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Thesis (D.M.A.)--Boston University / PLEASE NOTE: Boston University Libraries did not receive an Authorization To Manage form for this thesis or dissertation. It is therefore not openly accessible, though it may be available by request. If you are the author or principal advisor of this work and would like to request open access for it, please contact us at open-help@bu.edu. Thank you. / 2031-01-01

Thesis (D.M.A.)--Boston University / PLEASE NOTE: Boston University Libraries did not receive an Authorization To Manage form for this thesis or dissertation. It is therefore not openly accessible, though it may be available by request. If you are the author or principal advisor of this work and would like to request open access for it, please contact us at open-help@bu.edu. Thank you. / This document consists of a study of twelve more or less arbitrarily selected sonatas for violin and piano by the following contemporary Canadian composers: Murray Adaskin, Istvan Anhalt, Jean Coulthard, Oskar Morawetz, Jean Papineau-Couture, Barbara Pentland, Andre Prevost, Harry Somers (two sonatas), Robert Turner, Jean Vallerand and John Weinzweig. The aim of this study is to provide a frame of reference for musicians, including performers and teachers who may wish to obtain a clearer idea of contemporary trends in Canadian Composition [TRUNCATED] / 2031-01-01

Thesis (M.M.)--Boston University / PLEASE NOTE: Boston University Libraries did not receive an Authorization To Manage form for this thesis or dissertation. It is therefore not openly accessible, though it may be available by request. If you are the author or principal advisor of this work and would like to request open access for it, please contact us at open-help@bu.edu. Thank you. / 2031-01-01

Thesis (M.A.)--Boston University / PLEASE NOTE: Boston University Libraries did not receive an Authorization To Manage form for this thesis or dissertation. It is therefore not openly accessible, though it may be available by request. If you are the author or principal advisor of this work and would like to request open access for it, please contact us at open-help@bu.edu. Thank you. / 2031-01-01

This dissertation considers the music and technical practice of composers affiliated with French spectralism, including Hugues Dufourt, Gérard Grisey, Tristan Murail, Jean-Claude Risset, and Kaija Saariaho. They regularly described their work, which was attuned to the transformative experiences that technologies of electronic sound production and reproduction could inspire in listeners, using metaphoric appeals to construction: to designing new sounds or exploring new illusory aural phenomena. To navigate a nascent but fast-expanding world of electronic and computer music, the spectralists appealed to physical musical attributes including gesture, space, and source-cause identification. Fascinated by gradual timbral transformations, they structured some of their pieces to invite speculative causal listening even while seeking to push it to expressive extremes. I hypothesize that, much as the immersive technology of the cinema can create the illusory feeling of flight in viewers, electronic music can inspire listeners to have experiences in excess of their physical capabilities. Those feelings are possible because listening can be understood as empathetic and embodied, drawing on a listener’s embodied and ecological sensorimotor knowledge and musical imagery alongside referential, semiotic, and cultural aspects of music. One way that listeners can engage with sounds is by imagining how they would create them: what objects would be used, what kind of gestures would they perform, how much exertion would be required, what space would they inhabit. I cite recent research in psychoacoustics to argue that timbre indexes material, gesture, and affect in music listening. Technologies of sound production and reproduction allow for the manipulation of these tendencies by enabling composers to craft timbres that mimic, stretch, or subvert the timbres of real objects. Those electronic technologies also suggest manipulations to composers, by virtue of their design affordances, and perform an epistemological broadening by providing insight into the malleability of human perceptual modes. I illustrate these claims with analytic examples from Murail’s Ethers (1978), Saariaho’s Verblendungen (1984), and Grisey’s Les Chants de l’Amour (1984), relating an embodied and corporeal account of my hearing and linking it to compositional and technological features of spectral music.

