The Niles-Merton Songs is a two-opus collection of twenty-two songs by John Jacob Niles setting the poetry of Thomas Merton. The songs are beautiful but contrast from his more popular works in poetry and composition. This project explores reasons why these songs are rarely performed, and gives an overview and analysis of ten selected pieces. The document includes a brief introduction, biographies of Niles and Merton, information detailing Niles’s compositional process, and the technical and artistic requirements for performing the songs, including appropriate age and voice type.

The period between 1880 and 1885 was a significant time in Claude Debussy's life and compositional career. 1880 marks the date of his first published composition, "Nuit d'étoiles," and 1885 is the year in which he began his two-year tenure in Rome after winning the coveted Prix de Rome in 1884. During the intervening time Debussy composed about forty songs. Scholarly literature, especially analytical literature, tends to focus heavily on music in Debussy's mature style, often casting his early compositions in an unfavorable light. Writing on Debussy is scattered with references to the early songs but authors almost always situate them on one end of a continuum that shows an evolution of compositional style culminating in maturity. Such a view tends, if only tacitly, to regard early works as inferior instances of juvenilia rather than works worthy of study in their own right. In this dissertation I establish a foundation for regarding Debussy's early songs as significant compositions in their own right, independent from anachronistic comparisons with his more mature compositional style, and provide justification for considering the songs as a unified, identifiable repertoire within Debussy's larger œuvre. Using a modified Schenkerian analytical approach, I identify consistencies among the songs that give them an independent identity and provide support for their classification as an identifiable collection of works. I consider the songs within a proper historical narrative and in close association with poetry, French musical culture, and issues related to Debussy's biography. Furthermore, I delineate Debussy's compositional aesthetic in the early songs and examine his relationship to other notable contemporary composers of the mélodie, thus showing how his early style emerged from the tradition of the mélodie, how he participated in late-nineteenth century art-song culture, and how he ultimately pushed the genre of the mélodie forward.

The purpose of this study is to present a performance guide for singers on twelve selected songs in Brazilian Portuguese for voice and piano by Brazilian composer, pianist, and arranger Edmundo Villani-Côrtes (b.1930). Since 1949, Villani-Côrtes has been active in the musical scene of Brazil. He has a unique compositional style that seamlessly combines elements of both art music and popular music. Villani-Côrtes’s body of works includes over two hundred compositions for solo instrumental music, orchestral music, choral music, and art song. He has written over sixty songs in Brazilian Portuguese, including the Ciclo Cecília Meireles (1987), winner of the 1988 Prize of the Associação Paulista de Críticos de Arte (A.P.C.A.), but most of these remain unpublished. This performance guide is the result of three years of research, study and personal communication between the author, Villani-Côrtes, and poets whose words the composer used as lyrics. It offers a comprehensive body of information relevant for both the performer and voice teacher who approach this new and untraditional repertoire. It includes a concise biography of the composer, biographical information for the poets, comments on the compositional style of Villani-Côrtes, an overview of the Brazilian Portuguese International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)—with a chart of Brazilian Portuguese Sounds, IPA transcriptions with English word-by-word translations and poetic versions of all the lyrics, comments from the composer and the poets on each of the songs, and the technical information, pedagogical suggestions, and interpretative insights provided by the author.

This thesis surveys all the found British settings of A. E. Housman's A Shropshire Lad (1896) but concentrates on the period after 1940, which, the author believes, has not previously received critical attention. A new study is timely especially because of a renewed interest among composers in the poet's highly influential lyric collection. The author found about 110 British composers with about 340 settings of individual poems not listed in previous Shropshire Lad catalogues. This number adds more than fifty per cent to the known repertoire. The search was not restricted to art song; it found, in addition, multi-voice settings, settings in popular styles and non-vocal music. Largely because of the work of broadly trained musicians, there is now a much wider range of medium, style and compositional technique applied to A Shropshire Lad. There are also new ways in which words and music relate. Different catalogues in the thesis list settings according to period, genre, poem and composer. The author hopes to broaden the British canon of Shropshire Lad music, which, despite recent commissions and competitions, is still mostly limited to the major composers of the English musical renaissance (the early decades of the twentieth century). Accordingly, the catalogues let performers know how to obtain the settings. In preliminary chapters, the thesis attempts a literary examination of A Shropshire Lad and reviews the already-researched pre-Second World War settings. It then divides the post-1940 period into two parts–a Decline (to c.1980) and a Renewal (since c.1980)–and surveys them. The compositions of this period are placed in three tonal-stylistic streams of development: a mainstream tonal with ultraconservative and atonal tributaries. Then follow detailed literary-musical analyses of post-1940 songs, song cycles, collaborative sets, and multi-voice settings. A final summary draws together the conclusions of the individual chapters, summarizes and evaluates the achievement of the post-1940 composers, and suggests how further research might be carried out. / Art History, Visucal Arts and Music / D. Litt. et Phil. (Musicology)

