of the classical music world around him.