Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Newcastle, 1980. / Department of Classics. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 394-397). Also available online.

Thesis (D.Mus.Arts)--University of Washington. / Bibliography: l. 127-129.

Thesis (D.Mus. Arts)--University of Washington, 1987. / Vita. Bibliography: leaves [169]-174.

Th. 3e cycle--Lettres modernes--Lyon II, 1980. / Contient les deux versions de "Lélio ou le Retour à la vie" d'Hector Berlioz. Bibliogr. p. 215-222.

The minor choral works are those exclusive of the well-known choral works. Symphonic movements for chorus are also excluded. Conflicting and incomplete information from the composer himself and from secondary sources were principal research problems. The published letters, the memoirs, and a small number of secondary sources, containing little more than passing references, form the body of the research material beyond the scores themselves. The arrangement is by opus number, with unpublished works inserted chronologically by date of composition. A description of the circumstances surrounding each work' s composition precedes a study of the music within each chapter. The last chapter delineates stylistic characteristics of the minor choral works.

The discussion concentrates on Hector Berlioz's second opera, Les Troyens, which is Berlioz's final large work written between 1855-1858. The study demonstrates how the opera is unified through its drama and music. Les Troyens, a five-act tragic opera that is based on Virgil's Aeneid, is perhaps one of Berlioz's least known major works. The orchestral score had not been published in its entirety until 1969, when a two-volume edition of the opera was published by Bärenreiter in the New Edition of the Complete Works of Hector BerIioz. The first complete recording of Les Troyens, conducted by Colin Davis, was released by Philips records in 1972. These two sources have made an analysis of this important work of the nineteenth century possible. The study includes a survey of the dramatic influences of Virgil and his Aeneid, and the poetry of Shakespeare, in addition to the musical influences of Gluck's operas, the compositions of Lesueur, the symphonies of Beethoven, Weber's opera, Der Freischütz, and the French grand opera style, which all contributed to the opera.

Recent Berlioz studies tend to stress the significance of the French tradition for a balanced understanding of Berlioz's music. Such is necessary because the customary emphasis on purely musical structure inclines to stress the influence of German masters to the neglect of vocal and therefore rhetorical character of this tradition. The present study, through a fresh examination of Berlioz's vocal-orchestral scores, sets forth the various orchestrational patterns and the rationales that lay behind them.

Missa pro defunctis (1802-1808) by Antonín Reicha (1770-1836) is a unique work. Situated in time and in style between the monumental requiem settings of Mozart and Berlioz, it establishes the concert requiem as a sub-genre of requiem composition. Missa pro defunctis incorporates attributes from both liturgical and concertized genres and co-exists within both church and dramatic composition realms. As seen in his copious theory writings, Reicha’s ideas concerning melody, harmony, counterpoint, fugue, and dramatic composition inform his compositional preferences. In this study I demonstrate how a modern performance of Antonín Reicha's Missa pro defunctis can be informed by consideration of his major theoretical writings, by an understanding of the nineteenth-century concert requiem sub-genre, and by other writings on nineteenth-century performance practice. In producing an historically informed performance of Missa pro defunctis, I analyzed the four major theoretical treatises by Reicha for content, and relevancy, to the Requiem. I next analyzed the Missa pro defunctis itself in light of these treatises. I discovered that the work sometimes aligns with Reicha’s theoretical writings and sometimes departs from their principles, in large part, because of the inherent contradiction resulting when a sacred text is set in a dramatic fashion. I further incorporated conclusions about the implications for performance revealed through the study of Reicha’s theoretical writings and my own experience in preparing the work for performance. It is my hope that this recently published nineteenth-century work will receive more frequent performance than has been the case since its composition. This study contains resources to provide conductors a means of producing a performance that is in consonance with Reicha’s philosophies as a theorist and composer.

La Damnation de Faust d'Hector Berlioz est une oeuvre inclassable parmi les genres musicaux usuels. A mi-chemin entre la pièce de concert et l'opéra, elle est inspirée du Faust de Goethe (dans la traduction de Nerval), mais semble-t-il également, de la vie du compositeur. Cette thèse décrit le processus de composition et met en lumière les éléments autobiographiques. Ces derniers ont été divisés en deux catégories. La première catégorie explore les éléments autobiographiques supposés, à savoir les anecdotes des Mémoires et de la correspondance concordant avec le scénario de La Damnation, l'analogie de certains personnages réels avec ceux du livret et enfin, les influences musicales et littéraires que le compositeur a pu recevoir. La seconde regroupe les éléments autobiographiques avérés englobant la réutilisation de certaines compositions du jeune Berlioz, l'application des préceptes du traité et leur insertion dans La Damnation. / Hector Berlioz's Damnation of Faust cannot be classified among the usual musical genres. Halfway between the piece of concert and the opera, it is not only inspired by Goethe's Faust (translated by Nerval), but apparently also, by the composer's life. This thesis describes the composition process and highlights the autobiographical elements. These were divided into two categories. The first category investigates the supposedly autobiographical elements, namely the anecdotes of Berlioz's memoirs and correspondence consistent with the synopsis of the Damnation, the analogy of some genuine persons with those of the libretto and finally, the musical and literary influences the composer may have received. The second category regroups the proven autobiographical elements, including the reuse of some of his early compositions, the application of the precepts of the treaty and their integration into La Damnation.

Berlioz based the libretto of his five—act Grand Opera Les Troyens on books II, the second half of I, and IV of the Aeneid of Virgil, and set it to music which illuminates his vision of Virgil’s epic poem. This thesis compares the story patterns, narrative techniques, themes and content of the two works. Because Virgil uses the technique of retrospective narrative in Book II of the Aeneid, and Berlioz unfolds his story in chronological order, I have used the sequence of Berlioz’s work as the basis for the comparison. The thesis analyses in detail Berlioz’s re—use of Virgil, the points where Berlioz’s treatment coincides with Virgil’s, the points where he diverges from Virgil, arid the main thrust of Berlioz’s argument. The two most important differences which emerge between the two works are the divergent ideas on the gods, and on the conflict between personal love and duty. Whereas pietas and filial duty are central to Virgil’s work, the importance of love between man and woman is central to that of Berlioz. And in Les Troyens the terrific tension between love and duty is illuminated in Act V, where Aeneas must leave Dido even though Berlioz has shown in Act I, with Cassandra and Coroebus, that, fate permitting, such a love can be duty as well. Virgil shows us the gods at work, and carefully attempts to explain their motivation. Berlioz however structures his music—drama so that the gods, only one of whom (Mercury) makes an appearance, are shown to be cruel by their complete indifference to those who invoke them. / PhD Doctorate