Brazil is a country known for its cultural diversity, vastness and regional differences, specifically its music. Thus, preserving our heritage becomes a priority so as not to neglect our heritage. Given the variety of Brazilian composers research is fundamental to evaluate and maintain the musical heritage of our country. The research will focus on analyzing and drawing attention to the little known compositions of Babi de Oliveira. On the part of the researcher there is an interest in providing access to the work of BABI DE OLIVEIRA for voice and piano, becoming an incentive to pursue this research project. The research project will therefore provide a corpus of songs for voice and piano, organizing and selecting the musical scores. A survey of coauthors, performers of her songs will also be conducted. In addition, her daughters were interviewed, newspaper articles of the era were reviewed, as well as comments of the composer herself were analyzed; scholars and performances of her songs on high-density video discs (DVD), and internet research and musicology bibliography were also researched. Based on the information obtained the researcher presents the life and work of the composer from a human interest perspective. In conclusion, BABI DE OLIVEIRA s songs for voice and piano found were listed and final remarks presented. / Um país caracterizado pela diversidade cultural como o nosso, imenso, marcado pelas diferenças regionais, onde cada parte tem uma cultura específica e, mais especificamente, sua música, a preocupação com a preservação de nossa memória torna se premente, para que referências não sejam negligenciadas. Diante da variedade de compositores brasileiros, o aprofundamento das pesquisas sobre a música brasileira torna-se fundamental como forma de valorizar e preservar o patrimônio e a cultura musical do país, mais específicamente, nesta dissertação, divulgar as inúmeras composições pouco conhecidas da compositora Babi de Oliveira. O desejo de aprofundar o conhecimento em torno das composições para canto e piano de Babi de Oliveira a fim de tornar visível sua importância foi a mola propulsora desta investigação. Apresento, nesta pesquisa, o corpus de canções para canto e piano da compositora BABI DE OLIVEIRA, realizando uma proposta de organização do acervo encontrado, com a análise das partituras, levantamento dos coautores e dos intérpretes de suas canções. Com o intuito de ampliar a biografia de BABI DE OLIVEIRA, foram utilizadas as entrevistas realizadas com suas filhas, artigos de periódicos da época, a transcrição dos comentários da compositora, intérpretes e estudiosos, gravados em DVD, os dados pesquisados na Internet e a bibliografia musicológica. Com base nos dados colhidos, apresento a vida e a obra da compositora a partir de um vértice humano. Por último, exponho a catalogação das canções para canto e piano encontradas, seguida das considerações finais. / Mestre em Artes

Cette thèse de doctorat a pour objet d'étude la chanson d'auteur italienne de 1958 à l'orée du XXI° siècle. Une période si étendue correspond à la volonté de ne pas enfermer le sujet, ni dans des bornes chronologiques étroites, ni dans une définition close de la chanson d'auteur. Cette étude s'intéresse également aux liens entre la chanson italienne et le contexte sociétal et politique. La 1° partie analyse les principaux phénomènes artistiques justifiant, à la fin des années 50, l'affirmation d'un tournant « d'auteur » dans la chanson italienne, jusque-là figée dans un mélisme hérité de l'opéra, tout en tenant compte des éléments conjoncturels et des hasards de l'Histoire. La 2° partie est vouée à l'étude de la langue, de la poétique et de l'esthétique de cette chanson. Une large part est faite à la question dialectale, démontrant que cette question ne se réduit pas au folklore. La 3° partie étudie la chanson par le prisme de l'Histoire : de façon rétrospective mais aussi comme un reflet des temps en prise directe. La 4° et dernière partie aborde notre contemporanéité et la chanson d'auteur sous des formes nouvelles : rock, nouvelle école cantautoriale, rap.Ce cheminement nous mène à toute une série de pistes de réflexions : la réécriture, l'aspect performatif, la légitimité culturelle d'un genre artistique et, à l'ère d'internet, les nouvelles formes et modalités de réception de l'art mais également la révolution que le web provoque dans la création. La chanson compte une place importante dans la société et dans la culture des XXème et XXIème siècles. Elle a donc besoin d'être envisagée plus que jamais, et peut nous aider à comprendre à quelle époque on vit. / This doctoral thesis explores the Italian art song genre from 1958 until the dawn of the twenty-first century; the broad scope of investigation was chosen so that the subject would not be overly circumscribed either temporally or notionally. The thesis also examines the relationship between the Italian art song and its social and political contexts. The first part, taking into account those influences as well as the effect of the random events of History, analyses the main artistic phenomena at the end of the '50 that led to an "artistic" turning point for the Italian popular song, hitherto locked into an opera derived melismatic mode. The second part investigates the language, the poetics and the aesthetics of the art song genre addressing at length dialect, demonstrating that this question cannot be explained merely in terms of folklore. The third part develops the art song seen through the lens of History, both retrospectively and as a reflexion of the current events of the day. The fourth and last part discusses the new forms of art song that have developed within a contemporary context: rock, the new cantautoriale school and rap. The rewriting, the performance act itself are discussed; the cultural legitimacy of an artistic genre and new forms and ways of experiencing art, as well as revolutionary modes of creation with the advent of the Internet are explored. The song was granted an important place in the society and culture of the second half of the twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty-first; today, imbued with the troubles of a new period, it invites our questions and research more than ever to help us understand the age we live in.

