Three original chamber pieces are discussed from numerous points of view. They were composed for string quartet (Escape and String quartet in Four Movements), and string quartet with flute (Forward Motion). Each piece is analyzed in terms of its historical background, compositional techniques, and formal and stylistic techniques. Each piece draws influences from different genres. Escape was influenced by minimalism and jazz and is based on the Locrian scale. Forward Motion is in a modified classical form (Sonata) but draws influences from modern music and employs much dissonance. String quartet in Four Movements combines elements of expressionism, minimalism and jazz. Each piece is discussed in regards to its musical characteristics and historical influences including scales, harmony, rhythmic structure and form. / by Rochelle M. Frederick. / Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2010. / Includes bibliography. / Electronic reproduction. Boca Raton, Fla., 2010. Mode of access: World Wide Web.

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In my thesis, Performing a Political Shift: Avant-Garde Music in Cold War Spain, I argue that towards the end of the 1950s the Spanish ultra-conservative regime of Francisco Franco started to promote avant-garde music. This music contrasted with the aesthetically conservative one that had been promoted since the end of the Civil War (1936-1939). I examine the causes of this shift and reveal for the first time that they are connected to specific trends in Spanish politics and policies. In terms of national politics, the second phase of the Spanish dictatorship, from the late 1950s until Franco’s death in 1975, was dominated by young ministers who wanted to distance themselves from previous cabinets, mostly controlled by ultra-nationalist fascist politicians. These younger politicians styled themselves as part of a ‘technocratic’ regime. Thanks to its supposed ‘objectivity’ and ‘purely musical’ ideology-free concerns, avant-garde music sat well with these technocrats’ views of modern Spain, that is, a country benefitting from ‘objective’, ideology-free progress. On an international level, the defeat in the 1940s of Mussolini and Hitler, Franco’s main allies, had resulted in isolation for Spain. In order to break this isolation, the Spanish regime started to make a sustained effort at the end of the 1950s to establish diplomatic relations with other Western countries. These relations resulted in cultural, economic and military agreements with European democracies and the US. I also consider why recent Spanish musicology has failed to confront the political implications of the promotion of avant-garde music under Franco. I connect this void with the Spanish transition to democracy (1975-1978), which recent historians have called an exercise in amnesia, a discourse of forgiveness meant to promote reconciliation between Spaniards. As a result of this transition, the political implications of the activities of the composers and musicologists during the Franco years have been ignored or forgotten. The results of my thesis challenge the widely accepted view of the European avant-garde as a left-leaning movement. The main contribution of my thesis is precisely its substantial consideration of the cultural and political meanings of the avant garde and its context, using Franco’s Spain as a case in point.

This thesis explores a series of relationships between music and acoustics in order to develop a basis for discussing and critiquing aesthetics in post-Cagean experimental music. Specifically, it examines the acoustic and aesthetic theories that inform the practice of American composers La Monte Young and Alvin Lucier. One particular theme - the sine wave - emerges, both as a prominent feature in the work of these two composers, and also as a nexus point between music and acoustics. Pursuing this theme, the thesis begins by looking at issues in the science, technology, and ideology of acoustics in relation to the study of musical sound in the late nineteenth century. It then aims to situate the sine wave historically, culturally and technologically within a range of scientific and aesthetic practices in operation in the first half of the twentieth century. Finally, it explores the deployment of concepts from the field of acoustics by artists of the avant-garde, and considers what contribution these factors played in broadening the developing discourse of sound within the arts. These discussions then inform detailed investigations into the work of both Lucier and Young, examining their use of sine waves to explore and produce simple acoustic phenomena. / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

At the beginning of the twentieth century, the primitive played a crucial role in the emerging European modernist aesthetic. While art historians have been exploring the role of primitivism in modern art for decades, this area of research has received little attention in musicology. In this dissertation I examine how primitivism is constructed in modern French culture as manifest in three of the most important avant-garde stage works of the first part of the century: the Ballets Russes's Le Sacre du printemps (1913) and Les Noces (1923), and the Ballets Suedois's La Creation du monde (1923). Relying on primary sources such as reviews, other historically relevant documents, as well as the art historical literature, I trace the evolution of the cultural role of primitivism in pre- and post-World War 1 French culture. / French critics of Le Sacre viewed the work as a portrayal of Russian "Otherness" against which they could assert or question their own identity. Whereas the primitivism of Le Sacre was understood to be radical, excessive, even prophetic and apocalyptic, the primitivism of Les Noces was perceived as a manifestation of the classicist "call to order" and as an emblem of American-style mechanization. That it was also understood in terms of the post-war avant-garde's emphasis on classical ideals of austerity, dryness, and sobriety reflects the Purists' belief that machines heralded the new classicism. / Jazz was the ultimate symbol of both primitivism and modernity, and was initially hailed by the avant-garde as a revivifying source for the French tradition. In their attempt to neutralize the racial and political threats perceived to be inherent in jazz, the avant-garde emphasized its rationality, precision, and economy. La Creation du monde represents the avant-garde's complete assimilation of jazz and l'art negre into the French classical tradition.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Ohio University, June, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 280-297)

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Western Sydney, 2008. / A thesis presented to the University of Western Sydney, College of Arts, School of Humanities and Languages, in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Includes bibliographies.

Thesis (D.M.A.)--UCLA, 2008. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 105-108) and discography (leaves 101-104).

Orientador: José Roberto Zan / Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Artes / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-27T18:13:44Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Freire_GuilhermeAraujo_M.pdf: 3785916 bytes, checksum: 7074b9f4c38144853c89de9e6f856bab (MD5) Previous issue date: 2015 / Resumo: Este trabalho aborda e problematiza as diferentes fases da carreira artística do compositor e intérprete Tom Zé, situadas entre o lançamento do seu primeiro LP em 1968 e o final da década de 1990. Estabelecendo como foco central sua produção musical, concebida com uma postura crítica frente a certos cânones e padrões da canção de massa consolidados no mercado e com práticas criativas experimentais análogas às do repertório das vanguardas do pós-guerra, investigamos a relação tensa estabelecida entre o seu projeto estético experimental e a indústria cultural. Nesse sentido, a pesquisa tentou situar os discursos e quatro discos de Tom Zé nos respectivos contextos históricos e configurações da indústria fonográfica, buscando compreender melhor as especificidades de sua inserção no mercado de música popular, suas estratégias de atuação, o sentido de suas opções estéticas, bem como investigar as transformações ocorridas no seu projeto estético ao longo de sua trajetória / Abstract: This work broaches and problematizes the different phases of the artistic career of the composer and performer Tom Zé, located between the release of his first LP in 1968 and the late 1990¿s. Establishing as central focus his music production, conceived with a critical posture towards certain canons and mass song patterns consolidated in the market and with experimental creative practices analogous to the repertoire of the postwar avant-garde, we investigated the tense relationship established between his experimental aesthetic project and the cultural industry. In this sense, the research tried to position the discourses and four discs of Tom Zé in the respective historical contexts and configurations of the phonographic industry, seeking to better understand the specifics of his insertion in the popular music market, his acting strategies, the sense of his aesthetical options, as well to investigate the transformations occurred in his aesthetical project throughout his career / Mestrado / Música, Teoria, Criação e Prática / Mestre em Música

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