Thesis (M.A.)--Boston University / PLEASE NOTE: Boston University Libraries did not receive an Authorization To Manage form for this thesis or dissertation. It is therefore not openly accessible, though it may be available by request. If you are the author or principal advisor of this work and would like to request open access for it, please contact us at open-help@bu.edu. Thank you. / Charles Villiers Stanford (1852-1924) was a prolific composer and a renowned teacher in his own day. He headed the composition department for many years at the Royal Collage of Music in Cambridge and he had as his students such men as Gustav Holst and Ralph Vaughan Williams. His music and influence were widely known in England at the turn of the century, yet today he is virtually unknown in this country; those who know him at all remember him primarily for his Irish Rhapsody. In England, too, he has suffered a serious decline in popularity. According to Sir Jack Westrup, about the only Stanford works ever performed there are his Songs of the Sea and The Revenge [TRUNCATED] / 2031-01-01

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The purpose of this dissertation is to create a catalog of the published, solo vocal songs of 25 living American composers. Through this project, visibility will be given to a significant amount of contemporary literature that is currently unknown and / or underused by many singers and voice teachers today. Exposure to the literature in this project will encourage singers and teachers to give deserving attention to a wealth of contemporary American song literature, and will help to stimulate the study, practice and performance of other contemporary songs and composers. I have selected 25 living American composers. The composers represent a variety of compositional styles, and the songs vary in level of difficulty. The songs chosen are examined based upon criterion for vocal study at the collegiate level, and the entire repertoire is appropriate for traditional classical vocal training. Many of these composers' songs are readily available in public and collegiate libraries across the country. There are some composers, however, whose songs are currently not available in libraries, but are deserving of attention. The unpublished songs of the selected composers are not included because the purpose of this project is to increase accessibility. The composers for this dissertation include: Dominick Argento, Daniel Asia, Robert Baksa, Seymour Barab, Jack Beeson, William Bolcom, John Bucchino, Tom Cipullo, John Corigliano, John Frantzen, Zina Goldrich and Marcy Heisler, Ricky Ian Gordon, Daron Hagen, John Harbison, Jack Heggie, Lee Hoiby, Richard Hundley, Anne Kilstofte, Lori Laitman, Libby Larsen, John Musto, Thomas Pasatieri, Andre Previn, Gene Scheer, and Richard Pearson Thomas. The body of the dissertation consists of a brief biography of the individual composers followed by analyses of the composers' music. Each published song is analyzed according to a set of criterion for vocal study at the collegiate level. The annotations include: title, poet, publisher and date, dedication, vocal range, tessitura, recommended voice type, level of difficulty of the vocal and piano accompaniment, possible uses, brief musical and textual description, and other pertinent information for the study and performance of the music. This dissertation will encourage the study, practice and performance of contemporary American music. The annotated catalog will include vital information for the quick selection of songs, and the information I compile will be invaluable to singers and voice teachers searching for contemporary American literature. The composers included in this project will also benefit from the exposure of their work. There are, of course, many more composers whose songs are deserving of inclusion in this project. Annotated catalogs of larger scope or of differing perspectives should be created as further study.

Riccardo Formosa has been identified as being an important and widely recognised young Australian composer. Formosa's possession of a sophisticated composition technique is central to his approach to composition and to his reputation among contemporary composers. Vertigo: Riccardo Formosa's Composition Technique aims to define the composition technique employed by Formosa. It does so by analysing the works from a number of clearly defined perspectives. The study proceeds firstly through a description of the works as a whole and their relationship to the composer’s personal history. Secondly, the note-to-note operations Formosa has employed are reassembled through a detailed examination of the scores. Thirdly, an assessment is made of the function of the various techniques within the musical texture. Lastly, a number of comparisons are made between Formosa’s work and the work of his compositional models. The study concludes that Formosa’s works show evidence of a composition technique operating effectively on different levels. The note-to-note processes, simple in themselves, are multiplied to form a complex counterpoint. On both the note-to-note level and the relationship between larger sections of the works, the controlling factor was found to be one of ‘binary expression’ in the form of symmetry or complementarity, a compositional aesthetic also held by Formosa's teacher. Franco Donatoni.