Latin American art song is a genre primarily of the first half of the twentieth-century, when popular folklore served as the voice and inspiration of many poets and musicians. The nationalist movement served as a means of expression, each Latin American country with its own identity. There is great benefit for singers to study Spanish diction at an academic level, since it is a language already familiar to most U.S.A residents. There is a significant amount of unknown repertoire that would be very useful in the singing studio because of the language's open vowels. This repertoire can also serve as a confidence-builder to young Spanish-speaking singers at the beginning of their training. I will be focusing on the (s), (ll), and (y) sounds as pronounced in the diverse regions of Latin America; in particular, why they matter when coaching singers, and the articulators involved in each. The purpose of this study is to discuss diction differences in the repertoire, expound on its benefits for voice pedagogy, all while informing about varied options for recital programming.

The AIDS Quilt Songbook was a musical response to the shame surrounding the outbreak of the HIV virus and was one of the first art song publications to deal with the topic of HIV and AIDS. This DMA thesis documents the significance and history of the AIDS Quilt Songbook, traces the progression of the project up until December 1, 2008, and documents the work, experiences, and words of the composers who have been inspired to contribute to the AIDS Quilt Songbook Project. In 1981, the medical and popular press reported the first cases of a quickly spreading virus among homosexual males. This virus is currently diagnosed as HIV and AIDS. Lack of funding consumed the early years of what grew to become a national pandemic. The artistic community was one of the major catalysts for funding and education. Cleave Jones and other gay rights activists developed the NAMES Project as a memoriam for those lost to the pandemic. The AIDS Quilt Songbook was created to parallel the AIDS Quilt as "a never-ending work whose meaning and spirit is renewed and redefined with every addition." This concept of additions has continued the expansion of the AIDS Quilt Songbook Project from 1993 to the additions premiered on December 1, 2008 (World AIDS Day) at The Court Theater in Chicago, Illinois, entitled the "Chicago AIDS Quilt Songbook: A Benefit for Season of Concern." The AIDS Quilt Songbook project has sixty-seven documented additions, but only eighteen of the sixty-seven additions are collected. This thesis examines the events, compositions and experiences of the composers: Chris DeBlasio, Ricky Ian Gordon, Daniel Kallman, Cary John Franklin, and Evan Kuchar, who submitted compositions to the AIDS Quilt Songbook between 1991 and 2008. The compositions examined are: Walt Whitman in 1989 by DeBlasio, I Never Knew by Gordon, When I am dead, my dearest by Kallman, As Imperceptibly as Grief by Franklin, and Death Spiral by Kuchar.

Colombian composer Jaime León (1921-2015) is known for his art songs. Most of the current scholarly literature about León defines him as a nationalist composer even though a majority of his songs do not appear to have nationalist traits. This document examines a representative selection of León's songs divided into three categories: songs influenced by the bambuco (the Colombian genre most present in his songs); songs whose text refers to Colombian culture; and songs without Colombian elements present in their text or music. After examination of these songs, my conclusion is that León, rather than being nationalist, was a cosmopolitan composer who used national elements as rhetorical tools in an isolated and experimental way.

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